Sir Harold Dew becomes the first Bosch Professor of Surgery in 1931
From Faculty of Medicine Online Museum and Archive
The Bosch endowment made possible the first full-time Chair of Surgery in Australia. In 1931 this position was filled by Harold Robert (later Sir Harold) Dew. Having graduated MBBS in 1914 Dew joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served in France, Egypt and Palestine. At the end of the war he gained his FRCS and was appointed to Royal Melbourne Hospital. From 1923 to 1926 he was First Assistant and for some time, Acting Director of the Walter and Eliza Institute, during which time he wrote two monographs: Malignant Disease of the Testicle and Hydatid Disease. For these he was awarded the Jackson Prize of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the same Prize of the University of Melbourne. When he commenced his position as Bosch Professor of Surgery in 1931 he became the first full-time Professor of Surgery in any Australian University. In the Faculty of Medicine, Dew played a major role in initiating and encouraging research, particularly into blood coagulation and then the then new subject of cardiac surgery. Together with Professor Lambie he revised the six-year curriculum to a structure that remained until 1973. At Royal Prince Alfred Hospital he established neurosurgery and was the Hospital's first neurosurgeon.[1]
- Next article in timeline: Sir Charles Bickerton Blackburn becomes the seventh Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1932