The Museum of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists was commenced in 1959 by Dr Geoffrey Serpell. It was initially housed in a cupboard in Dr Serpell's room at 105 Collins Street Melbourne. These rooms were previously owned by the late Sir James Barrett.

The material was eventually moved to storage at the Hospital. A certain amount of material had also been collected by the Hospital and, following the resignation of Dr Serpell as Curator in 1984, Dr Ken Howsam undertook the large job of listing on computer all the articles held by both the College and the Hospital.

In 1996 it was decided to combine the two collections and Dr Jim Martin was appointed Curator of the Conjoint Museum. Since then, Dr Martin has been sorting the material and cataloguing suitable items along the lines recommended by Museums Australia.

The museum collection is currently located at the Royal Victorian Eye & Ear Hospital, and various items are displayed in cabinets in the reading room of the Library. The Conjoint Museum is an institutional member of Museums Australia and the Health and Medical Museums Special Interest Group.

Any person wishing to donate suitable material should contact the Library or Dr Martin on (03) 9817 5219 or 0417 506 284 or email Dr Martin on jamart@vicnet.net.au.

Material from the Museum is now being posted onto this web site.  To access, click onto the developing list of topics in the left column.  Further topics will be included in the near future.

It is anticipated that this will be a continuing exercise so that as much Museum material as possible can be shown to RANZCO Fellows and RVEEH staff.