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From Luke’s Journal February 2024 | Vol.29 No.1 | Missions and Sacrificial Service

Dr John Steele-Smith went to be with the Lord on 23^rd March 2023 aged 94.

Dr Robert Claxton

I came to know John in the 1960s and 70s through Christian Medical and Dental Fellowship of Australia (CMDFA). For many years, he was the treasurer of the NSW State Branch and a much-valued member of the State Committee. His bright and warm personality endeared him to all. He and his wife Alice (also a dermatologist) were true partners, not only professionally and personally, but in the Lord. Another colleague has described him as “a gentle and courteous physician of the ‘Old School”¹.

After attending Fort Street Boys High School, he went on to study medicine at the University of Sydney where he was involved with the Christian Fellowship group.

After graduation in 1952, he became a Resident Medical Officer at Sydney Hospital, then at Concord Repatriation General Hospital where he developed an interest in dermatology. After a few years in general practice, he worked as a registrar in Dermatology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, gaining the Diploma of Dermatological Medicine in 1960. He commenced practise in dermatology with rooms in Macquarie St in Sydney’s Central Business District (CBD) and in Burwood; then later in Auburn, Liverpool, Campbelltown, and Beecroft before retiring in 1998.

He was a founding member of the Australasian College of Dermatologists.

John was very much involved with his four children, Janet, David, Susan and Andrew, and their families. He was also a very active member of his church and a strong supporter of Scripture Union and its ministries.

He also had an interest in farming, enjoyed his local Probus group and had many friends.^2,3

He epitomised all that CMDFA stands for. May the Lord continue to raise up people like him to demonstrate the love of God in their lives and promote the message of Jesus in all of life.

We thank God for John, grieve that he is no longer with us, and rejoice in his going home to glory.

Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1Cor 15:57 NIVUK).

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Dr Russell Clark  

John was my senior but I followed in five of his pathways. We were both educated at Fort Street Boys High School, Sydney University Medical School, Sydney Hospital, and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and were both brought up our families living at leafy Cheltenham, Sydney.

Despite these many connections which were discovered later in life, it was the Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) (now known as the Christian Medical and Dental Fellowship of Australia or CMDFA) that brought us together. John and his delightful medical wife, Alice, were close to being pioneer members of the New South Wales state branch of CMF. After all, the Evangelical Union at Sydney University came into existence through the pioneering ministry of “pommy” Howard Guiness, sent out to the colonies after World War II. The CMF represented the post-graduate medical arm of evangelical students who sought to continue the under-graduate fellowship they had experienced, with the mature fellowship that is required for doctors in the real life of practising medicine in Australia.

John set an example for us all in the way a Christian faith transforms practising medicine. As one of the pioneers in dermatology in Sydney, along with Alice, his expertise was sought and appreciated by general practitioners and specialists alike. Along with his competence came a genuine love and respect for his patients, and always a willingness to ‘go the extra mile’. I remain grateful for one friend who was misdiagnosed with scabies instead of pruritus caused by her Hodgkins lymphoma which led to a cure, because John knew that the skin was often the window to internal pathology!

John was a founding member of the Australian College of Dermatology. Prior to this he had been an active member in its precursor, the Dermatology Association of Australia (DAA), having received the Diploma of Dermatological Medicine (DDM) in 1960.

Back in 1972-3, while working as a young doctor in the established Christian practice in Strathfield with Drs Campbell, Utber and Bowie and preparing to serve as a medical missionary, I was very grateful for the ready professional availability and kindly help from the nearby John and Alice Steele-Smith Dermatological Practice, solving some of the mysteries of skin pathology. He was always gracious, generous, as well as seemingly always right in his diagnoses and treatments!  He sent me off to the ‘mission field’ with two tomes of the then-definitive dermatology textbook. I found them useful, especially the photos!

John and Alice were stalwarts of the Epping Baptist Church, and have produced a wonderful family, where their children and grandchildren are all serving the Lord in quite different and varied ways.

We say “Thank You, Lord” for the life of John Steele-Smith, and offer comfort to Alice and her family for life after John.                              

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