Albert (“Bert”) Bencsik was born on 15 October 1931, the only child of Hungarian immigrants recently arrived in Australia. The family lived in Rose Bay, and Bert attended Woollahra primary school and Sydney Technical High School, where he was a prefect.
After graduating from the University of Sydney in 1956, Bert did his residency at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Crows Nest. In 1960, he travelled as a ship’s surgeon to the United Kingdom, where he worked in Portsmouth, London and Edinburgh and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1964. Returning to Sydney after completing his Fellowship, he worked as a Surgical Registrar at St George Hospital from 1964 until 1966. During this time, he was a founding member of the Resident Medical Officers Association and an Honorary Medical Officer for the Australian Racing Drivers Club.
Bert died on 26 June 2008 of acute renal failure and prostate carcinoma. He is survived by his children Michael, Susan, Catherine and Nicholas, and seven grandchildren, to whom he was devoted.
