Faculty of Medicine Online Museum and Archive - User contributions [en]

Horvath, Diana

Admin — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 03:49:46 GMT

Admin:

[[category:Health administration]]
[[category:female]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS (Hons) 1968
MHP FRACMA FAFPHM FCHSE

Professor Diana Horvath was the first Community Physician at Mt Druitt Centre and established the Community Nursing Program in all schools; she was the first to work as administrator of a Clinical Division within King George V Hospital, later rising to General Superintendent, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital; the first female Chairperson of the NHMRC; and Chief Executive of the Sydney South Western Area Health Service. She is considered a leader in health care management and research.

After graduation, Diana took up an appointment as Medical Officer at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for one year, after which she travelled to Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, at first, to work as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Medicine, then as Physician-in-Charge. This latter role involved her in the Community Medicine’s primary care facility and the Physician’s Assistant Program. On returning to Australia, she became the first Community Physician at Mount Druitt Centre in the early days of the Western Metropolitan Health Region. Diana established community nurses at all schools and a back-up service at the Mount Druitt shopping centre which became the pattern for delivery of Community Health Services in Western Sydney. This led to her becoming Principal Adviser in Community Services in the Health Commission of New South Wales. In this role, she was responsible for directing the NSW Community Health Program, including state-federal negotiations on funding with the Federal Department of Health and National Hospitals and the Health Services Commission. As a member of the Division of Personal Health Services under Commissioner Barclay, she spent much time helping establish the program in the new Regions.

In 1977, she was seconded to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital as Assistant Director of Medical Services. This position was the first of its kind as she was both the Administrator of a Clinical Division (Division of Obstetrics and Gynaecology–otherwise King George V Hospital), with management and budgetary responsibility.

Diana left the Public Service in 1979 and became a public hospital employee. In this role, she established the Board of Directors’ Standing Committee on Allocation of Clinical Resources. For nearly 10 years, this Committee of Divisional Heads, Senior Clinicians and the Director of Nursing was the major source of advice on matters, e.g. the Hospital Rationalisation Program, expansion and reduction of services, and all planning activities etc.

Two years later, a new position was created when the Director of Medical Services at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital assumed a part-time role in the Department of Health. This new role saw Diana taking day-to-day management and budgetary responsibility for the Medical Services of the hospital. Her work at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital culminated with becoming General Superintendent in 1987, making her responsible for the management of the total hospital complex.

In 1989 she decided to leave the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital to take up an appointment as Area Director of the Eastern Sydney Area Health Service. According to Diana, she had lobbied and planned to get Area Health Services legislated for in NSW. Her desire was to see hospitals become part of a conglomerate of health care that incorporated several institutions, including the community sector. The intent of this was to achieve both economies of scale and consistency of care in the clinical services – both of which produced good outcomes for the individual hospitals. She was well positioned to take up this challenging role as she had intimate and substantial knowledge of the workings of the public health sector already. Since her appointment with Eastern Sydney Area Health Service, she has risen to CEO of Sydney South Western Area Health Service.

Diana was made an Officer in the Order of Australia in 1993 and was awarded the Sax Medal by the Australian Hospital Association, the highest honour periodically awarded by the AHA for innovation in health care management and research, thus achieving the pinnacle of her profession.<ref>Quote from http://www.aushealthcare.com.au, accessed October 2005.</ref> She has also been awarded the Arthur Anderson/Dr Ed Crosby International Hospital Federation Award for managerial innovation. More recently, she was awarded a Federation Medal by the Australian government and the Princess Award by the government of Thailand. She was the first female Chairman of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Commissioner for the Health Insurance Commission, a Member of the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council and President of the Australian Hospital Association, a member of Trade Policy Advisory Council of Australia, a Board Member of Ascham School Ltd and a member of the governing Board of Macquarie University among many others. Diana is currently a Board Member of a number of medical research institutes.

Reflecting back over the years, Diana focuses on a few achievements that have given her great satisfaction: Firstly, her work developing the NHMRC into a truly national policy advisory construct facilitated linkages between ‘coalface’ health practitioners and government bureaucracies; secondly, the decade during which Clinical Streams of Care across CSAHS enabled “top class clinicians, academics and managers” to work together in a partnership “characterised by mutual trust and respect”; and lastly, the Resource Transition Program, a population-needs-based health services plan, which spawned area-wide capital redevelopment and initiated some dramatic changes to the “hospital landscape in CSAHS”.<ref>Information provided by Professor Horvath.</ref>

In 2005 Diana was made Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sydney.

In February 2006 Diana Horvath was appointed as Chief Executive of the newly established Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.

==References==
<references/>

Dorsch, Susan Evelyn

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:58:47 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Pathology category:female category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MB BS 1958 PhD 1975 DUniv 1996 FRCPA Susan Dorsch, a pathologist, was the first female Profes...

[[category:Pathology]]
[[category:female]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1958
PhD 1975
DUniv 1996
FRCPA
Susan Dorsch, a pathologist, was the first female Professor in the Faculty of Medicine.

Susan was born in Sydney in 1935 and graduated from medicine at the University of Sydney in 1958. That year she was appointed as a Professorial Resident Medical Officer at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, becoming Senior Resident Medical Officer in 1959.

Between 1960 and 1969 Susan worked as a General Practitioner and as Medical Officer for the School Medical Service in Harden, NSW. In 1970 she was appointed Teaching Fellow in the University of Sydney’s Department of Pathology. She began her postgraduate studies in 1971, first supported by the Anderson Stuart Memorial Research Fellowship and later by the Marian Clare Reddal and Joseph Goodburn Smith Scholarship. Using rats’ skin grafted with skin from a different inbred strain and cell transfer techniques as her experimental model, Susan studied the cellular interactions that cause transplanted tissues and organs to be rejected by the host.

In 1974 she worked as a Senior Research Officer for the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in the Department of Pathology where she was appointed Senior Lecturer in 1975, Associate Professor in 1981 and Professor in 1983. During this period, Susan served on a large number of Faculty committees, including the Executive Council of the Committee to review the undergraduate medical curriculum, the Faculty Standing Committee on Admissions, and the Committee on Faculty Administration. She was very involved in undergraduate teaching and postgraduate supervision. Throughout the period after 1978, Susan was responsible for extensive revision and ongoing development of the content and methods of teaching of undergraduate Pathology, for the Pathology content of the Clinical Science Course and for the design and teaching of the course in transplantation immunology within the Cell Pathology Course offered by the Faculty of Science. She was also coordinator of final year option term projects in pathology. Over the period from 1978 to 1987, she supervised BSc (Med) and PhD students in the Faculty of Medicine and BSc (Hons), MSc and PhD students in the Faculty of Science. The research done by Susan, her research associates and students over this period was supported by a number of bodies. The projects included an investigation from 1977 to 1986 into the cellular response to foreign tissues funded by the NHMRC; immunological studies in neoplasia funded by the NSW State Cancer Council and the University of Sydney Research Fund between 1977 and 1984; research into the immunological basis of glomerulonephritis funded by the Australian Kidney Foundation for four years from 1982, and a contract from the CSIRO to examine the toxicology of cancer chemotherapy agents in 1982 and 1983.

Each of these projects apart from the CSIRO contract related to aspects of the immune response. The NHMRC funded project followed on the discovery, made during Susan’s PhD studies, that tolerance (the ability of an animal to accept foreign grafted tissue) is an active state maintained by suppressor cells which are specific to the histocompatibility antigens of the grafted tissue. Much of the subsequent work was on the nature and behaviour of suppressor cells and resulted in a number of publications in refereed journals, including Nature and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Also relating to the immune response was fundamental research, using an animal model developed in the laboratory, into the high incidence of tumours in human kidney transplant recipients. The research into glomerulonephritis investigated the role of immune cells in a specific form of glomerulonephritis. The contract with the CSIRO involved animal trials on a potential anti-cancer drug with the object of establishing any adverse effects, particularly on lung tissue.

Susan’s research depended upon the use of high-quality inbred animal models. These were not readily available in New South Wales at the time. To satisfy the needs of her laboratory she took over responsibility for the Blackburn Animal House in the Faculty of Medicine and established it as a unit for the production of such inbred rodents. She designed the unit and its equipment, imported pedigree stock, established the inbreeding program and trained staff in its application and the general care of the animals. Once established, the animal house provided rats and mice to many research laboratories inside and outside the University and supplied breeding nuclei to other breeding units in Australia and overseas.

From 1977 to 1979 Susan was an elected Member of the Academic Board and in 1986 and 1987 its Deputy Chair. In 1985 she chaired the Committee on the Centenary of the First Women Graduates which organised the various celebrations marking this milestone in the University’s history. In 1986 she was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University and in 1989 Deputy Vice-Chancellor, which she remained until 1995. In addition she represented the University on a large number of outside bodies.

Susan also served on a number of non-University committees and boards relating to her medical and academic interests. She was on the Royal North Shore and Area Health Service Board of Directors in 1987 and 1988, and on the Northern Area Health Service Board of Directors thereafter until 1996. From 1985 to 1991, she served on various committees of the NHMRC, becoming a Member of the Council for four years in 1991.

In 1985 she was appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of the Australian Encyclopedia for the 1988 Edition. She joined the Board of Directors of the Australian American Education (Fulbright) Foundation in 1987, chairing the Board from 1991 to 1994. She was on the Australian Selection Committee for the Harkness Fellowships Committee from 1984 to 1987 and on the Rhodes Scholarships Selection Committee from 1983 to 1986.

In 1996, Susan received the honorary degree of Doctor of the University. She remains Emeritus Professor of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney.

Reye, Ralph Douglas Kenneth

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:56:38 GMT

Admin:

[[category:Pathology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1920 to 1940]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1937
MD 1945
FRACP

Douglas Reye was the first to describe the childhood disease now known as Reye Syndrome, and to recognise it as a distinct illness.

Douglas was born in Townsville, Queensland in 1912. He moved to Sydney to study medicine at the University of Sydney, living at St Paul’s College until he graduated in 1937. He completed his Residency at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children where he remained for the whole of his active life. Although he enlisted in the army in 1940, there was a shortage of pathologists at the time and his release was obtained by the Hospital. He remained on the reserve for the length of the war.

Douglas was appointed acting-Director of the Department of Pathology at the Hospital in 1941 and became full-time Director in 1946. During his time has Director, Douglas expanded the Institute of Pathology to include “establishments for a microbiologist, biochemist and haematologist, fields which previously he had encompassed himself”.<ref>This profile is an edited version of Alexander, J M in Wiseman J and Mulhearn R (1994) Roll of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (II) Sydney, RACP. Reprinted with courtesy of RACP.</ref>

He was awarded a Doctor of Medicine in 1945 and worked for many years as a part-time Lecturer in Pathology at the University of Sydney. Of his written contributions, J M Alexander writes:

<blockquote>His bibliography was not voluminous but all publications dealt with entities which had either never been described previously or concerning which little had been written. His MD thesis concerned histiocytic reticulosis (one of his pet aversions was the term histiocytosis-X). He was the first to describe the subdermal fibrous tumours of infancy often referred to as Reteoma-1 and Reyoma-2. His main claim to fame worldwide was his description in The Lancet in 1963 of “Encephalopathy and fatty degeneration of the viscera: a disease entity in childhood” which has ever since been recognised as the Reye Syndrome.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

The causes of Reye Syndrome are still not known but it predominantly affects children between the ages of four and 16. According to the National Reye’s Syndrome Foundation, the disease “affects all organs of the body, but most lethally the liver and the brain. Reye’s Syndrome is a two-phase illness because it is almost always associated with a previous viral infection, such as influenza, cold, or chicken pox”.<ref>National Reye’s Syndrome Foundation Inc, available http://www.reyessyndrome.org/what.htm, accessed 1 February 2006. </ref> Douglas’s publication in The Lancet was the first description of the disease as a distinct syndrome. Equally important were Douglas’ observations on the histopathology of congenital rubella contained in Sir Norman Gregg’s original 1941 description of this syndrome, and his later identification in the 1960s of renal and other arterial stenoses in affected children.
Alexander describes Douglas:

<blockquote>Douglas was essentially a shy man and gave the impression of aloofness to those who did not know him well. Registrars and residents tended not to approach him but when forced to do so by those who knew him well, found that he was only too keen to share his great knowledge and experience with them.</blockquote>

Douglas Reye passed away in 1977, two days after he retired.

==References==
<references />

Reye, Ralph Douglas Kenneth

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:55:26 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Pathology category:male category:1920 to 1940 category:Biographies MB BS 1937 MD 1945 FRACP Douglas Reye was the first to describe the childhood disease now know...

[[category:Pathology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1920 to 1940]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1937
MD 1945
FRACP

Douglas Reye was the first to describe the childhood disease now known as Reye Syndrome, and to recognise it as a distinct illness.

Douglas was born in Townsville, Queensland in 1912. He moved to Sydney to study medicine at the University of Sydney, living at St Paul’s College until he graduated in 1937. He completed his Residency at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children where he remained for the whole of his active life. Although he enlisted in the army in 1940, there was a shortage of pathologists at the time and his release was obtained by the Hospital. He remained on the reserve for the length of the war.

Douglas was appointed acting-Director of the Department of Pathology at the Hospital in 1941 and became full-time Director in 1946. During his time has Director, Douglas expanded the Institute of Pathology to include “establishments for a microbiologist, biochemist and haematologist, fields which previously he had encompassed himself”.<ref>This profile is an edited version of Alexander, J M in Wiseman J and Mulhearn R (1994) Roll of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (II) Sydney, RACP. Reprinted with courtesy of RACP.</ref>

He was awarded a Doctor of Medicine in 1945 and worked for many years as a part-time Lecturer in Pathology at the University of Sydney. Of his written contributions, J M Alexander writes:

His bibliography was not voluminous but all publications dealt with entities which had either never been described previously or concerning which little had been written. His MD thesis concerned histiocytic reticulosis (one of his pet aversions was the term histiocytosis-X). He was the first to describe the subdermal fibrous tumours of infancy often referred to as Reteoma-1 and Reyoma-2. His main claim to fame worldwide was his description in The Lancet in 1963 of “Encephalopathy and fatty degeneration of the viscera: a disease entity in childhood” which has ever since been recognised as the Reye Syndrome.<ref>ibid.</ref>

The causes of Reye Syndrome are still not known but it predominantly affects children between the ages of four and 16. According to the National Reye’s Syndrome Foundation, the disease “affects all organs of the body, but most lethally the liver and the brain. Reye’s Syndrome is a two-phase illness because it is almost always associated with a previous viral infection, such as influenza, cold, or chicken pox”.<ref>National Reye’s Syndrome Foundation Inc, available http://www.reyessyndrome.org/what.htm, accessed 1 February 2006. </ref> Douglas’s publication in The Lancet was the first description of the disease as a distinct syndrome. Equally important were Douglas’ observations on the histopathology of congenital rubella contained in Sir Norman Gregg’s original 1941 description of this syndrome, and his later identification in the 1960s of renal and other arterial stenoses in affected children.
Alexander describes Douglas:

Douglas was essentially a shy man and gave the impression of aloofness to those who did not know him well. Registrars and residents tended not to approach him but when forced to do so by those who knew him well, found that he was only too keen to share his great knowledge and experience with them.

Douglas Reye passed away in 1977, two days after he retired.

==References==
<references />

Inglis, William Keith

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:52:55 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Pathology category:male category:1900 to 1920 category:Biographies MB 1911 ChM 1912 MD 1917 William Keith Inglis was the first Director of the Kanematsu Memorial ...

[[category:Pathology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1900 to 1920]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB 1911
ChM 1912
MD 1917

William Keith Inglis was the first Director of the Kanematsu Memorial Institute of Pathology in 1933.

William Keith Inglis was born in Sydney in 1888 and after graduating from medicine in 1911, he took up a Residency at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and worked as a part-time demonstrator in pathology at the University of Sydney.

In 1914 he was appointed as a full-time demonstrator, a position he maintained whilst serving in the Militia as Senior Medical Officer, Bathurst Camp. During this time, he undertook his doctorate and wrote his thesis, ‘Agglutination after the Administration of Typhoid and Paratyphoid Vaccines’, for which he won the University Medal and gained the attention of the military authorities. In 1917, he was stationed in France as a pathologist with the 3rd Australian General Hospital in Abbeville and the 2nd Australian General Hospital in Boulogne. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

<blockquote>He performed numerous post-mortem examinations. The problems he encountered with dysentery and trench fever led to his first publications. In London, from October 1918, Inglis collected and prepared pathological examples (from army surgical and autopsy material) which were shipped to Australian medical museums. Letters to his wife discussed his increasing fondness for pathological work and his ambition to become a specialist, “even though the remuneration would be much less… than I could earn in private practice.”<ref>From Yvonne Cossart, ‘Inglis, William Keith (1888–1960)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 14, Melbourne University Press, 1996, pp534–535.</ref></blockquote>

Keith returned to Sydney in 1919, and his specimens were sent to museums and universities in every state. He resumed demonstrating in 1920 and was promoted to the position of Lecturer and Chief Demonstrator (part-time) in 1922. Two years later, Keith was placed in charge of the Department of Pathology at Sydney Hospital. He retained his University post and fulfilled the obligations of both positions with success. He was rewarded for his good work at Sydney Hospital and the excellence of his teaching at the University by being appointed as the first Director of the Kanematsu Memorial Institute of Pathology (as it was then called) at Sydney Hospital in 1934.

Following the retirement of Professor Welsh<ref>Professor Welsh was the foundation Professor of Pathology from 1902 until 1936.</ref>, the Senate fixed the salary of the Chair of Pathology at £1500 per annum1 with a view to securing another first-class pathologist. The vacancy was advertised throughout Great Britain and Australasia and in 1936, Keith was appointed.

He took up his work in a vastly different environment from that which confronted Welsh on his arrival in Sydney. He was relieved of the teaching of bacteriology, immunology and protozoology, and inherited a going concern with well-trained staff in the relatively spacious area allotted to pathology in the New Medical School. Keith brought to the Chair of pathology a breadth of experience in both the practice and teaching of pathology. His teaching was characterised by meticulous and logical planning and very lavish illustration with specimens. Coupled with his expertise in his professional subject, was a belief that those who taught or practised medicine must never lose sight of the importance of the humanities.
In 1938, he was a Founding Member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
During World War II, he was responsible for Service Pathology at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. As Cossart notes:

<blockquote>His opinion in difficult cases was highly valued by his peers. Characteristically, he examined microscope sections and formed a view before reading the clinical history, and his reports always indicated any lingering doubts he had about his diagnosis. Intellectual integrity was the hallmark of his work and it influenced generations of pathologists associated with the Sydney school.<ref>Cossat op cit.</ref></blockquote>

Keith continued the close University association with Prince Alfred Hospital which had been established by his predecessor until 1946, but then severed the ties between the two pathology departments. He retired in 1952.<ref>Minimally revised excerpt from Young J, Sefton A & Webb N (1984) Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine, Sydney University Press, pp334–335.
</ref>

Keith had been a Director of Sydney Hospital since 1946 and, ironically, collapsed and died during a meeting as he was speaking in defence of the independence of the Kanematsu Institute.

==References==
<references />

Burgess, Margaret

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:48:32 GMT

Admin:

[[category:Pediatrics]]
[[category:Child health]]
[[category:female]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1961
MD 1970

Margaret Burgess has made an outstanding contribution to Paediatrics and Child Health in Australia, particularly in the fields of immunisation, infectious diseases and teratology, and has been the initiator of specialised services for children. She was a pioneer in research and clinical trials of rubella vaccines in Australia.

Margaret graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the University of Sydney and was distinguished by gaining first place among the women candidates and first place in Surgery. She was awarded a Doctorate of Medicine by the University of Sydney in 1971 and was elected as a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Faculty of Public Health Medicine in 1991. Margaret has also been a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians since 1972. She is currently Professor of Paediatrics and Preventive Medicine at the University of Sydney and the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Westmead and is immediate past-Director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases.

Margaret has a distinguished record in research. In the 1960s she established an international reputation through publication of studies relating to congenital rubella syndrome. In the group of children studied, she described renal artery stenosis leading to systemic arterial hypertension; the association between congenital rubella and diabetes mellitus; and the role of extended persistence of rubella virus in the postnatal development of cataracts. Subsequent follow-up studies of this cohort for up to 50 years confirmed a high prevalence of diabetes mellitus the survivors. In the 1970s, she conducted the first clinical trials of rubella vaccines in Australia.

In the 1980s Margaret took up a Staff Specialist appointment in paediatric oncology, a field in which she also made significant research contributions. These included documenting the high prevalence of both growth failure and growth hormone deficiency in children who had been treated for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and the high morbidity and mortality associated with varicella-zoster infection in paediatric oncology patients with immunosuppression.

In the 1990s she returned to research in the area of immunisation, conducting large community-based studies on hepatitis B vaccination and assisting the NHMRC in revising the National Childhood Immunisation Schedule. She successfully tendered for the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases (NCIRS) and was Director of that unit until 2005. In that role Margaret was involved in the development of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register, and initiated a wide program of research around vaccination and vaccine-preventable diseases, including varicella zoster, rotavirus, measles, and pertussis.

Margaret is an excellent communicator, and is in high demand nationally and internationally as a guest speaker. She teaches both undergraduates and graduates in the health professions, and has supervised many post graduate students progressing towards higher degrees. She has published two books, 11 book chapters and nearly 200 original peer-review papers, in addition to numerous invited contributions, reports and conference papers. Many of these works have been highly influential both on clinical practice and policy development. She has been highly successful in attracting large grants to support her research too, the budget for the NCIRS being in excess of $A1 million per year.

Margaret has also contributed to the profession at large, serving on numerous committees for the University of Sydney, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), the Australian College of Paediatrics, the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, the Paediatric Research Society of Australia and New Zealand and the Teratology Society.

Through the media and other activities, she is well known to the community. She is Patron of the NSW Deaf Children’s Association and member of the working party that planned and built the Shepherd Centre for the deaf. She is media spokesperson for a number of organisations advocating for handicapped children and adults.

In recognition for her contributions, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal for services to the community in 1997, the Order of Australia in 2003, and the RACP Howard Williams Medal in 2006.

Hendry, Peter

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:48:01 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Pathology category:male category:1920 to 1940 category:Biographies MB BS 1938 DMed honoris causa (Newcastle) Peter Hendry was the first Clinical Pathologist at Ro...

[[category:Pathology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1920 to 1940]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1938
DMed honoris causa (Newcastle)

Peter Hendry was the first Clinical Pathologist at Royal Newcastle Hospital and established their first blood bank, becoming the foundation Director in 1947.

Peter entered Medical School in 1933, graduating five years later. Like other students, his first three years were spent studying the basic sciences, and it was not until his fourth year that he was introduced to pathology. He was fortunate enough to be able to study with the Foundation Professor of Pathology, Professor Welsh. According to Peter, “pathology was not at that time highly regarded by most members of the medical professions” and was considered the “Cinderella of the medical school”. After graduating, Peter was posted to Prince Henry Hospital at Little Bay (the Coast Hospital) as a Junior Resident Medical Officer. The hospital’s main function was the treatment of patients with infectious diseases. Peter notes that even though penicillin had been discovered, it was difficult to obtain in Australia until 1943. Hence infectious diseases were still treated conservatively, the range of common illnesses to be treated including poliomyelitis, diphtheria, measles, rubella, scarlet fever, mumps and venereal disease. It was a challenge for a first year medical resident, but he acknowledged that it gave him the opportunity to develop his early skills in blood slide diagnosis of disease. Although this time at Prince Henry Hospital ignited his desire to become a surgeon, the declaration of war changed his plans.

In 1940, he enlisted in the AIF and in 1941 was deployed to Malaya. Following surrender in 1942, he spent three and a half years as a Japanese prisoner of war, spending much of one year on the Burma-Thailand Railway. This experience gave him insight into the bleakness of humanity, and introduced him to a new range of infectious illnesses and the ingenuity of some doctors as they made do with meagre supplies to treat patients with various ills, including Malaria. He says:

<blockquote>I saw little apart from a malarial parasites and the occasional diphtheritic ulcer, which the pathologist found in various skin ulcers. Malaria, of course, was common and we learnt about the rapid staining of blood films with Field’s stain. Dr Snow, a colleague of Dr Field who had performed the rapid stain for malaria, the test that was named after him, was in our camp. It was he who introduced us to the stain.<ref>Hendry P & Stranger I (2004) p23.</ref></blockquote>

After the war, he returned to the Coast Hospital as resident pathologist. The war had changed the perception of pathology so that it was now seen as necessarily co-existent with other facets of medicine. To quote Peter:

<blockquote>During the years up to the beginning of the war pathology… was housed in out of the way hospital buildings rarely visited by clinicians. The pathologist usually confined himself to anatomical pathology, which consisted of performing post-mortems and examining the tissues removed, as well as those from surgical operations. Other pathology examinations such as microbiology, biochemistry and haematology… were almost invariably performed by technical staff. During the war the medical importance of these other examinations and particularly their interpretation began to be recognised, so much so that by the end of the war there had emerged a new entity, the Clinical Pathologist as distinct from the Pathologist, who was responsible for these sub-specialities.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

In 1947, Peter was appointed Clinical Pathologist and Director of the Blood Bank at Newcastle Hospital. His immediate role was to “update the hospital blood transfusion service to a regional blood bank”. His position was also unique in that as a clinical pathologist, he was not only in charge of blood transfusions, but also for all the intravenous work carried out in the hospital. He “not only controlled the supply of blood, but its use”.<ref>Hendry P & Stranger I, op cit p38.</ref> In 1956, Peter commenced private practice but retained a role as part-time Director of the Blood Bank at the Royal Newcastle Hospital until 1968.

Concurrently, in 1952 he became involved in the World Association of Societies of Pathology and through his involvement in Quality Control was elected as Secretary of the Commission on World Standards (from 1960 until 1969). In 1969 he was elected Vice President of the Association, serving as its President from 1972 to 1975. He was also President of the World Congress of the Association held in Sydney in 1975, and was presented the prestigious Gold Cane for his service to the Association during the 1983 Congress in Japan by the Crown Prince, now Emperor. In addition, he was Foundation Member and later Treasurer of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australia and Foundation Chairman of its Committee on Continuing Education. He was President of the College from 1974 to 1975 and was elected Fellow of the College of American Pathologists in 1966.

Peter Hendry has received numerous awards including being made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1985. He became the Life Governor of the Australian Postgraduate Federation in Medicine in 1987. In 1988, he was awarded Doctor of Medicine, Honoris Causa and was awarded Doctor of the University, Honoris Causa in 1995, both from the University of Newcastle.

==References==
<references />

Duhig, James Vincent

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:44:11 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Pathology category:male category:1900 to 1920 category:Biographies MB 1914 MSurgery 1914 James Vincent Duhig was the first Pathologist to go into private practice....

[[category:Pathology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1900 to 1920]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB 1914
MSurgery 1914
James Vincent Duhig was the first Pathologist to go into private practice. He established the first pathology laboratories at the Mater Misericordiae and Brisbane General Hospitals, and was Founder of the Red Cross Blood Bank in Queensland. He became President of the Association of Clinical Pathologists, and was also a key figure in the establishment of the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland where he was the Foundation Professor of Pathology. He was also a pioneer in the formation of the Australian College of Pathologists.

James was born in Brisbane and educated at St Joseph’s College, Nudgee. In 1908, he entered the University of Sydney, first to study Arts, then switching to Medicine after his first year. During the World War I, he served as Medical Officer in the AIF in Europe, being demobilised with the rank of Major. After the war, he undertook up his postgraduate studies in Pathology at the Kings College Hospital in London.

On returning to Australia in 1920, James began as a Pathologist and Bacteriologist in Wickham Terrace, Brisbane, a practice he retained until 1963. When he began, he was the first pathologist in private practice, and he established the Pathology Laboratory at Mater Hospital, Brisbane. In 1924, he established the Pathology Laboratory at Brisbane General Hospital, and according to the James Vincent Duhig Museum of Pathology, began preserving specimens for the Pathology Museum now housed within the University of Queensland.

University of Queensland records note that James was actively involved in a campaign against diphtheria and prepared penicillin and anti-poliomyelitis serum in his laboratories when supplies were low.

James was also the Australian President of the Association of Clinical Pathologists, a Foundation Member of the Royal Australian College of Physicians and an Honorary Member of the College of Pathologists of Australia. He retained his interest in the arts and was President of the Royal Queensland Art Society for 10 years. In addition, he persuaded Lloyd Rees to donate paintings to the University of Queensland and is credited with initiating the University’s art collection.<ref>This profile has been prepared from information contained in the University of Queensland’s Medical History Museum webpages, http://www.som.uq.edu.au/M-H-Museum, accessed 10 October 2005.</ref>

==References==
<references />

Lancaster, Paul Angus Llewellyn

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:41:42 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Pediatrics category:Child health category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MB BS 1966 MPH 1979 (UCLA Berk) MRACP FRACP FAFPHM Paul Lancaster wa...

[[category:Pediatrics]]
[[category:Child health]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1966
MPH 1979 (UCLA Berk) MRACP FRACP FAFPHM

Paul Lancaster was the founding Director of the National Perinatal Statistics Unit in 1979 and in 1983, established the world’s first national register of IVF pregnancies. In 1991 he initiated an international program to monitor IVF and steered the establishment of the International Centre for Birth Defects in Bergen, Norway. In 1994, he instigated the Master’s in Reproductive Health Sciences and Human Genetics within the Faculty.

Born in Sydney in 1941, Paul Lancaster studied medicine at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1966. He trained in paediatrics, completing residencies at the Liverpool District Hospital and at the Prince of Wales Hospital. He continued at the Prince of Wales Hospital, first as a Paediatric Registrar from 1968 to 1970 and then as a Pathology Registrar.

In 1971, Lancaster became a Senior Research Officer in the School of Paediatrics at the University of New South Wales in a project studying the causes of low birth-weight, especially the influence of smoking in pregnancy. In 1973 he was appointed Staff Specialist Paediatrician and Director of Newborn Services at the Royal Hospital for Women, a position in which he remained until 1977. He was also appointed as a Clinical Lecturer in Neonatal Paediatrics and taught midwifery trainees at the Royal Hospital for Women. Paul then spent two years as a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Fellow in Applied Health Sciences at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and at the University of California School of Public Health in Berkeley, completing a Master of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health in 1979.

On his return to Sydney in October 1979, he became the founding Director of the National Perinatal Statistics Unit, first based at the University of Sydney then, much later, at the University of New South Wales. “This took me from the wonderful camaraderie of my previous hospital setting to a more challenging, yet unpredictable, career in public health”, says Paul. In this role, which he filled until 2001, he regularly participated in international meetings on birth defects, and led the creation of the International Centre for Birth Defects, now based in Rome.

In his work as a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist, Paul set up the national Birth Defects Monitoring Program and in 1983 established the world’s first national register of IVF pregnancies. He also coordinated national reports on mothers and babies in Australia, on indigenous mothers and babies, and on reproductive health.

In 1990 he also initiated the international group that monitors assisted conception (IVF), now known as the International Committee Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ICMART), which he chaired for a decade.

In 1980 he began postgraduate teaching in the Master of Public Health (MPH) program at the University of Sydney and tutoring medical undergraduates, becoming Senior Lecturer in 1981 and Associate Professor in 1991. After coordinating the reproductive, maternal and child health courses for MPH students in the 1980s, Paul initiated (in 1994) the now thriving Master’s course in Reproductive Health Sciences and Human Genetics at the University of Sydney.

In 1997, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) National Perinatal Statistics Unit was transferred to the University of New South Wales.

Lancaster has been on the Executive Committee of the International Clearinghouse for Birth Defects Monitoring Systems, serving two four-year terms as Vice-Chairperson, and becoming Chairperson from the late 1980s to early 1990s. Until recently, he was a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Human Genetics. He was also President of the Australian Birth Defects Society from 1998–2001, reassuming this role in more recent years.

Paul remains active in his field, teaching part-time, organizing conferences on birth defects and reproductive and perinatal health, writing book chapters, and speaking at national and international conferences. He is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Northern Clinical School, University of Sydney. He is currently on the International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ICMART), the Australian Twin Registry Advisory Board, and the Medical and Scientific Panel of the Infertility Treatment Authority of Victoria. It remains his professional ambition to participate in the education of “schools and the community about reproductive health, specifically to reverse the worldwide trend of delayed child-bearing – no small task!” In addition, he has commenced work on a biography of Sir Norman Gregg and other work on the depiction of reproduction in international art.

Burgess, Margaret

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:40:21 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Pediatrics category:Child health category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MB BS 1961 MD 1970 Margaret Burgess has made an outstanding contribu...

[[category:Pediatrics]]
[[category:Child health]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1961
MD 1970

Margaret Burgess has made an outstanding contribution to Paediatrics and Child Health in Australia, particularly in the fields of immunisation, infectious diseases and teratology, and has been the initiator of specialised services for children. She was a pioneer in research and clinical trials of rubella vaccines in Australia.

Margaret graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the University of Sydney and was distinguished by gaining first place among the women candidates and first place in Surgery. She was awarded a Doctorate of Medicine by the University of Sydney in 1971 and was elected as a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Faculty of Public Health Medicine in 1991. Margaret has also been a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians since 1972. She is currently Professor of Paediatrics and Preventive Medicine at the University of Sydney and the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Westmead and is immediate past-Director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases.

Margaret has a distinguished record in research. In the 1960s she established an international reputation through publication of studies relating to congenital rubella syndrome. In the group of children studied, she described renal artery stenosis leading to systemic arterial hypertension; the association between congenital rubella and diabetes mellitus; and the role of extended persistence of rubella virus in the postnatal development of cataracts. Subsequent follow-up studies of this cohort for up to 50 years confirmed a high prevalence of diabetes mellitus the survivors. In the 1970s, she conducted the first clinical trials of rubella vaccines in Australia.

In the 1980s Margaret took up a Staff Specialist appointment in paediatric oncology, a field in which she also made significant research contributions. These included documenting the high prevalence of both growth failure and growth hormone deficiency in children who had been treated for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and the high morbidity and mortality associated with varicella-zoster infection in paediatric oncology patients with immunosuppression.

In the 1990s she returned to research in the area of immunisation, conducting large community-based studies on hepatitis B vaccination and assisting the NHMRC in revising the National Childhood Immunisation Schedule. She successfully tendered for the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases (NCIRS) and was Director of that unit until 2005. In that role Margaret was involved in the development of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register, and initiated a wide program of research around vaccination and vaccine-preventable diseases, including varicella zoster, rotavirus, measles, and pertussis.

Margaret is an excellent communicator, and is in high demand nationally and internationally as a guest speaker. She teaches both undergraduates and graduates in the health professions, and has supervised many post graduate students progressing towards higher degrees. She has published two books, 11 book chapters and nearly 200 original peer-review papers, in addition to numerous invited contributions, reports and conference papers. Many of these works have been highly influential both on clinical practice and policy development. She has been highly successful in attracting large grants to support her research too, the budget for the NCIRS being in excess of $A1 million per year.

Margaret has also contributed to the profession at large, serving on numerous committees for the University of Sydney, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), the Australian College of Paediatrics, the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, the Paediatric Research Society of Australia and New Zealand and the Teratology Society.

Through the media and other activities, she is well known to the community. She is Patron of the NSW Deaf Children’s Association and member of the working party that planned and built the Shepherd Centre for the deaf. She is media spokesperson for a number of organisations advocating for handicapped children and adults.

In recognition for her contributions, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal for services to the community in 1997, the Order of Australia in 2003, and the RACP Howard Williams Medal in 2006.

Dods, Sir Lorimer Fenton

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:37:20 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Pediatrics category:Child health category:male category:1920 to 1940 category:Biographies MB 1923 ChM 1923 MD 1936, FRACP, Hon DSc Sir Lorimer Dods was the F...

[[category:Pediatrics]]
[[category:Child health]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1920 to 1940]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB 1923
ChM 1923
MD 1936, FRACP, Hon DSc

Sir Lorimer Dods was the Foundation Professor of Child Health at the University of Sydney in 1950. This was the first Chair of Child Health or Paediatrics in any medical school in Australia. He was a pioneer in the development of children’s medicine as a specialty.

Born in Brisbane in 1900, Lorimer was educated at Southport School and Sydney Church of England Grammar School before graduating in Medicine from the University of Sydney in 1923. He completed his training first at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH), Sydney, then at Newcastle Hospital. His first position at RPAH was as Resident Pathologist under Professor Sandes in the surgical wards, and to the Pathology Department. He then took up an appointment as Senior Resident Officer at the Newcastle Hospital, but continued some work in pathology. This was in the early days of insulin use and Dods is said to have “often recalled the responsibility of doing blood sugars”.<ref>Hamilton D G in Australian Paediatric Journal, 1981 June 17/2, pp70–74.</ref> His role at Newcastle Hospital brought him into contact with many children and, realising how little he knew about them, he sought a position at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children (RAHC) in Sydney. After a year at the Children’s Hospital, he spent six months in England furthering his studies, before returning to General Practice in Edgecliff. The friends and contacts he had made during his student days, his early hospital days or through skiing at Kosciusko (Lorimer was a champion skier) remained loyal to him, and he was often called to give anaesthetics at the Hospital. He rejoined the Hospital as an Honorary Staff Member in 1927. According to a colleague:

<blockquote>Slowly children became prominent among his patients and he began to write splendid articles for the Medical Journal of Australia. Here was shown a clear, thoughtful, scientific mind and a beautiful fluent pen. His doctorate of medicine for a thesis on cyclical vomiting came in 1936.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

In 1937 Lorimer also began paediatric practice in Macquarie Street, Sydney. With the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Lorimer enlisted in the 1st Australian General Hospital, serving in the Middle East until the conclusion of the War, and achieving the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Returning to Australia, he resumed paediatric practice, as well as beginning his academic career. D G Hamilton records:

<blockquote>In 1946 he became lecturer in Children’s Diseases in Sydney. He was physician to the Duke of Gloucester and his children when he was Governor-General, and was made a Member of the Victorian Order. A further overseas tour followed and he was enormously impressed by Sir James Spence in Newcastle-on-Tyne and by the American development of specialities within paediatrics. He came back and one by one took several of us young physicians aside, told us of these advances and asked us which of them we would like to develop in our hospital. The stimulating effect Lorimer had on young men was one of his greatest contributions.<ref>ibid.</ref> </blockquote>

In 1949 the Commonwealth Government established an Institute of Child Health and a Chair to accompany it within the University of Sydney. Sir James Spence was apparently “emphatic that no-one better than Lorimer could be found for this new dual responsibility”.<ref>ibid.</ref> During the term of 10 years, Lorimer paid much attention to undergraduate teaching, established significant research projects and played an advisory role to other Australian Universities as they began to develop their own Departments of Child Health.

From the perspective of the fifth or final-year students in the 1950s, Lorimer was an extraordinary role model. The atmosphere in the hospital was strongly influenced by his own courtesy and respect for his small patients and their families. Coming from adult environments in which visitors were limited to a small number of strictly enforced visiting times, we students found it refreshing to see parents and siblings comforting and playing with the patients during the day and early evening. Students were treated with courtesy and respect, encouraged to take an active role in picking up and comforting distressed children, and to engage in play with any who were mobile in the ward. He showed by example how to communicate with patients of different ages, and with their parents. From his broad knowledge and experience, his tutorials were genuinely interactive, ranging over wide aspects of the discipline. He made opportunities for open discussion and stimulated the exploration of ideas. Although himself not a prolific researcher, he saw research as the future of the discipline, encouraging those who were interested to undertake a small project during their Paediatrics term.

Wallace Grigor was a young resident officer under Lorimer in the 1950s and recalls Lorimer’s care for colleagues, patients and their families:

<blockquote>[Paediatrics] was a new world, contrasting as it did to the far less personal one of more adult medicine. A sick child was not an isolated person but one of a family unit, the welfare of which was very much part of the management of the child himself… Despite the serious nature of the illnesses of the many of his little patients, his ward, Lower Todman, was a happy one – and there were many aspects which made it different from other wards. Parents were present for long periods, were encouraged to nurse and feed their children and to do simple tasks, all of which gave security and confidence to both the child and parent. Easy access to medical attendants, including the Professor was always available. While in the present era this may all a sound unremarkable, it was almost unique in the 1950s…</blockquote>

His rounds were stimulating and at times exciting, and were often attended by prominent physicians and research workers. His staff were quickly accustomed to seeking advice from the best person in any given discipline to ensure that diagnosis and treatment of the many difficult problems in his ward were of the highest possible order.<ref>Grigor, Wallace in Australian Paediatric Journal, 1981 June 17/2, pp70–74.</ref>

In 1958, with the strong support of the RAHC Medical Superintendent, John Fulton, Lorimer established the Children’s Medical Research Foundation. This began with Australia’s first telethon and with the ongoing support of friends and colleagues. Once Lorimer had established the Foundation, however, serving as its founding Director required more and more of his energy and time. Hence, in 1960 he resigned from his University Chair to turn his focus fully to the Children’s Medical Research Foundation.

Lorimer was knighted in 1962 for “services to medicine, especially in paediatrics”.<ref>http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au</ref>

==References==
<references />

Isbister, Jean Sinclair

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:32:00 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Pediatrics category:Child health category:female category:1920 to 1940 category:Biographies MB BS 1939 FRACP DCH (London) Jean Sinclair (Clair) Isbister was a...

[[category:Pediatrics]]
[[category:Child health]]
[[category:female]]
[[category:1920 to 1940]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1939
FRACP DCH (London)

Jean Sinclair (Clair) Isbister was a pioneer in the development of hospital and outpatient services for mothers and babies, particularly in the area of childbirth practices and post-natal care. Her epidemiological studies at the Royal North Shore Hospital and Tresillian led to the establishment of numerous programs for mothers, babies and the care of children.

After graduation, Clair completed her internship at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the Children’s Hospital. In 1940, her husband was posted to the Tamworth RAAF Base and Clair went with him, and worked later in Armidale covering for the local GP’s who were deployed in the forces. Later, she and her husband went to England and completed their Physicians Memberships, before returning to Sydney with their young family. Even as a mother of four, Clair did some work at the Children’s Hospital and began working for Tresillian under the founder, Margaret Harper. She stayed working for Tresillian for the next twenty years, which enabled her to conduct some of her research studies in a non-hospital environment and use the data for comparison. At the same time, Clair began giving weekly radio talks on ABC Radio, speaking on many general medical topics, but mostly focussing on childbirth, child care and breastfeeding. Broadcasting policy of the time still dictated that such speakers remain anonymous, yet like Margaret Harper, she became well known, particularly amongst rural listeners, as ‘the Lady Doctor’. Reflecting back on these shows she said, “they were so important for country women who weren’t getting information from other sources.”

In 1948, she was appointed Consultant Paediatrician at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney and subsequently at the Blue Mountains District Hospital. At Royal North Shore she was appointed to the care of newborns, although her role was later broadened to include older children. Clair also became the Hospital’s first Visiting Specialist. She stayed at the Royal North Shore Hospital in varied capacities until her retirement in 1980, during this time conducting much of her medical studies of children. Very early on at ‘the Royal’, she began studies of infections in children and established that newborns were contracting infections from the hospital environments, rather than their mothers. Her role at Tresillian helped her compare the different patterns of infection babies were presenting with in a non-hospital environment. This was the first time that cross-infection studies had been carried out in Australian maternity hospitals, and her findings led to significant changes in practice in maternity hospitals.

Clair’s studies of lactating mothers resulted in changes in the management and teaching of breastfeeding to novice mothers. She also implemented simple techniques for looking after premature babies, for example, before the days of reliable incubators, she set up cots with electric blankets designed for pedigree Greyhound dogs. She was also responsible for the implementation of pre-delivery rooms for women in labour and their partners at Royal North Shore, these being the first of their kind in Australian hospitals. Likewise, although there was some education for expectant parents, Clair established the first Preparation for Parenthood programs that were given by specialist doctors, nurses and physiotherapists. Her program included education on the management of pregnancy, childbirth and baby care, including lactation. With Clair’s guidance, Royal North Shore was also the first hospital in Australia to establish daytime visiting rites for parents of sick children and provide play facilities in the children’s wards.

Working for the hospitals and Tresillian, and having conducted a major study of children with severe asthma, Clair became highly knowledgeable about allergies and asthma in children. She served as a volunteer for the Asthma Foundation for 36 years, during which time she developed the Asthma Swimming Program in which children were taught not only to swim, but also taught therapeutic techniques for breathing. The children’s breathing capacity was tested prior to commencement of the program and were medically monitored throughout, thus enabling them to participate without fear. As part of her work with the Foundation, Clair also edited The Asthma Welfarer for 30 years.

Since 1956, Clair has published numerous articles on topics relating to child care and child-birth; her seminal book Breastfeeding for Modern Mothers is currently being revised.

In 1969, she was awarded an OBE for her services to mothers and babies, and was awarded a CBE in 1976 for her services to medicine.

Clair is now 90 and living in retirement in the Blue Mountains.<ref>All quotes taken from personal correspondence with Clair Isbister.
</ref>

==References==
<references />

Gregg, Sir Norman McAlister

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:25:25 GMT

Admin:

[[category:Ophthalmology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1900 to 1920]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB 1915
MSurgery 1915
Hon DSc 1952
FRACS Hon FRCOG Hon FRACP Hon AAOO Hon DSc
(ANU)

Sir Norman McAlister Gregg showed that maternal rubella infection in early pregnancy caused birth defects. His work profoundly influenced further clinical and experimental research into birth defects and their causes.

Norman Gregg was born in Sydney in 1892 and graduated from medicine in 1915 with honours. Aside from his studies, he led and active student life, becoming President of the Undergraduates Association and a director of the University Union. He was an exceptional sportsman – described as a “tall, lithe and vigorous young man” – and played on numerous University teams and representing the State in cricket and tennis. As an adult, Norman continued his love of sport. He became captain and later President of the Royal Sydney Golf Club.<ref>Lancaster P, Rubella. Essays in honour of the centenary of the birth of Sir Norman McAlister Gregg 1892–1966, The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Sydney, 1992.</ref>

During the World War I he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in France and was awarded the Military Cross “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during a raid”.<ref>ibid.</ref> Paul Lancaster states that “like many other Australian medical graduates of his era, Norman later went to England for postgraduate training and experience, working at the Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital in London, and also at the Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital.”

He returned to Sydney and took up appointments as Paediatric Ophthalmologist Senior Surgeon at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, as well as commencing private practice. When World War II broke out, many young doctors were in the army and consequently Norman saw most of the children with eye problems needing surgery.<ref>Burgess M in McDonald, G L (1994) Roll of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (I) Sydney, RACP. Reprinted with courtesy of RACP. </ref>

<blockquote>Norman became alarmed at the number of babies who came to his office with congenital cataract, at least two or three times more than what would be expected by heredity alone. He heard two mothers speak in the hall outside his office, who both had affected babies. They were discussing how both had had German measles (rubella) in pregnancy. Out of the 78 children born in the early months of 1941 who went to see a doctor in Australia for cataract (13 in his own office), 68 had been exposed to Rubella in utero.<ref>Ibid.</ref> </blockquote>

Although the possibility that maternal infection during pregnancy could cause birth defects and other serious consequences had been considered, this hypothesis lacked evidence. Examining young babies, Norman noted that aside from congenital cataracts, many of the babies he observed:

<blockquote>had congenital heart defects and that most of them were ‘of small size, ill nourished and difficult to feed’. Microphthalmia was also sometimes present. In seeking an explanation for this atypical pattern of birth defects, he elicited a history of rubella infection in early pregnancy from the babies’ mothers.</blockquote>

Epidemics of meningitis and rubella in army camps just outside Sydney was brought home to the community. Norman was convinced that the outbreak of cataract amongst newborns was most likely due to a rubella infection during the mothers’ pregnancy. Norman gathered epidemiological evidence from his own practice and cases of other ophthalmologists and drew the conclusion that “children exposed to rubella virus in utero during the first trimester of pregnancy are at risk for not just cataract, but also deafness and other severe problems”.<ref>Burgess M op cit.</ref> However, Normans findings were not immediately accepted amongst the medical profession as Margaret Burgess notes:

<blockquote>There was no laboratory test for rubella, Norman just had a clinical association. He presented his data at a meeting of eye surgeons. While in Australia his results were met with praise and belief, ‘overseas’ people did not trust his data. The Lancet in 1944 wrote ‘Gregg did not prove his case’. When Sir Lorimer Dods, an Australian paediatrician, travelled to the US in 1947 to speak about Gregg’s work, he wrote of the assembly of physicians who listened to his talk. ‘You could see them all doubting’. Only when Gregg’s data was analysed by a mathematician, Professor Oliver Lancaster, a former physician, then statistician and epidemiologist at the University of Sydney, who proved the association between the virus and the congenital syndrome highly significant, only then did the outside world listen and believe Gregg’s data.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

Hence, it was not until 1961, two decades after Norman’s initial findings that research scientists were to isolate were able to isolate the rubella virus. When there was a worldwide outbreak of rubella in 1964, resulting in 20,000 cases of congenital cataract in the United States alone, a vaccine was developed. Paul Lancaster notes that “Norman’s discovery also stimulated rapid development of the fledgling field of teratology, the study of birth defects and their causes.”<ref>Lancaster, Paul, Dictionary of Medical Biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc (forthcoming).</ref>

In 1964 Norman Gregg was awarded the Britannica Australia Award for medicine.
Norman Gregg died in 1968. At the University of Sydney his work is commemorated by the naming of the Norman Gregg Lecture Theatre.

==References==
<references />

Gregg, Sir Norman McAlister

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:25:00 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Ophthalmology category:male category:1900 to 1920 category:Biographies MB 1915 MSurgery 1915 Hon DSc 1952 FRACS Hon FRCOG Hon FRACP Hon AAOO Hon DSc (ANU) Sir No...

[[category:Ophthalmology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1900 to 1920]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB 1915
MSurgery 1915
Hon DSc 1952
FRACS Hon FRCOG Hon FRACP Hon AAOO Hon DSc
(ANU)

Sir Norman McAlister Gregg showed that maternal rubella infection in early pregnancy caused birth defects. His work profoundly influenced further clinical and experimental research into birth defects and their causes.

Norman Gregg was born in Sydney in 1892 and graduated from medicine in 1915 with honours. Aside from his studies, he led and active student life, becoming President of the Undergraduates Association and a director of the University Union. He was an exceptional sportsman – described as a “tall, lithe and vigorous young man” – and played on numerous University teams and representing the State in cricket and tennis. As an adult, Norman continued his love of sport. He became captain and later President of the Royal Sydney Golf Club.<ref>Lancaster P, Rubella. Essays in honour of the centenary of the birth of Sir Norman McAlister Gregg 1892–1966, The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Sydney, 1992.<?ref>

During the World War I he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in France and was awarded the Military Cross “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during a raid”.<ref>ibid.</ref> Paul Lancaster states that “like many other Australian medical graduates of his era, Norman later went to England for postgraduate training and experience, working at the Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital in London, and also at the Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital.”

He returned to Sydney and took up appointments as Paediatric Ophthalmologist Senior Surgeon at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, as well as commencing private practice. When World War II broke out, many young doctors were in the army and consequently Norman saw most of the children with eye problems needing surgery.<ref>Burgess M in McDonald, G L (1994) Roll of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (I) Sydney, RACP. Reprinted with courtesy of RACP. </ref>

<blockquote>Norman became alarmed at the number of babies who came to his office with congenital cataract, at least two or three times more than what would be expected by heredity alone. He heard two mothers speak in the hall outside his office, who both had affected babies. They were discussing how both had had German measles (rubella) in pregnancy. Out of the 78 children born in the early months of 1941 who went to see a doctor in Australia for cataract (13 in his own office), 68 had been exposed to Rubella in utero.<ref>Ibid.</ref> </blockquote>

Although the possibility that maternal infection during pregnancy could cause birth defects and other serious consequences had been considered, this hypothesis lacked evidence. Examining young babies, Norman noted that aside from congenital cataracts, many of the babies he observed:

<blockquote>had congenital heart defects and that most of them were ‘of small size, ill nourished and difficult to feed’. Microphthalmia was also sometimes present. In seeking an explanation for this atypical pattern of birth defects, he elicited a history of rubella infection in early pregnancy from the babies’ mothers.</blockquote>

Epidemics of meningitis and rubella in army camps just outside Sydney was brought home to the community. Norman was convinced that the outbreak of cataract amongst newborns was most likely due to a rubella infection during the mothers’ pregnancy. Norman gathered epidemiological evidence from his own practice and cases of other ophthalmologists and drew the conclusion that “children exposed to rubella virus in utero during the first trimester of pregnancy are at risk for not just cataract, but also deafness and other severe problems”.<ref>Burgess M op cit.</ref> However, Normans findings were not immediately accepted amongst the medical profession as Margaret Burgess notes:

<blockquote>There was no laboratory test for rubella, Norman just had a clinical association. He presented his data at a meeting of eye surgeons. While in Australia his results were met with praise and belief, ‘overseas’ people did not trust his data. The Lancet in 1944 wrote ‘Gregg did not prove his case’. When Sir Lorimer Dods, an Australian paediatrician, travelled to the US in 1947 to speak about Gregg’s work, he wrote of the assembly of physicians who listened to his talk. ‘You could see them all doubting’. Only when Gregg’s data was analysed by a mathematician, Professor Oliver Lancaster, a former physician, then statistician and epidemiologist at the University of Sydney, who proved the association between the virus and the congenital syndrome highly significant, only then did the outside world listen and believe Gregg’s data.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

Hence, it was not until 1961, two decades after Norman’s initial findings that research scientists were to isolate were able to isolate the rubella virus. When there was a worldwide outbreak of rubella in 1964, resulting in 20,000 cases of congenital cataract in the United States alone, a vaccine was developed. Paul Lancaster notes that “Norman’s discovery also stimulated rapid development of the fledgling field of teratology, the study of birth defects and their causes.”<ref>Lancaster, Paul, Dictionary of Medical Biography, Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc (forthcoming).</ref>

In 1964 Norman Gregg was awarded the Britannica Australia Award for medicine.
Norman Gregg died in 1968. At the University of Sydney his work is commemorated by the naming of the Norman Gregg Lecture Theatre.

==References==
<references />

Constable, Ian Jeffrey

Admin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:19:39 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Ophthalmology category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies Cit WA FRANZCO FRCS(Ed) Dip (Am Board Ophthal) FAICD Hon DSc (Murdoch) Ian Constable has be...

[[category:Ophthalmology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
Cit WA FRANZCO FRCS(Ed) Dip (Am Board Ophthal) FAICD Hon DSc (Murdoch)

Ian Constable has been Foundation Lions Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Western Australia since 1975, Foundation Director of the Lions Eye Institute since 1983, and Foundation Chair of the Australian Association of Ophthalmology and Visual Science since 1994. As a leading team member of the Lions Eye Institute, he has been involved in such scientific achievements as the first measurements of oxygen consumption in the living animal eye; the first artificial cornea; the first reversal of a gene defect in large animals in the eye-by-gene therapy; and the development of retinal venous anastomosis for retinal vein occlusions.

After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine, Ian began his career as a Resident Medical Officer at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. By 1968, he began to follow his interest in eye disease as Trainee Registrar in Ophthalmology, a position he retained until 1970. He then travelled to Boston, USA, to engage in retinal research with both the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, receiving his Diploma from the American Board of Ophthalmology in 1973. During this time, he also worked as an Assistant Ophthalmic Surgeon at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

On return his to Australia in 1975, he began his academic career as the Foundation Lions Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Western Australia and concurrently working as Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at the Royal Perth and the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospitals. In the following year, he extended this consultancy to three further hospitals: the Fremantle Hospital, the Hollywood Hospital and the St John of God Hospital; positions he retains to this day.

Ian has been Chief Adviser to the Board of the Lions Save Sight Foundation since 1970. Through this Foundation, which serves 180 Lions clubs in every part of Western Australia, he played a key role in initiating community screening programs for glaucoma, amblyopia, trachoma and diabetic retinopathy.

In 1983, Ian established the Lions Eye Institute in Perth to address escalating incidence of blindness. As Foundation Director he has been responsible for the fundraising, commissioning and formation of laboratories and the recruitment of over 100 scientists and support staff for this facility. The Institute has attracted extensive research grants from local, national and international sources, including from government and industry. In addition, the Lions Eye Institute has assembled a significant endowment fund. The Institute is now the largest medical eye research facility in the southern hemisphere, being the principal point of referral of major eye disease in Western Australia, and attracting numerous referrals for surgical eye care from Southeast Asia each year.

As Founding Professor of Ophthalmology, Ian heads the University of Western Australia Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science (COVS), which is based at the Lions Eye Institute. This centre combines the expertise of ophthalmologists and researchers from a broad spectrum of scientific fields.

Ian has also developed close links throughout Southeast Asia over the last three decades: He is immediate past- President of the Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology, an association which serves more than half the world’s blind. For 20 years, he has been taking teams of ophthalmologists to teach in Indonesia, and has established formal Memoranda of Understanding with the University Airlangga, Surabaya and the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. Recently he was appointed International Consultant to the Tianjin International Eye Centre with the directive to develop ophthalmology in China.

In 2004, Ian Constable was appointed as Director of Eye Health Services of Western Australia advising government on policy, training and resources relating to the provision of public ophthalmic services. He is Chairman of the Premier’s Science Council, a body established to promote science in the West Australian community.

To date, Ian has received 29 Australian and international awards for his services to both medicine and the wider community.<ref>This profile has been compiled from information provided by Professor Ian Constable and accessed from the Lions Eye Institute website,
http://www.lei.org.au, accessed 7 October 2005.</ref>

==References==
<references />

Early women graduates

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:52:45 GMT

Admin:

<ibimage>medicine-isphere_58_1|right|300|300</ibimage>
The University of Sydney Medical School was the first to admit women students.<ref>This chapter has been edited and revised from Young J A, Sefton A J & Webb N (1984) Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine, Chapter Six “Women and the Medical School”.
</ref> In this regard the Dean, Anderson Stuart seems, on the surface at least, to have been rather progressive in his views. In his book The Melbourne Medical School 1862–1962 Kenneth Russell cites a letter of 1885 from Anderson Stuart to David Grant, Lecturer in Materia Medica at Melbourne University, in which Anderson Stuart both rationally and logically advances the right of women to enter on the study of medicine:

<blockquote>''I have had a lady ([[Dagmar Berne]]) in my classes for over two years, as gentle and modest a lady as I have ever seen, as such she came to us and as such she has remained… As a teacher I have never experienced the slightest difficulty in saying what I have to say in the presence of ladies and I have never attempted to gloss over certain subjects because ladies were present…''<ref>Russell, K F (1977). The Melbourne Medical School 1862–1962. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.</ref> </blockquote>

The apparent liberalism of these views, however, must be regarded with some reservation as the story of [[Dagmar Berne]], the first woman to begin the study of medicine in Australia, seems to show: Dagmar enrolled in Medicine in 1885 but appears to have failed her First Professional Examination that year, for she is again listed as a second year student in the 1886 Calendar. That year, she passed her First Professional Examination in Medicine entering Medicine III in 1887 and Medicine IV in 1888. She evidently failed the Second Professional Examination in 1888 since she remained in Medicine IV in 1889. At the end of that year she passed Anatomy and Physiology, the first two units of her Second Professional Examinations, but did not pass Materia Medica and Pathology. She was given deferred examinations in these in March 1890 which she failed. After this last failure, Dagmar left Sydney and went to England as she felt that she was being obstructed from passing her examinations at the University of Sydney. At London University she readily qualified in 1893 and began resident work in a hospital in Tottenham, England. When she returned to Sydney in 1895, she set up practice in Macquarie Street in 1895 and was only the second woman to register to practice as a doctor with the Medical Board of New South Wales.<ref>From Bright Sparcs entry for Dagmar Berne, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/bsparcshome.htm</ref> Sadly, she died five years later at the young age of thirty-four. She is commemorated at the University of Sydney by a prize for proficiency in the final Barrier Examination.

By making the break into a male stronghold, Dagmar had opened the way for other women to follow. Yet, in the first ten years of its existence, the University of Sydney Medical School produced only two women graduates: Iza Coghlan and Grace Robinson both graduated in 1893.
However, once the doors of the Medical School had been opened to admit women, there was a small but steady stream of female enrolments and graduations. In 1898, there were four women graduates: Harriett Biffin, Ada Affleck, Julia Carlisle Thomas and Alice Newton. By 1902 there were 11 women graduates, including Lucy Gullet. The next five years saw the graduation of Constance d’Arcy, Susie O’Reilly, Margaret Harper and Jessie Aspinall. In different ways, each of these women became prominent figures in what proved to be a continuing struggle for the general acceptance of women practitioners.

{|class="bluebox"
|
*Iza Coghlan became the first Sydney graduate to establish private practice in her home city, thus setting an important example and precedent for subsequent Sydney women graduates, and went on later to help form the New South Wales Medical Women’s Association.
*Grace Robinson formed the Professional Women’s Association, whose objective was to bring together professional women interested in improving the social conditions of women and children.
*Julia Carlisle Thomas established the Sydney Medical Mission.
*Harriett Biffin and Lucy Gullett played key roles in the establishment of the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children.
||
*Jessie Aspinall was the first woman appointed Resident at the Prince Alfred Hospital.
*Susie O’Reilly’s battle with Sydney Hospital subsequently opened the doors of that institution to receive women residents.
*Constance d’Arcy became the first woman ever to be elected to the Senate of the University of Sydney.
*Margaret Harper was the first Lecturer in Diseases of the Newborn at the University of Sydney, the moving spirit of the Tresillian Mothercraft Centres, a Foundation Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and an early supporter of the Rachel Forster Hospital.
|}

Although Dagmar had opened the way for women at the University of Sydney, the doors of medical institutions in New South Wales were still fairly firmly closed to women graduates at the turn of the century. After her graduation in 1905, Susie O’Reilly became a cause célèbre in her attempts to break down these subsequent barriers to women practitioners gaining experience side by side with men in public rather than private practice. Susie’s unsuccessful application to the Royal Prince Alfred, North Shore and Sydney Hospitals led to a public outcry from the press and organisations such as the Women’s Progressive Organisation against discrimination based on sex. Having passed fourth on the merit list in her year, Susie, had she been male, would have automatically qualified to be considered for residency at one of the major hospitals. Yet her application to Sydney Hospital was declined on the grounds that it had no suitable accommodation for women practitioners. As this was the main reason given for refusal, pressure was brought to bear on the Premier of New South Wales. The Premier’s Department promised to look into the matter and, at the end of 1905, the Board of Directors of Sydney Hospital moved in favour of alterations to enable the Hospital to accept women in the future. In the meanwhile, however, Susie had successfully applied for a residency at Adelaide General Hospital.

At the end of the same year, 1905, Jessie Aspinall completed her finals at the University of Sydney and was offered a residency by the Medical Board of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Yet, the Conjoint Board refused to ratify the Hospital’s decision. This provoked a strong public outcry. Jessie’s father, women’s organisations, the press and the public at large joined forces in what was basically a battle over women’s rights. Anderson Stuart, being both Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Chairman of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, was understandably expected to express an opinion on the matter. He supported Jessie’s case unequivocally: she had succeeded ‘in open competition with men’ and was therefore entitled to the position.

Public opinion, Anderson Stuart’s stand and finally the Premier’s intervention led to Jessie being reinstated, the first woman to be appointed to one of the main general hospitals in Sydney.

Prior to this, experience could be gained in private practice, by going interstate or overseas, or by working at the Sydney Medical Mission, which was established in 1900 with the objective of alleviating medical problems among the indigent populace of the inner city. The instigator here was Julia Carlile Thomas, and so the Mission became a centre of clinical experience for other women graduates as well. As the institution was almost wholly staffed by voluntary workers and its income barely covered expenditure, the Medical Mission was not a viable economic alternative to private practice or a general hospital appointment for any recent graduate. It did, however, serve the function for which it was originally established and in its time had help and encouragement from such prominent medical figures as J T Wilson, Charles Bickerton Blackburn, Margaret Harper, Jessie Aspinall and Susie O’Reilly. The Medical Mission functioned almost until the end of the World War I, but finally had to be closed down due largely to the fact that the war very seriously depleted the number of practitioners available to work in it.

The time was now ripe for women graduates to attempt what had not been possible when there was only a handful of them – namely, found a hospital staffed by women for women. The impetus came from Lucy Gullett who, after visiting the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne during its 25 anniversary celebrations in 1921, came back to Sydney determined to start a similar hospital in her home state. Together with Harriett Biffin she founded the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children in 1922.

==References==
<references />

Early women graduates

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:50:04 GMT

Admin:

<ibimage>medicine-isphere_58_1|right</ibimage>
The University of Sydney Medical School was the first to admit women students.<ref>This chapter has been edited and revised from Young J A, Sefton A J & Webb N (1984) Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine, Chapter Six “Women and the Medical School”.
</ref> In this regard the Dean, Anderson Stuart seems, on the surface at least, to have been rather progressive in his views. In his book The Melbourne Medical School 1862–1962 Kenneth Russell cites a letter of 1885 from Anderson Stuart to David Grant, Lecturer in Materia Medica at Melbourne University, in which Anderson Stuart both rationally and logically advances the right of women to enter on the study of medicine:

<blockquote>''I have had a lady ([[Dagmar Berne]]) in my classes for over two years, as gentle and modest a lady as I have ever seen, as such she came to us and as such she has remained… As a teacher I have never experienced the slightest difficulty in saying what I have to say in the presence of ladies and I have never attempted to gloss over certain subjects because ladies were present…''<ref>Russell, K F (1977). The Melbourne Medical School 1862–1962. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.</ref> </blockquote>

The apparent liberalism of these views, however, must be regarded with some reservation as the story of [[Dagmar Berne]], the first woman to begin the study of medicine in Australia, seems to show: Dagmar enrolled in Medicine in 1885 but appears to have failed her First Professional Examination that year, for she is again listed as a second year student in the 1886 Calendar. That year, she passed her First Professional Examination in Medicine entering Medicine III in 1887 and Medicine IV in 1888. She evidently failed the Second Professional Examination in 1888 since she remained in Medicine IV in 1889. At the end of that year she passed Anatomy and Physiology, the first two units of her Second Professional Examinations, but did not pass Materia Medica and Pathology. She was given deferred examinations in these in March 1890 which she failed. After this last failure, Dagmar left Sydney and went to England as she felt that she was being obstructed from passing her examinations at the University of Sydney. At London University she readily qualified in 1893 and began resident work in a hospital in Tottenham, England. When she returned to Sydney in 1895, she set up practice in Macquarie Street in 1895 and was only the second woman to register to practice as a doctor with the Medical Board of New South Wales.<ref>From Bright Sparcs entry for Dagmar Berne, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/bsparcshome.htm</ref> Sadly, she died five years later at the young age of thirty-four. She is commemorated at the University of Sydney by a prize for proficiency in the final Barrier Examination.

By making the break into a male stronghold, Dagmar had opened the way for other women to follow. Yet, in the first ten years of its existence, the University of Sydney Medical School produced only two women graduates: Iza Coghlan and Grace Robinson both graduated in 1893.
However, once the doors of the Medical School had been opened to admit women, there was a small but steady stream of female enrolments and graduations. In 1898, there were four women graduates: Harriett Biffin, Ada Affleck, Julia Carlisle Thomas and Alice Newton. By 1902 there were 11 women graduates, including Lucy Gullet. The next five years saw the graduation of Constance d’Arcy, Susie O’Reilly, Margaret Harper and Jessie Aspinall. In different ways, each of these women became prominent figures in what proved to be a continuing struggle for the general acceptance of women practitioners.

{|class="bluebox"
|
*Iza Coghlan became the first Sydney graduate to establish private practice in her home city, thus setting an important example and precedent for subsequent Sydney women graduates, and went on later to help form the New South Wales Medical Women’s Association.
*Grace Robinson formed the Professional Women’s Association, whose objective was to bring together professional women interested in improving the social conditions of women and children.
*Julia Carlisle Thomas established the Sydney Medical Mission.
*Harriett Biffin and Lucy Gullett played key roles in the establishment of the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children.
||
*Jessie Aspinall was the first woman appointed Resident at the Prince Alfred Hospital.
*Susie O’Reilly’s battle with Sydney Hospital subsequently opened the doors of that institution to receive women residents.
*Constance d’Arcy became the first woman ever to be elected to the Senate of the University of Sydney.
*Margaret Harper was the first Lecturer in Diseases of the Newborn at the University of Sydney, the moving spirit of the Tresillian Mothercraft Centres, a Foundation Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and an early supporter of the Rachel Forster Hospital.
|}

Although Dagmar had opened the way for women at the University of Sydney, the doors of medical institutions in New South Wales were still fairly firmly closed to women graduates at the turn of the century. After her graduation in 1905, Susie O’Reilly became a cause célèbre in her attempts to break down these subsequent barriers to women practitioners gaining experience side by side with men in public rather than private practice. Susie’s unsuccessful application to the Royal Prince Alfred, North Shore and Sydney Hospitals led to a public outcry from the press and organisations such as the Women’s Progressive Organisation against discrimination based on sex. Having passed fourth on the merit list in her year, Susie, had she been male, would have automatically qualified to be considered for residency at one of the major hospitals. Yet her application to Sydney Hospital was declined on the grounds that it had no suitable accommodation for women practitioners. As this was the main reason given for refusal, pressure was brought to bear on the Premier of New South Wales. The Premier’s Department promised to look into the matter and, at the end of 1905, the Board of Directors of Sydney Hospital moved in favour of alterations to enable the Hospital to accept women in the future. In the meanwhile, however, Susie had successfully applied for a residency at Adelaide General Hospital.

At the end of the same year, 1905, Jessie Aspinall completed her finals at the University of Sydney and was offered a residency by the Medical Board of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Yet, the Conjoint Board refused to ratify the Hospital’s decision. This provoked a strong public outcry. Jessie’s father, women’s organisations, the press and the public at large joined forces in what was basically a battle over women’s rights. Anderson Stuart, being both Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Chairman of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, was understandably expected to express an opinion on the matter. He supported Jessie’s case unequivocally: she had succeeded ‘in open competition with men’ and was therefore entitled to the position.

Public opinion, Anderson Stuart’s stand and finally the Premier’s intervention led to Jessie being reinstated, the first woman to be appointed to one of the main general hospitals in Sydney.

Prior to this, experience could be gained in private practice, by going interstate or overseas, or by working at the Sydney Medical Mission, which was established in 1900 with the objective of alleviating medical problems among the indigent populace of the inner city. The instigator here was Julia Carlile Thomas, and so the Mission became a centre of clinical experience for other women graduates as well. As the institution was almost wholly staffed by voluntary workers and its income barely covered expenditure, the Medical Mission was not a viable economic alternative to private practice or a general hospital appointment for any recent graduate. It did, however, serve the function for which it was originally established and in its time had help and encouragement from such prominent medical figures as J T Wilson, Charles Bickerton Blackburn, Margaret Harper, Jessie Aspinall and Susie O’Reilly. The Medical Mission functioned almost until the end of the World War I, but finally had to be closed down due largely to the fact that the war very seriously depleted the number of practitioners available to work in it.

The time was now ripe for women graduates to attempt what had not been possible when there was only a handful of them – namely, found a hospital staffed by women for women. The impetus came from Lucy Gullett who, after visiting the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne during its 25 anniversary celebrations in 1921, came back to Sydney determined to start a similar hospital in her home state. Together with Harriett Biffin she founded the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children in 1922.

==References==
<references />

Early women graduates

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:48:15 GMT

Admin:

<ibimage>medicine-isphere_58_1|right|400|400</ibimage>
The University of Sydney Medical School was the first to admit women students.<ref>This chapter has been edited and revised from Young J A, Sefton A J & Webb N (1984) Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine, Chapter Six “Women and the Medical School”.
</ref> In this regard the Dean, Anderson Stuart seems, on the surface at least, to have been rather progressive in his views. In his book The Melbourne Medical School 1862–1962 Kenneth Russell cites a letter of 1885 from Anderson Stuart to David Grant, Lecturer in Materia Medica at Melbourne University, in which Anderson Stuart both rationally and logically advances the right of women to enter on the study of medicine:

<blockquote>''I have had a lady ([[Dagmar Berne]]) in my classes for over two years, as gentle and modest a lady as I have ever seen, as such she came to us and as such she has remained… As a teacher I have never experienced the slightest difficulty in saying what I have to say in the presence of ladies and I have never attempted to gloss over certain subjects because ladies were present…''<ref>Russell, K F (1977). The Melbourne Medical School 1862–1962. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.</ref> </blockquote>

The apparent liberalism of these views, however, must be regarded with some reservation as the story of [[Dagmar Berne]], the first woman to begin the study of medicine in Australia, seems to show: Dagmar enrolled in Medicine in 1885 but appears to have failed her First Professional Examination that year, for she is again listed as a second year student in the 1886 Calendar. That year, she passed her First Professional Examination in Medicine entering Medicine III in 1887 and Medicine IV in 1888. She evidently failed the Second Professional Examination in 1888 since she remained in Medicine IV in 1889. At the end of that year she passed Anatomy and Physiology, the first two units of her Second Professional Examinations, but did not pass Materia Medica and Pathology. She was given deferred examinations in these in March 1890 which she failed. After this last failure, Dagmar left Sydney and went to England as she felt that she was being obstructed from passing her examinations at the University of Sydney. At London University she readily qualified in 1893 and began resident work in a hospital in Tottenham, England. When she returned to Sydney in 1895, she set up practice in Macquarie Street in 1895 and was only the second woman to register to practice as a doctor with the Medical Board of New South Wales.<ref>From Bright Sparcs entry for Dagmar Berne, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/bsparcshome.htm</ref> Sadly, she died five years later at the young age of thirty-four. She is commemorated at the University of Sydney by a prize for proficiency in the final Barrier Examination.

By making the break into a male stronghold, Dagmar had opened the way for other women to follow. Yet, in the first ten years of its existence, the University of Sydney Medical School produced only two women graduates: Iza Coghlan and Grace Robinson both graduated in 1893.
However, once the doors of the Medical School had been opened to admit women, there was a small but steady stream of female enrolments and graduations. In 1898, there were four women graduates: Harriett Biffin, Ada Affleck, Julia Carlisle Thomas and Alice Newton. By 1902 there were 11 women graduates, including Lucy Gullet. The next five years saw the graduation of Constance d’Arcy, Susie O’Reilly, Margaret Harper and Jessie Aspinall. In different ways, each of these women became prominent figures in what proved to be a continuing struggle for the general acceptance of women practitioners.

{|class="bluebox"
|
*Iza Coghlan became the first Sydney graduate to establish private practice in her home city, thus setting an important example and precedent for subsequent Sydney women graduates, and went on later to help form the New South Wales Medical Women’s Association.
*Grace Robinson formed the Professional Women’s Association, whose objective was to bring together professional women interested in improving the social conditions of women and children.
*Julia Carlisle Thomas established the Sydney Medical Mission.
*Harriett Biffin and Lucy Gullett played key roles in the establishment of the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children.
||
*Jessie Aspinall was the first woman appointed Resident at the Prince Alfred Hospital.
*Susie O’Reilly’s battle with Sydney Hospital subsequently opened the doors of that institution to receive women residents.
*Constance d’Arcy became the first woman ever to be elected to the Senate of the University of Sydney.
*Margaret Harper was the first Lecturer in Diseases of the Newborn at the University of Sydney, the moving spirit of the Tresillian Mothercraft Centres, a Foundation Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and an early supporter of the Rachel Forster Hospital.
|}

Although Dagmar had opened the way for women at the University of Sydney, the doors of medical institutions in New South Wales were still fairly firmly closed to women graduates at the turn of the century. After her graduation in 1905, Susie O’Reilly became a cause célèbre in her attempts to break down these subsequent barriers to women practitioners gaining experience side by side with men in public rather than private practice. Susie’s unsuccessful application to the Royal Prince Alfred, North Shore and Sydney Hospitals led to a public outcry from the press and organisations such as the Women’s Progressive Organisation against discrimination based on sex. Having passed fourth on the merit list in her year, Susie, had she been male, would have automatically qualified to be considered for residency at one of the major hospitals. Yet her application to Sydney Hospital was declined on the grounds that it had no suitable accommodation for women practitioners. As this was the main reason given for refusal, pressure was brought to bear on the Premier of New South Wales. The Premier’s Department promised to look into the matter and, at the end of 1905, the Board of Directors of Sydney Hospital moved in favour of alterations to enable the Hospital to accept women in the future. In the meanwhile, however, Susie had successfully applied for a residency at Adelaide General Hospital.

At the end of the same year, 1905, Jessie Aspinall completed her finals at the University of Sydney and was offered a residency by the Medical Board of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Yet, the Conjoint Board refused to ratify the Hospital’s decision. This provoked a strong public outcry. Jessie’s father, women’s organisations, the press and the public at large joined forces in what was basically a battle over women’s rights. Anderson Stuart, being both Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Chairman of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, was understandably expected to express an opinion on the matter. He supported Jessie’s case unequivocally: she had succeeded ‘in open competition with men’ and was therefore entitled to the position.

Public opinion, Anderson Stuart’s stand and finally the Premier’s intervention led to Jessie being reinstated, the first woman to be appointed to one of the main general hospitals in Sydney.

Prior to this, experience could be gained in private practice, by going interstate or overseas, or by working at the Sydney Medical Mission, which was established in 1900 with the objective of alleviating medical problems among the indigent populace of the inner city. The instigator here was Julia Carlile Thomas, and so the Mission became a centre of clinical experience for other women graduates as well. As the institution was almost wholly staffed by voluntary workers and its income barely covered expenditure, the Medical Mission was not a viable economic alternative to private practice or a general hospital appointment for any recent graduate. It did, however, serve the function for which it was originally established and in its time had help and encouragement from such prominent medical figures as J T Wilson, Charles Bickerton Blackburn, Margaret Harper, Jessie Aspinall and Susie O’Reilly. The Medical Mission functioned almost until the end of the World War I, but finally had to be closed down due largely to the fact that the war very seriously depleted the number of practitioners available to work in it.

The time was now ripe for women graduates to attempt what had not been possible when there was only a handful of them – namely, found a hospital staffed by women for women. The impetus came from Lucy Gullett who, after visiting the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne during its 25 anniversary celebrations in 1921, came back to Sydney determined to start a similar hospital in her home state. Together with Harriett Biffin she founded the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children in 1922.

==References==
<references />

Claffy, Francis Patrick

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:08:36 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Ophthalmology category:male category:1920 to 1940 category:Biographies MB BS 1933 Francis (Frank) Claffy was the first Director of the Department of Ophthalmology ...

[[category:Ophthalmology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1920 to 1940]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1933
Francis (Frank) Claffy was the first Director of the Department of Ophthalmology and Eye Health at the Sydney Eye Hospital when it was established in 1964. In this position, he facilitated the implementation of three specialist units within Ophthalmology.

After graduating with honours in 1933, Frank served his internship at both Sydney Hospital and the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children. The following year he took up an appointment at the Sydney Eye Hospital and began the field of work that was to remain his life-long interest. After a course of study at Moorefield’s Hospital in London, he obtained his Diploma of Ophthalmology and returned to Australia to work in private practice in Bathurst, NSW.

At the outbreak of World War II, Frank was commissioned as Major in 2/10th Australian General Hospital and was posted to Malaya with the 22nd Brigade AIF. In 1942, his unit was captured by the Japanese and he became a prisoner of war for the next 43 months. His professional work with prisoners is reported to be “legendary” for the long hours he worked “examining and recording the ocular lesions resulting from avitaminosis and general malnutrition”. Like many others in similar situations, he had the difficult task of making the scant remedial provisions available to those most in need. During his time of internment, he wrote a thesis on the effects of nutritional diseases on the eye which was later published.<ref>Young, Sefton and Webb, 1984. Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine, the Sydney University Press, Sydney, p421.</ref>

After his discharge from the Army, he was re-employed at the Sydney Eye Hospital and quickly re-established himself within the institution. According to an account of Ophthalmology in the hospital at the time, “his clinical knowledge and experience were extensive and his opinion was frequently sought by other consultants”. Frank was fully committed to the interests of the Hospital as a teaching centre and was the first Director of the Department of Clinical Ophthalmology and Eye Health at the University of Sydney. When he was appointed in 1964, he was granted three part-time lecturers. With Frank’s encouragement, three sub-specialties were developed within the Department, Donaldson establishing the Retinal Unit with fluorescein angiography and photocoagulation for investigation and treatment of retinal diseases; Rogers developing the Orbito-plastic Unit; and Cowle researching glaucoma.<ref>ibid.</ref>

At the time of Frank’s retirement in 1974, he was Director and Chairman of the Ophthalmological staff. According to his colleague K Fagen:

<blockquote>He earned the respect of his colleagues for his conservative and meticulous surgery and for his opinions, which were based upon wide experience and profound knowledge… It was his idea to sponsor special interests within ophthalmology and it was through his selfless, untiring persistence that the retinal, corneal and plastic clinics came into function at the Eye Hospital.<ref>From obituary written by Dr K J Fagan, appearing in MJA 12 January 1980. </ref></blockquote>

Frank was a man with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. In addition to his work with the Hospital and University, he studied law during the 1970s, being admitted as a Barrister in 1974, and obtaining two further postgraduate legal diplomas soon after. Colleague Frank Billson acknowledges Frank’s legacy:

<blockquote>In 1960, the sum of $100,000 was given to establish a Chair in Ophthalmology in the University of Sydney. Claffy was one of those most instrumental in convincing the University of the need for a Chair in Ophthalmology and Eye Health, and his material contributions to the Claffy Foundation still provide essential support in the research programs being carried out in the Department. In 1977, [he] was appointed as Foundation Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology.<ref>Young, Sefton and Webb, op cit p422.</ref></blockquote>

On his death in 1979, Frank left a considerable bequest to both the Society of St Vincent de Paul and the Department of Eye Health Research at the University of Sydney.

==References==
<references />

Saunders, Douglas M

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:04:13 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Obstetrics and Gynaecology category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MB BS 1962 MD 1974 FRANZCOG FRCOG FRACS Douglas Saunders established the first...

[[category:Obstetrics and Gynaecology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1962
MD 1974
FRANZCOG FRCOG FRACS

Douglas Saunders established the first University Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the first specialised Fertility Clinic at Royal North Shore Hospital. His clinic achieved the first IVF pregnancy in NSW in 1982, and is one of the most successful in Australia. He is one of the founders of the Fertility Society of Australia.

Douglas graduated from Medicine at the University of Sydney and soon after, gained international research experience at Cornell University Medical School in New York. He returned in 1972 to set up the first University Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and the first specialised Fertility Clinic at Royal North Shore Hospital. He also completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Sydney (graduating in 1974) on Corpus Luteum Function, as it relates to infertility and fertility control.

Douglas successfully followed in the tradition of his two great predecessors, Professor Bruce Mayes and Professor Rodney Shearman, as Head of the Academic Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Sydney. He was the ‘complete’ academic with his widely recognised abilities and achievements in clinical medicine, teaching, mentoring of postgraduate students, research, administration, community service and collaboration with other departments and groups. He helped to nurture and shape the present academic culture of the Department through the establishment of an academic Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Royal North Shore Hospital’s Northern Clinical School, through a major contribution to the development of the Graduate Medical Program, and through the development of the Masters Degree in Reproductive Health Sciences and Human Genetics.

Douglas has had wide interests within reproductive medicine, but has achieved his major successes in the field of infertility. His clinic achieved the first IVF pregnancy in NSW in 1982, and is one of the most successful in Australia. He says of this time that there was an explosion of information in reproductive medicine, associated with patient demand brought about by the lack of babies available for adoption, and the shift in society with couples deferring childbearing until they were older and more likely to be infertile. Royal North Shore Hospital soon had 2500 couples on their waiting list for IVF. Douglas says, “there was suddenly a need for new societies, patient support groups, drugs and pharmaceutical companies, and new standards required for clinicians and clinical practice.”

Douglas helped found the Fertility Society of Australia, which is now in its 25th year, and became its third President. This Society grew out of the combination of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research Society, Donor Insemination Workshops, and the Australian Society for Reproductive Biology. It provided a multidisciplinary forum combining clinical services, rapidly changing research and even veterinary technology. In 2005, Douglas retired from his position as Chair of its Reproductive Technologies Advisory Committee, the accrediting body for all 83 Fertility Clinics in Australia and New Zealand, having been primarily responsible for reorganising this Committee and its procedures to ensure that it has comprehensive and relevant oversight of the quality of infertility services throughout Australia and New Zealand for the foreseeable future.

He was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on the Queen’s Birthday honours List in 2001 for service to Medicine, particularly in the area of infertility, to the development of standards of practice and health care for women, and as a teacher, researcher and clinician.

Douglas retired from the Academic Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 2003 and, at the same time, retired from his Chair at the University of Sydney, based at Royal North Shore Hospital. On his retirement he was appointed Emeritus Professor.<ref>Compiled from http://www.usyd.edu.au/su.obs-gyno, accessed 4 January 2006. Additional information provided by Douglas Saunders.</ref> He remains in clinical practice in reproductive medicine, and is Chair of the Research and Development Committee of IVF Australia. This organisation is a large Sydney-based infertility service, and supports research and teaching for the University of Sydney. Recently, IVF Australia was associated with the development of an embryonic stem cell line with the Juvenile Diabetes Unit at University of NSW.

His original clinic remains in operation and in 2005 alone, was associated with 550 IVF pregnancies in 2005.

==References==
<references />

Mayes, Bruce Toomba

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:02:11 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Obstetrics and Gynaecology category:male category:1920 to 1940 category:Biographies MB BS MRVO MD FRCS(E) FRACS FRCOG FRACOG FRACGP Bruce Mayes was appointed to t...

[[category:Obstetrics and Gynaecology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1920 to 1940]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS
MRVO MD FRCS(E) FRACS FRCOG FRACOG FRACGP

Bruce Mayes was appointed to the first full-time Chair of Obstetrics at the University of Sydney.

Bruce was born in 1903 in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane. His father was Mayor there at the time and, doubtless because of this, added the name Toowoomba to his son’s birth certificate. As might have been anticipated, this led to terrible ragging when the poor boy left his native town to study at the University of Sydney at St Andrews College and, with parental permission, he changed his middle name to Toomba. This should have saved him from further ragging had he not chosen to make Obstetrics and Gynaecology his life’s work–in the event, he became known later in life as the “man who took the womb out of Toowoomba”.

Bruce came to Sydney in 1921 to study medicine, and graduated in 1927, with honours. After initial clinical training in Sydney, he gained the Walter and Eliza Hall Travelling Medical Research Fellowship in 1929. He took the unusual step for those days of working in Frankfurt, Germany under Professor Ludwig Seitz, where he helped to develop the first bioassays to confirm human pregnancy. Thence he went to Berlin and, later still, for a year to University College Hospital where he worked with his great mentor,
F J Browne.

He returned to practice as a specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist in Brisbane remaining there until 1941, when he was appointed to the first full-time Chair of Obstetrics at the University of Sydney He then renewed his association with the Royal Hospital for Women, at that time a teaching hospital of this University, and began his long association with King George V Memorial Hospital, which opened in the year of his appointment. He also served as a Gynaecological Consultant to the Royal Australian Air Force.

He assumed the enormous burden of all university-based teaching in his professed area, as well as a heavy load in the clinical teaching at the Royal Hospital for Women, the Women’s Hospital Crown Street and King George V Hospital, later on also at St Margaret’s Hospital. In 1950, he published his now classic Textbook of Obstetrics, which became the standard undergraduate text for medical students throughout Australia and in much of the English-speaking world.

In 1954, Queen Elizabeth II made her first visit to Australia and agreed to the formation of the Coronation Gift Fund. Against twenty other competitors, Bruce was successful in securing funds to build the Queen Elizabeth II Research Institute. The Queen Elizabeth II Research Institute for Mothers and Infants was eventually built on land at the fringe of Number One Oval, and opened by the Queen Mother in 1958. By the time he retired, he had added two Associate Professors, a Reader and a large supporting staff to a department which has attracted substantial outside research support.

After the long stewardship of the late Sir Harold Dew as Dean of Medicine (1940-1952), the Faculty elected Edward Ford for five years (1952-1957) as Dean followed by Bruce Mayes, who served with distinction from 1957 to 1959. In 1964, he achieved the amalgamation of gynaecology with obstetrics, the former having been placed until then within the Department of Surgery.

During the time the Duke of Gloucester was Governor General, Bruce was appointed Honorary Surgeon to the Duchess of Gloucester, an appointment that turned out to require an active rather than honorary role. He regarded this appointment as an honour for his Faculty and the University. He in turn was honoured by appointment as a Member of the Royal Victorian Order.

Another deep commitment, in which he was outstandingly successful, was to his Professional College. The Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists was yet to be established and the professional standards of obstetrics and gynaecology were then overseen by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists from London. Bruce was instrumental in establishing the Australian Regional Council of the RCOG and was successively its Secretary, Treasurer and finally, Chairman.

In 1954, he was the first of only two Australians to be honoured with an appointment as Sims-Black Travelling Professor of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In this capacity he taught in every medical school in the United Kingdom.

Mayes was not political but served his politicians well. Together with Grace Cuthbert Browne from the State Department of Health, he established and secured the Maternal Mortality Committee at a time in history, when childbirth was one of the great and sad executioners of young women. His advice was valued by both state and federal ministers.

Finally, he was a great writer, and continued to exercise his skill long after he became Professor Emeritus. His most recent book, published in 1987 when he was 84 years old, was his autobiography Babies for Ladies–my 60 years of caring for women.

Bruce received further public recognition in the year after his retirement when he was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. His younger academic colleagues at the Queen Elizabeth Research Institute at the same time commissioned the portrait by Clifton Pugh that hangs in his Institute.<ref>Slightly edited version from http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/obs-gyno, accessed 4 January 2006. Reprinted with permission.</ref>

==References==
<references />

Hamlin, Elinor Catherine

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:58:39 GMT

Admin:

[[category:Obstetrics and Gynaecology]]
[[category:female]]
[[category:1940 to 1960]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1946
MD honoris causa 2005
FRCOG (Eng) ad eundem
FRANZCOG (Aust)
FRCS (Eng) Honorary
FACS (America) Honorary

Catherine Hamlin, with her late husband Reginald, co-founded the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia in 1974. This hospital has now treated more than 26,000 girls suffering from fistulas and other birth injuries.

After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine, Catherine became House Surgeon at St Joseph’s and St George’s Hospitals. In 1948, she was appointed Senior Resident Medical Officer at the Crown Street Women’s Hospital, where she remained until 1953. There she met and married Dr Reginald Hamlin. Together, in 1958, they answered an advertisement for an obstetrician and gynaecologist to establish a Midwifery School in the General Hospital in Addis Ababa. Initially, they went to Addis Ababa for three years. However, the Hamlins soon became aware of the plight of hundreds of ‘fistula women’.

Catherine described the cause of the fistula as being: the agonising journeys to hospital faced by many patients from remote areas, including a typical two-day walk to the nearest road followed by lengthy travel by bus; a labour of four, six or even 10 days followed by a stillbirth; and the devastating injuries caused by obstructed labour. These are patients who are the unfortunate 5 per cent of all labouring women who suffer an obstructed labour.

[The Hamlins] were profoundly affected by their serious needs, and decided to stay in Addis Ababa and do something to help them. They were inspired by an American surgeon who in the 1850s demonstrated that these injuries could be cured. They were able to develop this delicate surgical technique to successfully repair fistulae caused by obstructed childbirth in 93 per cent of cases.

A fistula waiting hostel was built in the grounds of the Princess Tsehai Hospital to house patients, while waiting for a bed in the hospital. In the first year, fistula repairs were carried out on 32 women. By the third year 300 women had been healed. They perfected their surgical procedure. Each operation takes from about one to three hours to perform. As word spread that a cure for this condition was possible more and more patients arrived for surgery. There were not enough beds at the Princess Tsehai Hospital to treat them. The Hamlins decided that they must find a hospital for these “outcast” women, something that would be a sanctuary and a haven, where they would be welcomed and restored. The “Hamlin Fistula Research and Welfare Trust” was registered in Ethiopia. Land for the Hospital was purchased.

The first ward of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital was opened in 1974. Because the patients were so poor, treatment had to be given free of charge.<ref>From http://www.fistulatrust.org, accessed 3 October 2005.</ref>

When Reg Hamlin OBE died in 1993, Catherine pledged to continue the work they had begun together. Without his physical support however, there was a need for additional doctors.

<blockquote>An increasing number of patients were coming for surgery and the hospital buildings needed to be upgraded and extended. A house for a new resident doctor was built. The Princess Anne Ward, the pathology laboratory and the library were also built. A more intensive program to train doctors and nurses in fistula surgery was commenced. Because of the extreme difficulty patients have to reach Addis Ababa, a mobile Medical Team was established, to travel to remote areas of Ethiopia, and to do fistula operations in regional hospitals. A Land Rover was donated by Rotary Clubs in Australia. The Fistula Hospital building complex was restructured and major extensions were made. A new operating theatre, an X-ray room and physiotherapy centre was built.
Accommodation for resident nurses and for overseas doctors in training, were constructed. A bore for water was sunk. This project was funded by the Australian Government, AusAID, and other generous donors in Australia and New Zealand. At a later date an additional 30-bed ward was built in the grounds of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, also funded by Australia.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

At the degree ceremony at which Catherine received her Doctor of Medicine, University Chancellor Justice Kim Santow paid tribute to the Hamlins for devoting their lives to alleviating the suffering of Ethiopian women. The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gavin Brown, said that “the Hamlins did not simply cure their patients, they cared for them”. But the dual nature of her work, both heartbreaking and inspirational, was best conveyed by Catherine herself:

<blockquote>Patients are still arriving daily, each one deserving the utmost compassion the human heart is capable of…They arrive with nothing but faith and hope and urine-soaked clothes.</blockquote>

When the young women have been treated, they either need to stay for further rehabilitation or are free to return home. Catherine describes this moment:

<blockquote>We don’t just say to them now you are cured, just go out the gate and you will be alright. They wouldn’t know where to go. They wouldn’t have money to get home. So twice a week we take them in our vehicles, in our Land Rover or a 4-wheel drive, up to the market area where the buses leave and we pay their fares back to their village. Not only do they have a new dress and perhaps a new headscarf, but they have a card which they carry which describes the operation which we have done and we tell them that this is a very precious card. You keep it safely and when you are pregnant again you must get to a hospital and take this card with you as soon as you feel the baby walking around in your stomach. You will be looked after possibly needing a Caesarian Section, to give you a live baby.<ref>Catherine Hamlin, in Gazette, May 2005.</ref></blockquote>

According to Catherine, around 99 per cent of fistulae cases can be cured by surgery. But without access to treatment, many of the women are treated as pariahs in their home villages; unable to control the flow of urine or faeces, they are usually abandoned by their husbands and treated as outcasts in their own communities. To help the women for whom surgery does not provide a solution, their team has built the village Desta Mender on 60 acres of land, given by the Ethiopian Government. Says Catherine:

<blockquote>Fortunately, it is only about half a percent of all the patients that we see that have this terrible injury where the bladder is irreparably injured, and so we have built this village especially for them. It is a beautiful place, with ten women to every house”.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

Catherine is confident about the future even though patient numbers are still increasing: “Our hope is that one day every woman will be able to have a safe delivery and a live birth.”<ref>Gazette, April 2005.</ref>

==References==
<references />

Hamlin, Elinor Catherine

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:58:07 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Obstetrics and Gynaecology category:female category:1940 to 1960 category:Biographies MB BS 1946 MD honoris causa 2005 FRCOG (Eng) ad eundem FRANZCOG (Aust) FRCS (...

[[category:Obstetrics and Gynaecology]]
[[category:female]]
[[category:1940 to 1960]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1946
MD honoris causa 2005
FRCOG (Eng) ad eundem
FRANZCOG (Aust)
FRCS (Eng) Honorary
FACS (America) Honorary

Catherine Hamlin, with her late husband Reginald, co-founded the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia in 1974. This hospital has now treated more than 26,000 girls suffering from fistulas and other birth injuries.

After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine, Catherine became House Surgeon at St Joseph’s and St George’s Hospitals. In 1948, she was appointed Senior Resident Medical Officer at the Crown Street Women’s Hospital, where she remained until 1953. There she met and married Dr Reginald Hamlin. Together, in 1958, they answered an advertisement for an obstetrician and gynaecologist to establish a Midwifery School in the General Hospital in Addis Ababa. Initially, they went to Addis Ababa for three years. However, the Hamlins soon became aware of the plight of hundreds of ‘fistula women’.

Catherine described the cause of the fistula as being: the agonising journeys to hospital faced by many patients from remote areas, including a typical two-day walk to the nearest road followed by lengthy travel by bus; a labour of four, six or even 10 days followed by a stillbirth; and the devastating injuries caused by obstructed labour. These are patients who are the unfortunate 5 per cent of all labouring women who suffer an obstructed labour.

[The Hamlins] were profoundly affected by their serious needs, and decided to stay in Addis Ababa and do something to help them. They were inspired by an American surgeon who in the 1850s demonstrated that these injuries could be cured. They were able to develop this delicate surgical technique to successfully repair fistulae caused by obstructed childbirth in 93 per cent of cases.

A fistula waiting hostel was built in the grounds of the Princess Tsehai Hospital to house patients, while waiting for a bed in the hospital. In the first year, fistula repairs were carried out on 32 women. By the third year 300 women had been healed. They perfected their surgical procedure. Each operation takes from about one to three hours to perform. As word spread that a cure for this condition was possible more and more patients arrived for surgery. There were not enough beds at the Princess Tsehai Hospital to treat them. The Hamlins decided that they must find a hospital for these “outcast” women, something that would be a sanctuary and a haven, where they would be welcomed and restored. The “Hamlin Fistula Research and Welfare Trust” was registered in Ethiopia. Land for the Hospital was purchased.

The first ward of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital was opened in 1974. Because the patients were so poor, treatment had to be given free of charge.<ref>From http://www.fistulatrust.org, accessed 3 October 2005.<ref>

When Reg Hamlin OBE died in 1993, Catherine pledged to continue the work they had begun together. Without his physical support however, there was a need for additional doctors.

<blockquote>An increasing number of patients were coming for surgery and the hospital buildings needed to be upgraded and extended. A house for a new resident doctor was built. The Princess Anne Ward, the pathology laboratory and the library were also built. A more intensive program to train doctors and nurses in fistula surgery was commenced. Because of the extreme difficulty patients have to reach Addis Ababa, a mobile Medical Team was established, to travel to remote areas of Ethiopia, and to do fistula operations in regional hospitals. A Land Rover was donated by Rotary Clubs in Australia. The Fistula Hospital building complex was restructured and major extensions were made. A new operating theatre, an X-ray room and physiotherapy centre was built.
Accommodation for resident nurses and for overseas doctors in training, were constructed. A bore for water was sunk. This project was funded by the Australian Government, AusAID, and other generous donors in Australia and New Zealand. At a later date an additional 30-bed ward was built in the grounds of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, also funded by Australia.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

At the degree ceremony at which Catherine received her Doctor of Medicine, University Chancellor Justice Kim Santow paid tribute to the Hamlins for devoting their lives to alleviating the suffering of Ethiopian women. The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gavin Brown, said that “the Hamlins did not simply cure their patients, they cared for them”. But the dual nature of her work, both heartbreaking and inspirational, was best conveyed by Catherine herself:

<blockquote>Patients are still arriving daily, each one deserving the utmost compassion the human heart is capable of…They arrive with nothing but faith and hope and urine-soaked clothes.</blockquote>

When the young women have been treated, they either need to stay for further rehabilitation or are free to return home. Catherine describes this moment:

<blockquote>We don’t just say to them now you are cured, just go out the gate and you will be alright. They wouldn’t know where to go. They wouldn’t have money to get home. So twice a week we take them in our vehicles, in our Land Rover or a 4-wheel drive, up to the market area where the buses leave and we pay their fares back to their village. Not only do they have a new dress and perhaps a new headscarf, but they have a card which they carry which describes the operation which we have done and we tell them that this is a very precious card. You keep it safely and when you are pregnant again you must get to a hospital and take this card with you as soon as you feel the baby walking around in your stomach. You will be looked after possibly needing a Caesarian Section, to give you a live baby.<ref>Catherine Hamlin, in Gazette, May 2005.</ref></blockquote>

According to Catherine, around 99 per cent of fistulae cases can be cured by surgery. But without access to treatment, many of the women are treated as pariahs in their home villages; unable to control the flow of urine or faeces, they are usually abandoned by their husbands and treated as outcasts in their own communities. To help the women for whom surgery does not provide a solution, their team has built the village Desta Mender on 60 acres of land, given by the Ethiopian Government. Says Catherine:

<blockquote>Fortunately, it is only about half a percent of all the patients that we see that have this terrible injury where the bladder is irreparably injured, and so we have built this village especially for them. It is a beautiful place, with ten women to every house”.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

Catherine is confident about the future even though patient numbers are still increasing: “Our hope is that one day every woman will be able to have a safe delivery and a live birth.”<ref>Gazette, April 2005.</ref>

==References==
<references />

Schlink, Herbert Henry

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:51:38 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Obstetrics and Gynaecology category:male category:1900 to 1920 category:Biographies MB 1907 MSurgery 1907 Herbert Schlink founded the King George V Hospital Memor...

[[category:Obstetrics and Gynaecology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1900 to 1920]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB 1907
MSurgery 1907

Herbert Schlink founded the King George V Hospital Memorial Hospital for Mothers and Babies in 1958. As a gynaecologist, Herbert pioneered the use of cobalt ray therapy in treating pelvic cancer and instigated the systematic follow-up of cancer patients. He is also considered to be the “father of Australian skiing”.<ref>The following profile was drawn from an obituary authored by Sir Kempson Maddox, regrettably original source unknown.</ref>

Herbert was born in Germany but migrated to Australia in 1858 to settle in the Albury district with his family. His interest in books and in history influenced him first to enter the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney, but after one year he transferred to medicine and graduated in 1907. He joined the staff of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH) as a Junior Resident Medical Officer in 1907, and beginning a life of devoted service to this institution which lasted no less than 55 years. Within three years Herbert was appointed Medical Superintendent, reorganising many of the services of the Hospital and instituting a new records system. In 1913, he applied for the post of Honorary Junior Gynaecological Surgeon. His application was successful, and he commenced practice as a gynaecologist and obstetrician in Macquarie Street.
Herbert became a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps whilst a Senior Resident Medical Officer. By 1914, he was adjutant to the Principal Medical Officer in New South Wales and, at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, took charge of the medical arrangements at the recruit reception camps at Liverpool and Holsworthy. He later acted as Medical Officer to the University Rifles.

In 1922 Herbert became Honorary Gynaecological Surgeon to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he had not sought a similar post in other hospitals, always believing in the principle of “one man – one hospital” as the best for the individual and for the institution. Soon after his appointment, he travelled to Europe, where he made first contact with most of the famous gynaecologists of those days in England and in Europe, beginning lifelong friendships with many. After his return to Australia, he lectured and wrote extensively on numerous aspects of gynaecological surgery, including the description of a new instrument of enucleation of the cervix.

In 1925 he was elected a Director of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital becoming Vice-Chairman of the Board of Management seven years later. In 1934, he became Chairman, an office he continued to hold for 28 years. It was in this capacity that his extraordinary powers of vision, tenacity and persuasion, ably assisted by the Board, transformed the Hospital from a small unit of some 600 beds to a great city hospital of over 1400 beds. These additions were effected during a period of diminishing private support, a World War, and increasing competition for government funds. His fame as a hospital planner and administrator was soon recognised overseas, and he was elected Honorary Member of the American Hospitals Association and as a representative for Australia on the International Hospitals Federation. All benefited directly from his advice, and from membership of the Australian Hospital Associate, which he founded in 1945, and of whose journal, The Australian Modern Hospital, he was the first editor. Herbert was largely responsible for establishing the claim of teaching hospitals to special funds for student education, and was a member of the University Grants commission of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1959.

In 1929 Henry was one of the founders of the RPAH Medical Officers Association, a union of past and present resident medical officers, for the purpose of holding an annual reunion for mutual instruction and fellowship. He was its first President, and interested the late William McIlrath in providing the funds for a visiting professor to be invited annually to lecture and to work in the wards.

In his own speciality, Henry contributed most to the treatment of pelvic cancer, its early detection and radical surgical extirpation. He systematically followed up all such patients and produced as complete and searching statistics on this subject as any in the world. The West Cancer Detection Clinic at the King George V Hospital continues this interest. He was a great stimulus and help to younger men and persuaded the late J Foreman and F N Chenhall to bequeath their legacies for training fellowships in gynaecology. Herbert was Foundation Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and a lecturer in gynaecology of the University of Sydney, and in 1951 was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In 1939, he published his Text Book of Gynaecology, later revised in collaboration with other members of the King George V Hospital staff.

Ever interested in the general welfare and independence of the medical profession and in community health as a whole, Herbert more recently assisted his old friend, the late Sir Earle Page, in the development of the National Medical Benefits Scheme, the Page Plan, and was both a Foundation Councillor of the Hospitals Contribution Fund of New South Wales and of the Medical Benefits Fund of Australia Limited. Realising the necessity for coordination of the many benefit schemes in existence throughout Australia, he supported and became first President of the Australian Blue Cross. Herbert concluded his speech on Sir Alfred Roberts, another great builder of hospitals, at the Annual Post-Graduate Oration of 1956, with the following words:

Let us… never forget that in the vigour of its free institutions lies Australia’s great strength and hope for the future. To do his part towards keeping them strong, to have a part in making them even stronger, is the responsibility, indeed the privilege, of every free man and woman.

Herbert has justly been named “the father of Australian skiing”. The challenge of the Australian Alps, an unknown and hazardous terrain 50 years ago, appealed to his determined and courageous character. As soon as his medical course was completed, he began to spend his annual holidays at Kosciusko and, with primitive equipment, to explore the roof of New South Wales. Accompanied by Oscar Paul and Hans Fay, he took Lord Denman to Betts Camp in an attempt to guide the Governor-General to the summit of Mt Kosciusko. Unfortunately, bad weather intervened and the party was forced to return. Herbert came to know the New South Wales side of the Alps intimately, and with Eric Fisher, Lennox Teece, Oscar Paul and others climbed peak after peak. Self-taught, and in spite of several fractures, he scaled these mountains by sheer determination without preliminary training or the aid of the smooth skiing techniques of today.

Along with Eric Fisher, William Gordon, W Hughes and the late John Laidley, he made the first crossing from Kiandra to Kosciusko in the winter of 1927, a journey of great danger and hardship at that time. He was directly responsible for the building of the first chalet at Charlotte Pass and one of the founders and subsequently President of the Kosciusko Alpine Club (1902 to 1920). In 1921, he formed the Ski Club of Australia, becoming its President for 40 years. He also became a member of the Ski Club of Great Britain in 1910, and Honorary Member of the Kandahar Ski Club and of the Swiss Universities Ski Club. He was patron of the University of Sydney Ski Club until his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Mountain Society in recognition of his activities; and the Snowy Mountain Authority and Sir William Hudson expressed their gratitude for Sir Herbert’s advice and practical assistance at the outset of their project, by naming the road from Guthega beyond Mt Tait to Geehi, ‘Schlink Pass’.

In 1954, Herbert was created Knight Bachelor for his public services and his service to medicine. He had already received the Silver Jubilee Medal from his Majesty King George V, and the Coronation Medals of 1937 and 1953. Members of the Royal Family had attended “his hospital” as visitors and even as patients, and important buildings had been named in their honour.

==References==
<references/>

Royal Prince Alfred Hospital

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 05:03:38 GMT

Admin:

<imagebankurl>http://medfac.test.med.usyd.edu.au/images/content/about/RPA_childrens.gif|right|Children's Ward at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (University of Sydney Archives)</imagebankurl>Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA) was named after Queen Victoria's second son, His Royal Highness Prince Alfred, later Duke of Edinburgh. During a visit to Australia in 1868 Prince Alfred was the victim of an assassination attempt while on a picnic in the northern Sydney suburb of Clontarf. <ref>http://www.cs.nsw.gov.au/rpa/history.html</ref>

Australians opened a public subscription fund to build a hospital as a memorial to his safe recovery. The prince authorised his coat of arms to be used as the new hospital's crest. King Edward VII granted the hospital its Royal prefix in 1902.
1882 Royal Prince Alfred Hospital was the University's first teaching hospital.
<imagebankurl>http://www.cs.nsw.gov.au/rpa/images/rpah01.jpg||Royal Prince Alfred Hospital 2007</imagebankurl>

<ibimage>medicine-isphere_58_1|200|200|right|</ibimage>
==References==
<references />

Early women graduates

Admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:22:05 GMT

Admin:

<ibimage>medicine-isphere_58_1|200|200|right|</ibimage>
The University of Sydney Medical School was the first to admit women students.<ref>This chapter has been edited and revised from Young J A, Sefton A J & Webb N (1984) Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine, Chapter Six “Women and the Medical School”.
</ref> In this regard the Dean, Anderson Stuart seems, on the surface at least, to have been rather progressive in his views. In his book The Melbourne Medical School 1862–1962 Kenneth Russell cites a letter of 1885 from Anderson Stuart to David Grant, Lecturer in Materia Medica at Melbourne University, in which Anderson Stuart both rationally and logically advances the right of women to enter on the study of medicine:

<blockquote>''I have had a lady ([[Dagmar Berne]]) in my classes for over two years, as gentle and modest a lady as I have ever seen, as such she came to us and as such she has remained… As a teacher I have never experienced the slightest difficulty in saying what I have to say in the presence of ladies and I have never attempted to gloss over certain subjects because ladies were present…''<ref>Russell, K F (1977). The Melbourne Medical School 1862–1962. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.</ref> </blockquote>

The apparent liberalism of these views, however, must be regarded with some reservation as the story of [[Dagmar Berne]], the first woman to begin the study of medicine in Australia, seems to show: Dagmar enrolled in Medicine in 1885 but appears to have failed her First Professional Examination that year, for she is again listed as a second year student in the 1886 Calendar. That year, she passed her First Professional Examination in Medicine entering Medicine III in 1887 and Medicine IV in 1888. She evidently failed the Second Professional Examination in 1888 since she remained in Medicine IV in 1889. At the end of that year she passed Anatomy and Physiology, the first two units of her Second Professional Examinations, but did not pass Materia Medica and Pathology. She was given deferred examinations in these in March 1890 which she failed. After this last failure, Dagmar left Sydney and went to England as she felt that she was being obstructed from passing her examinations at the University of Sydney. At London University she readily qualified in 1893 and began resident work in a hospital in Tottenham, England. When she returned to Sydney in 1895, she set up practice in Macquarie Street in 1895 and was only the second woman to register to practice as a doctor with the Medical Board of New South Wales.<ref>From Bright Sparcs entry for Dagmar Berne, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/bsparcshome.htm</ref> Sadly, she died five years later at the young age of thirty-four. She is commemorated at the University of Sydney by a prize for proficiency in the final Barrier Examination.

By making the break into a male stronghold, Dagmar had opened the way for other women to follow. Yet, in the first ten years of its existence, the University of Sydney Medical School produced only two women graduates: Iza Coghlan and Grace Robinson both graduated in 1893.
However, once the doors of the Medical School had been opened to admit women, there was a small but steady stream of female enrolments and graduations. In 1898, there were four women graduates: Harriett Biffin, Ada Affleck, Julia Carlisle Thomas and Alice Newton. By 1902 there were 11 women graduates, including Lucy Gullet. The next five years saw the graduation of Constance d’Arcy, Susie O’Reilly, Margaret Harper and Jessie Aspinall. In different ways, each of these women became prominent figures in what proved to be a continuing struggle for the general acceptance of women practitioners.

{|class="bluebox"
|
*Iza Coghlan became the first Sydney graduate to establish private practice in her home city, thus setting an important example and precedent for subsequent Sydney women graduates, and went on later to help form the New South Wales Medical Women’s Association.
*Grace Robinson formed the Professional Women’s Association, whose objective was to bring together professional women interested in improving the social conditions of women and children.
*Julia Carlisle Thomas established the Sydney Medical Mission.
*Harriett Biffin and Lucy Gullett played key roles in the establishment of the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children.
||
*Jessie Aspinall was the first woman appointed Resident at the Prince Alfred Hospital.
*Susie O’Reilly’s battle with Sydney Hospital subsequently opened the doors of that institution to receive women residents.
*Constance d’Arcy became the first woman ever to be elected to the Senate of the University of Sydney.
*Margaret Harper was the first Lecturer in Diseases of the Newborn at the University of Sydney, the moving spirit of the Tresillian Mothercraft Centres, a Foundation Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and an early supporter of the Rachel Forster Hospital.
|}

Although Dagmar had opened the way for women at the University of Sydney, the doors of medical institutions in New South Wales were still fairly firmly closed to women graduates at the turn of the century. After her graduation in 1905, Susie O’Reilly became a cause célèbre in her attempts to break down these subsequent barriers to women practitioners gaining experience side by side with men in public rather than private practice. Susie’s unsuccessful application to the Royal Prince Alfred, North Shore and Sydney Hospitals led to a public outcry from the press and organisations such as the Women’s Progressive Organisation against discrimination based on sex. Having passed fourth on the merit list in her year, Susie, had she been male, would have automatically qualified to be considered for residency at one of the major hospitals. Yet her application to Sydney Hospital was declined on the grounds that it had no suitable accommodation for women practitioners. As this was the main reason given for refusal, pressure was brought to bear on the Premier of New South Wales. The Premier’s Department promised to look into the matter and, at the end of 1905, the Board of Directors of Sydney Hospital moved in favour of alterations to enable the Hospital to accept women in the future. In the meanwhile, however, Susie had successfully applied for a residency at Adelaide General Hospital.

At the end of the same year, 1905, Jessie Aspinall completed her finals at the University of Sydney and was offered a residency by the Medical Board of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Yet, the Conjoint Board refused to ratify the Hospital’s decision. This provoked a strong public outcry. Jessie’s father, women’s organisations, the press and the public at large joined forces in what was basically a battle over women’s rights. Anderson Stuart, being both Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Chairman of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, was understandably expected to express an opinion on the matter. He supported Jessie’s case unequivocally: she had succeeded ‘in open competition with men’ and was therefore entitled to the position.

Public opinion, Anderson Stuart’s stand and finally the Premier’s intervention led to Jessie being reinstated, the first woman to be appointed to one of the main general hospitals in Sydney.

Prior to this, experience could be gained in private practice, by going interstate or overseas, or by working at the Sydney Medical Mission, which was established in 1900 with the objective of alleviating medical problems among the indigent populace of the inner city. The instigator here was Julia Carlile Thomas, and so the Mission became a centre of clinical experience for other women graduates as well. As the institution was almost wholly staffed by voluntary workers and its income barely covered expenditure, the Medical Mission was not a viable economic alternative to private practice or a general hospital appointment for any recent graduate. It did, however, serve the function for which it was originally established and in its time had help and encouragement from such prominent medical figures as J T Wilson, Charles Bickerton Blackburn, Margaret Harper, Jessie Aspinall and Susie O’Reilly. The Medical Mission functioned almost until the end of the World War I, but finally had to be closed down due largely to the fact that the war very seriously depleted the number of practitioners available to work in it.

The time was now ripe for women graduates to attempt what had not been possible when there was only a handful of them – namely, found a hospital staffed by women for women. The impetus came from Lucy Gullett who, after visiting the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne during its 25 anniversary celebrations in 1921, came back to Sydney determined to start a similar hospital in her home state. Together with Harriett Biffin she founded the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children in 1922.

==References==
<references />

Taylor, Thomas Kinman Fardon

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:19:22 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Orthopaedics category:male category:1940 to 1960 category:Biographies MB BS (Hons) 1955 FRCS FRCS (Ed) DPhil (Oxon) FRACS FAOrthA Thomas (Tom) Taylor was the firs...

[[category:Orthopaedics]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1940 to 1960]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS (Hons) 1955
FRCS FRCS (Ed) DPhil (Oxon) FRACS FAOrthA

Thomas (Tom) Taylor was the first Professor of Orthopaedics and Traumatic Surgery at the University of Sydney, appointed in 1969. His Chair at Royal North Shore Hospital was also the first ‘full Professorial appointment’ at the hospital.

After graduation from the University of Sydney in 1955, Tom undertook residency at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. In 1957, he went to the United Kingdom, taking up a position as Demonstrator in Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh, and later becoming Orthopaedic Registrar at the Royal Infirmary and the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital. He spent 1960 as a Registrar on the Accident Service at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. From 1961 to 1964 he was the Nuffield Dominions Fellow at Oxford University, during which time he completed his doctorate. In 1964 he was appointed as a Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons, the first Australian orthopaedic surgeon to receive this accolade.

Tom joined the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1964, rising to the position of Associate Professor in 1968. He returned to Australia in 1969 to the Foundation Chair of Orthopaedics and Traumatic Surgery at the University of Sydney. This was the first chair of its kind in Australia, made possible by a major benefaction from W Hugh Smith, a senior orthopaedic surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, and a former Sydney graduate. Coupled with a recurrent grant from the then Hospitals Commission of NSW, this conjoint funding arrangement was the first of its type. Clinical facilities were provided at the Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) and the Children’s Hospital, Camperdown, and from the outset, the professorial unit directed its activities towards spinal disease and disorder in children and adults. Tom was also Surgeon to the Acute Spinal Cord Injury Unit at RNSH from 1970–2001.

A major benefaction in 1971 from the Raymond E Purves Foundation allowed the construction of an additional floor on the professorial block at RNSH to establish the Bone and Joint Research laboratories which bear Sir Raymond’s name. The laboratories, officially opened in 1973, were the first such facilities in Australia and soon established an enviable national and international reputation.

In 1990, the complementary Biomechanics Research Laboratory was established at RNSH through the generosity of C Murray Maxwell, former Senior Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Children’s Hospital, Camperdown, who is also a Sydney graduate.

The Foundation Chair in Rheumatology at the University was also placed at Royal North Shore Hospital in 1983. The Institute of Bone and Joint Research was established in 1998 encompassing the Orthopaedic and Rheumatology Departments at the teaching hospitals of the University. This tandem development of the two academic disciplines at one teaching hospital proved to be a fruitful amalgamation.

In 1981, Tom formed the Children’s Spinal Research Foundation, later to become the NSW charity SpineCare Foundation. This organisation has fostered and supported research into diseases and disorders of the spine in children, and also the welfare of those so affected who become permanent wheelchair-users.

Tom is Professor Emeritus in his specialty at the University of Sydney and is a Consultant Surgeon to the Royal North Shore Hospital and the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. He is also a Visiting Medical Officer at Dubbo Base Hospital, Dubbo, NSW.

Sekel, Ronald

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:17:44 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Orthopaedics category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MB BS 1964 FRCSE FRACS (Orth) Ronald (Ron) Sekel is an Orthopaedic Surgeon and researcher. H...

[[category:Orthopaedics]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1964
FRCSE FRACS (Orth)

Ronald (Ron) Sekel is an Orthopaedic Surgeon and researcher. He invented the internationally acclaimed Margron Hip Replacement System in 1992, and founded the NSW Bone Bank, becoming Inaugral Honorary Director of the service in 1994. He remains Founding Chairman and Chief Researcher of Portland Orthopaedics Ltd, a research, development, manufacture and export company.

Ron graduated from Medicine in 1964 and completed his internship at both the Prince of Wales and the Prince Henry Hospitals. He then entered General Practice for a year before taking an appointment as Registrar in Orthopaedics at the Bankstown and Sutherland Hospitals. From 1969 to 1970 he was Registrar in General Surgery at Concord Repatriation Hospital, receiving his Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (Edinburgh) in General Surgery at the end of the year. For the next two years, he participated in the Australian Orthopaedic Association Training Scheme and on conclusion was made a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Orthopaedics.

Ron first came on to the staff of St George Hospital in 1974 as a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon and has remained loyally in this role to date. Early on, he developed a special interest in the surgery of arthritis, including primary and revision joint replacement, surgery of the spine, and tumour surgery.

Aided with a grant from the Australian Government,<ref>Information drawn from St George Hospital website.</ref> his original research led to the development of a unique total hip replacement with hydroxyapatite surface coating, the Margron Hip Replacement System. Since the prototypes availability in 1992, the system has been revised and further refined into a primary, revision and tumour prosthesis. In 1997, one hundred patients were prospectively implanted with the Margron Hip Replacement System and a multi-centred trial was established. Ron says of his innovation:

<blockquote>The double threaded cone hip replacement system is particularly of value by-passing distorted proximal femoral anatomy and also by-passing large bone stock defects at the top end of the femur in revision and tumour work. There is also a mini series available that has been especially of assistance with Asian and small anatomy patients. </blockquote>

The Margron Hip Replacement System has and continues to receive international acclaim. In 2000, the USA Food and Drug Administration provided a substantial grant for ongoing development of the System. In March 2000, the manufacturers received the USA and Israel Medical Device Licence, by April they received a Manufacturing Innovation Excellence Award, and by May the System won the Inaugural Australian Technology Showcase Patrons’ Award for Outstanding Achievement in International Markets.

In 2005 the US government approved another of Ron’s substantial innovative developments for use, the new hip replacement prosthesis called the Equator Plus Hip System. Ron says that “the Equator plus acetabular cup design has the potential to improve longevity of hip replacements as it has the potential to eliminate polyethylene back wear and the passage of the mildly toxic polyethylene wear particles travelling through the back of the cup screw holes and thereby damaging the underlying bone”.<ref>From personal correspondence with Professor Sekel.</ref>

Aside from developing these innovations, Ron has maintained his career as an Orthopaedic surgeon at St George Public and Private Hospitals. As a surgeon, the majority of his work has remained in the speciality of Hip and Knee Joint Replacement Surgery, including Revision Joint Replacement.

In addition, in 1986 he became involved in the development of the aerial obstetric emergency retrieval service in New South Wales which provided rapid emergency services to outlying country towns (this was taken over by the Air Ambulance in 1986). In 1994, he started the New South Wales Bone Bank as Inaugural Honorary Director. According to Ron:

<blockquote>In 1994 NSW was the largest populated state in Australia, and it was necessary to develop a Bone Bank in parallel to those already well established in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. The St George Hospital Division of Surgery volunteered to fund and house the Bank, and so a full bone retrieval service was established, contributing to the national pool of available donor bone for limb reconstruction. The Bone Bank remains housed at the St George Hospital, and is now well established.</blockquote>

Since 2000, Ron has also maintained an academic role as Conjoint Professor in the Schools of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of NSW. Strong links in engineering may seem strange for a surgeon, but prosthesis research and development has much in common with engineering, and surprisingly, with aero-space engineering. The materials used for implant design and manufacture are identical, and close ties with the Engineering Faculties have made the hip project possible. In this dual capacity, he is deeply involved with undergraduate and postgraduate education of local and overseas orthopaedic surgeons, and engineering students from the University of Sydney and NSW.

Ron has travelled widely and lectured in the USA, China, India and the Middle East. He is a member of the Australian Orthopaedic Association, and the Australian Hip and Knee Arthritis Surgical Society.

In 2005, Ron was recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division for his “service to health through technological development of a hip replacement prosthesis”.<ref>http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au </ref>

==References==
<references />

Nade, Sydney Michael Lewis

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:12:52 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Orthopaedics category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies BSc (Med) 1960 MB BS 1963 FRCS MRCP (UK) FAOrthA MD FRACS DSc Sydney Nade was the Foundation...

[[category:Orthopaedics]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
BSc (Med) 1960
MB BS 1963
FRCS MRCP (UK) FAOrthA MD FRACS DSc

Sydney Nade was the Foundation Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Western Australia.

Sydney was born in Sydney in 1939. He studied Medicine at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1963, the same year he served as President of the University’s Medical Society. He completed his rotating residency in 1964 and became a Registrar in Medicine at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1965. Sydney travelled to London in 1967, where he worked for the next two years as Senior House Officer at the Hospital for Sick Children, the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre (Oxford), and the Hammersmith Hospital. In 1969, he was Honorary Registrar and Research Fellow at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, where he commenced studies in the transplantation of bone. These studies led to a presentation of the thesis on which his Doctor of Medicine was later awarded (1975). From 1970 to 1971 Sydney worked as Registrar and Senior Registrar at the Radcliffe Infirmary and became a Lord Nuffield Scholar in Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Oxford.

In 1972, Sydney returned to the University of Sydney and was appointed Senior Lecturer in Surgery (Orthopaedics and Traumatic Surgery), becoming Associate Professor in 1977. At the same time, Sydney was working as an Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Royal North Shore Hospital, continuing studies in post-foetal osteogenesis. He was also an Honorary Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children and the Margaret Reid Orthopaedic Hospital.

In 1978 Sydney took up an appointment as Foundation Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Western Australia. Of this position, Sydney says:

<blockquote>I considered that my principal role in that position was to produce a teaching program, primarily for undergraduates, and to commence a vigorous research effort. With the encouragement of the Head of the Department of Surgery, and many other Departments, I introduced a program of undergraduate teaching which commenced in the second year of the six year course and continued throughout. I taught in the Departments of Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology helping integrate basic sciences of musculo-skeletal biology with clinical science.</blockquote>

In this role, Sydney initiated three main areas of research: Studies in osteogenesis, with special emphasis on bone replacement for bone loss, with particular reference to the use of ceramic materials; studies in bone and joint infection, with special emphasis on clinical and experimental aspects of acute haematogenous osteomyelitis and acute septic arthritis; and studies in joint function and human locomotion, with special emphasis on articular neurology, synovial fluid dynamics and assessment of gait patterns and energy requirements in patients with injured and arthritic legs.

Sydney says that his association with the University of Western Australia “was one of the highlights of my career”. In the book, Campus in the Community, which records the 75th anniversary of the University of Western Australia, Emeritus Professor Eric Saint writes that Sydney’s resignation from the University was to be regretted and that he had done much to establish his specialty as an academic discipline and had done good research in neurophysiology of the knee joint and bacterial infection of bone.

Renewed association with the University of Sydney since 1986 has seen Sydney fully responsible for all teaching in Musculo-skeletal Clinical Science at the Western Clinical School of the University, where he is considered a gifted teacher.

For many years Sydney was Chair of the Orthopaedic Undergraduate Education Committee of the Australian Orthopaedic Association during which time a syllabus of teaching in musculo-skeletal diseases for Australian medical schools was formulated and distributed, and an annual National Undergraduate Workshop was established.

Sydney pioneered collaboration with experts in other fields, seemingly not related to medicine. For example, his work on attempting to find ways of replacing diseased, missing, or deficient bone led him to work with ceramic engineers. He had a collaborative project with a professor of surveying, whose expertise in remote sensing was useful in developing a method of recording of body shape. He also worked closely with electrical engineers in the development of a simple method of quantitatively recording gait, and collaborated with mechanical engineers in the development of a novel device to assist people in learning to walk again after injury to the lower limbs.
Sydney considers himself to be what he terms, a ‘clinician-scientist’. He says:

<blockquote>I have spent most of my working life combining the roles of clinician, educator and scientist. When interviewed prior to be appointed as one of the first Clinical Professors in the University of Sydney, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor used the term “public teacher” to describe the role of a professor. I believe that I have done that.</blockquote>

Sydney has published more that 100 scientific papers, and written a number of textbooks and chapters in books. His most recent publication is a book entitled Career Doctor: So, You want to be a doctor? He says it was written because:

<blockquote>I perceived a need for high school students and others considering a career in medicine to have an explanation about what medicine is all about. It is based on my 40 years of teaching and watching the difficulty that young people have in the choice of a career. There is no similar book, and it encapsulates my view of what medical training has to offer.<ref>All quotations from correspondence with Sydney Nade.
</ref></blockquote>

In addition he has written three other books: Musculo-skeletal Infections (1987), Infections of Bones and Joints (1994), and The Care of Neuropathic Limbs–A practical manual (with Grace Warren) (2000).

Since ceasing operative surgery, he has been involved in consulting practice as an orthopaedic surgeon and is a Problem-based Learning Tutor for the Graduate Medical Program within the Faculty, electing to act as a tutor in modules outside his own specialty, “so that I face the same problem as the students and have to work it out as do they.”

==References==
<references />

Dan, Noel George

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:06:49 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Neurology category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MB BS 1964 FRCSE FRACS Noel Dan, a neurosurgeon, pioneered new techniques for surgical procedu...

[[category:Neurology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1964
FRCSE FRACS

Noel Dan, a neurosurgeon, pioneered new techniques for surgical procedures in anterior skull base surgery. His leadership of an epidemiological study of head injuries in NSW was instrumental in the introduction of Random Breath Testing.

After graduating in 1964, Noel completed his two-year residency at the Lewisham and Mater Hospitals. He then travelled to Edinburgh, where he worked from 1967 to 1969 as Surgery Registrar in the Royal Infirmary.

On return to Australia in 1969, Noel took up an appointment as Neurosurgery Registrar at St Vincent’s Hospital. Since the 1970s, he has continued to work as a neurosurgeon in both public and private hospitals across Sydney. From 1978 to 2003, Noel was Head of the Department of Neurosurgery at Concord Hospital. At present he is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney.

Extensively involved in the neurosurgical community, Noel has served as President of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia (1984–1985), the New South Wales Neurosurgical Association (1983–1986) and as Chairman of the Board of Neurosurgery of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (1985–1988). In the RACS, Noel was also a foundation member of the History of Surgery, the Head and Neck Surgery and the Medico-legal Sections. He also served as the examiner in Neurosurgery for the fellowship examinations of the RACS (1986–1996 and 2000). Remarkably, Noel has held every single peak leadership role available in Australasian Neurosurgery. On an international level, he was President of the World Congress of Neurological Surgery from 1995 to 2001 and was subsequently elected lifetime Honorary President of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies. He has also been President of the Academia Eurasiana Neurochirurgica (1994–1996), an organisation founded in 1984. The membership consists of 100 active members, half from Europe and half from Asia who are involved in academic neurosurgery. Moreover, it is an organization with a very restricted and tightly supervised nomination and election system. Finally, Noel was also one of 15 corresponding members of the American Academy of Neurological Surgery.

In 1990, Noel was the inaugural recipient of the Neurosurgical Society of Australia Medal and the Mater Hospital Philomena Award. In 1993, he was appointed Herbert Moran Lecturer by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

His major research achievements include the development of a number of surgical techniques, in partnership with Professor John de Burgh Norman, which are now regarded as standard techniques in anterior skull base surgery. These advances occurred particularly during the 1970s and 1980s when this area of surgery was first being extensively explored. During the 70s Noel and de Burgh Norman started to develop new techniques for surgery of the craniofacial junction region. They jointly worked on developing surgical procedures to allow tumours in regions of mutual interest to be excised. This field was subsequently subsumed as part of skull base surgery (anterior skull base surgery.) Some of the techniques were devised purely to gain access to the area, whereas others were innovative methods to prevent or deal with complications and often developed as a response to specific problems encountered during surgery. During the 1970s and 1980s patients were referred to them from all over Australia, right up until other surgeons and teams learnt to perform this or equivalent techniques. During this period particularly, Noel and de B Norman were invited to many parts of the world to lecture on the techniques they had developed. In addition, Noel has been involved in the Asian Skull Base Society and was invited to give the opening address of the 4th International Skull Base Congress in Sydney in 2004.

Noel’s other major research contribution was as Chairman of the Trauma Committee of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia. Between 1980 and 1983, they had a grant from the Australian Brain Foundation and Commonwealth Department of Health for a study of head injuries in New South Wales. A considerable amount of epidemiological and statistical information came out of the study. One of the most significant results of this study was that it was used as the statistical basis for the introduction of random breath testing in New South Wales, a scheme, which has seen a massive fall in motor accident death rates over the past twenty years.

In 2003, Noel was made a Member of the Order of Australia “for service to neurological science and surgery through clinical practice, research and education, and by fostering links between neurosurgeons in Australia and overseas”. <ref>http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au, accessed 25 January 2006. </ref>

==References==
<references />

Bishop, Peter Orlebar

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:04:40 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Neurology category:male category:1940 to 1960 category:Biographies MB BS 1940 DSc 1967 MD 1983 FRS Peter Bishop was the first to determine three-dimensional perce...

[[category:Neurology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1940 to 1960]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1940
DSc 1967
MD 1983
FRS

Peter Bishop was the first to determine three-dimensional perception.

Peter was born in Tamworth, NSW in 1917 but grew up in Armidale and later boarded at Barker College in Sydney. There, he sat for his Leaving Certificate twice in order to obtain a Commonwealth scholarship (an Exhibition) that would enable him to attend university. He began studying medicine at the University of Sydney in 1935 and quickly developed an interest in neuro-anatomy. Towards the end of his course, Peter published an article entitled The Nature of Consciousness in the Sydney University Medical Journal. This article drew the attention of those in the Department of Anatomy, and after graduating in 1940, he became a Junior Resident Medical Officer in the neurosurgical unit at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he worked with Sir Harold Dew, a founder of neurosurgery in Australia.

In 1942, Peter began service with the Royal Australian Navy as a Surgeon Lieutenant. After the war, he worked for a brief time in Dew’s department and became a member of the University of Sydney’s Postgraduate Committee in Medicine. On receiving a Travelling Fellowship in 1946, Peter moved to England with his family and began working as a clinical clerk at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in Queen’s Square, London. His interests moved towards neurophysiology rather than neuroanatomy and from 1947 to 1950, he was a Research Fellow in the Department of Anatomy at University College, London. Before his return to Australia, the NHMRC gave Peter £1000 to purchase equipment to bring back. He returned in 1950 and began work in the Department of Surgery at the University of Sydney. Taking on a few Bachelor of Science (Medical) students, he continued some of the work he had been doing in London, examining the electrical stimulation of the optic nerve. This unit became known as the Brain Research Unit.

Peter became a Senior Lecturer in 1951, Professor of Physiology in 1954 and Head of Department in 1955, remaining is this role until 1967. In the 1960s he began his seminal work using cats to study how the eye forms image and depth. Peter explains his work:

<blockquote>In the late 1960s, I became interested in stereopsis, which is the ability to see in depth, to see that one object is further away than another object. We started single cell recording from the cerebral cortex–the visual parts at the back of the brain, the occipital lobe. Hubel and Wiesel had already done this as well. What was new was the realisation that the two eyes send impulses up to the brain that, by coming together on a single cell in the striate cortex, could form the basis for stereopsis. We started by studying the properties of the receptive fields. A receptive field is that little patch in the visual world – the outside world – that each cell keeps a watch on. Each cell is concerned with a little area in the visual world – that’s its receptive field. The impulses from the two eyes go back to a single cell (the same cell) in the cerebral cortex, so that in effect that cell in the cerebral cortex looks out through both eyes at a little area we call a receptiv e field, and its special job is to report to the rest of the brain what is happening in that little area.<ref>Interview with Peter Bishop, 1996, published online by Australian Academy of Science, available http://www.science.org.au/scientists/pb.htm, accessed 21 December 2005.</ref></blockquote>

In 1967 Peter was awarded the DSc degree by the University of Sydney. In the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Peter then moved to the Australian National University where he was a Professor and Head of the Department of Physiology until 1982.

In 1986, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “service to medical science, particularly in the field of physiology”.<ref>http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au, accessed 4 January 2006.</ref> Peter was appointed Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Anatomy and Histology at the University of Sydney in 1987. Formerly the PO Bishop Medal was awarded to the top student undertaking the Bachelor of Science (Medical) degree in the Department of Physiology. With the discontinuation of this degree the future of this prize has now to be determined.

Peter was awarded the Australia Prize in 1993, for being “known as one of the three or four world leaders in visual science”<ref>‘1993 Australia Prize’, Department of Education, Science and Training [online], available https://sciencegrants.dest.gov.au/SciencePrize/Pages/Home.aspx, accessed 21 December 2005. </ref> and the Centenary Medal “for service to Australian society and science in neurophysiology” in 2001.

==References==
<references />

Sefton, Ann Elizabeth Jervie

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:00:35 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Neurology category:female category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MB BS (Hons) 1960 PhD 1966 DSc 1990 Ann Sefton – a neurologist and educator–made the firs...

[[category:Neurology]]
[[category:female]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS (Hons) 1960
PhD 1966
DSc 1990

Ann Sefton – a neurologist and educator–made the first observations of the way in which information is regulated by an interplay of excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms when passing from the eye to the cerebral cortex, and collaboratively provided new descriptions of the connections, anatomical arrangements and the functions of a number of visual centres of the brain. As a student, she was the first elected woman President of the Medical Society. In 1991, as Associate Dean of Medicine she initiated dialogue as to the implementation of a graduate medical program. Ann is currently Deputy -Chancellor of the University of Sydney.

Ann Sefton was born Sydney in 1936 and, initially interested in paediatrics, studied medicine at the University of Sydney, graduating BSc (Med) in 1957 and MB BS in 1960. During her studies, Ann established a students’ Medical Education Committee in an attempt to improve the way Medicine was taught. Although this Committee lacked influence, it marked the beginning of Ann’s life-long determination to better the provision of medical education. She was elected the first female President of the Medical Society and was involved in the establishment of the Australian Medical Students Association; both organisations later elected her to Honorary Life Membership. As Vice-President of the SRC, she was selected as the Sydney representative for the first group of eight Australian students to be invited to China in 1957. While Health Officer of the SRC, she wrote a report with Brian Hennessy that led to the establishment of the University Health Service. After graduating, she undertook her residency first at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1960, and then at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in 1961. She describes her first residency as exciting, but at the same time:

<blockquote>[I]t was also really scary because you carried a lot of responsibility and you often did it when you were dog tired. Sometimes I wouldn’t get to bed for 72 hours. It was just brutal. Being female we had to work many more weekends than the men because we weren’t eligible for the football team.<ref>Ann Sefton quoted in Gott R. 1998, Australia’s Best Medical Practitioners, Heinemann Library, Melbourne, p44.</ref></blockquote>

From 1962 to 1964 Ann was a Liston Wilson Research Fellow. As a postgraduate student, she was also active with the committee that established the first Child Care Centre on campus, and was later involved in developing a Vacation Care Scheme for the children of staff and students. She was awarded her PhD in Physiology in 1966 and had just had the first of her two children. Despite support from some of her former teachers, there were no appropriate paths available for returning to clinical training at that time, so she decided to pursue an academic career rather than one as a paediatric neurologist.

Between 1965 and 1973 she was a temporary, part-time and then full-time lecturer in physiology at the University of Sydney, working her way up to become Associate Professor in 1985 and Professor in 1992, retaining her Personal Chair until 2001.

During her BSc (Med), encouraged by Peter Bishop who taught her electrophysiological techniques, Ann produced two early papers on visual connections, in collaboration with Bill Hayhow, which are still cited. Some of her most interesting findings during her PhD work with Liam Burke included the first observations on the way in which information is regulated by an interplay of excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms when passing from the eye to the cerebral cortex. She also developed some new descriptions of the connections, anatomical arrangements and the functions of a number of visual centres of the brain, in collaboration with Bogdan Dreher in Anatomy, at a time when interdepartmental collaboration was actively discouraged. Ann has supervised 11 PhDs and 25 BSc(Med) or BSc (honours) students.

Another intriguing and surprising observation Ann and her colleagues made, since confirmed in other areas, was that during the development of the mammalian visual system, when it would be assumed that neuronal numbers would be increasing consistently, significant numbers of cells are lost. More recently, with one of her PhD students (Paul Martin), she has made further unexpected observations in mammals with colour vision, which provide evidence that the pathways which transmit red-green information are segregated from blue pathways.

Beyond scientific research, Ann has made extensive contributions to medical education at the University of Sydney, receiving one of the University’s inaugural awards for Teaching Excellence in 1990 and in 1998, an Australian Award for University Teaching. Between 1988 and 1992 she was Sub-Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, responsible for students in the first three years of the medical program. From the 1980s, she and other colleagues became concerned that many students chose to study medicine because they achieved the excellent school results that were required; indeed, many were pressured by parents and schools to enrol. In her belief that medical students need a view of the world that extends beyond the scientific, Ann (then Associate Dean) led initial discussions in the Faculty on the development of an integrated, problem-based graduate medical program in 1991. She travelled to Harvard University Medical School in the United States where Stephen Leeder was on sabbatical leave; both were convinced that aspects of its ‘New Pathway’ medical program could be adopted in Australia. Appointed Associate Dean (Curriculum Development) in 1994, Ann was able to apply her findings to the extensive planning and development of the Faculty’s new Graduate Medical Program, which was first implemented in 1997, in collaboration with Jill Gordon and Michael Field. From 1999 to 2001, she joined the Faculty of Dentistry half-time as Associate Dean to assist in the development of a graduate entry dental program.

The aim of developing the new medical (and later dental) program was to move from didactic teaching, involving memorisation and role learning, to stimulating scientific thinking, clinical reasoning, critical appraisal and problem-solving. In an era when information is burgeoning and access to it is readily available, students need skills in locating, evaluating and applying relevant information. A priority was on effective communication skills with patients but also with other health professionals. The focus on early patient contact and clinical skill development has been extremely well received by students, staff and patients. Students needed a broader understanding of the diversity of community needs. Ethical values, awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses and the need for self-care are now included. Both the medical and the dental programs have made innovative use of information technologies from the outset and an essential component has been the rigorous evaluation and progressive evolution in the light of new knowledge and an increasing awareness of effective educational strategies.

Throughout her career, Ann has been a member of numerous committees at both the Faculty and University level, and has been invited to membership of review committees both in education and research nationally and internationally. A member of the Academic Board from 1986, she became Deputy Chair in 1986/7 and again in 1997/8, later chairing the Academic Forum (1998–2000). In 1990, with Gaston Bauer and others, she was involved in the establishment of the University of Sydney Medical Graduates’ Association, becoming its first Vice President. In 2000, she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “service to medical education, particularly in the area of reform and the development of a graduate medical program, and to physiology and research in the field of neuroscience through the study of the function and structure of the visual pathways of the brain”.<ref>Quote from http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au, accessed 5 January 2006.</ref>

Upon retirement in 2001 she was appointed Emeritus Professor and has since been extraordinarily active, particularly in the International Union of Physiological Sciences, chairing its Education committee. She is frequently invited to run medical education workshops internationally, particularly in South-East Asia, and has acted as a consultant on aspects of medical and physiology education locally, nationally and internationally. Ann was elected to the University of Sydney Senate in 2001 and again in 2005, becoming Pro-Chancellor in 2003 and Deputy-Chancellor for the term 2004 to 2007.

==References==
<references />

McLeod, James Graham

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:56:57 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Neurology category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies BSc(Med) 1953 MB BS 1959 DSc 1997 FRACP FRCP DPhil (Oxon), Honorary Doctor of the University of...

[[category:Neurology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
BSc(Med) 1953
MB BS 1959
DSc 1997
FRACP FRCP DPhil (Oxon), Honorary Doctor of the
University of Aix-Marseille, FAA FAATSE

James (Jim) McLeod was the Foundation Bushell Professor of Neurology at the University of Sydney in 1978. This was the first established Chair of Neurology in Australia. In his research and clinical practice, James McLeod has been a pioneer in epidemiological research and clinical understanding of multiple sclerosis in Australia, as well as in research on hereditary and acquired peripheral neuropathies and muscle diseases.

James McLeod was born in Sydney in 1932. He entered the Faculty of Medicine in 1949 and completed his BSc (Med) in 1953, having studied under Professor Bishop. During this time, James met Professor Frank Cotton and partook in his experiments to test medical students and others for their physical capacity for rowing. It was an experiment that turned into a lifelong interest. James trained as a rower with Frank Cotton and went on the win Blues at the University of Sydney for rowing and rifle shooting, as well as rowing for the New South Wales crew in the Kings Cup.

In 1953, Jim became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, being awarded his DPhil in 1956 for his research into the neurophysiology of referred pain. Whilst at Oxford, Jim continued rowing and represented Oxford University in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. In 1954, he had the honour and pleasure of winning the 100th boat race, together with three other Australian scholars in the crew.

On return to Australia, he completed his medical studies in the Faculty graduating MB BS in 1959. He was a part-time lecturer in physiology at the University of Sydney, concurrently completing his residency at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he became Medical Registrar in 1961. He spent part of 1962 as a Medical Registrar at Christchurch Hospital in New Zealand in an exchange program for registrars. Back in Australia in 1963, he took up an appointment as Clinical Superintendent (Medical) at Royal Prince Alfred.

As a Nuffield Travelling Fellow in 1964, he visited London and worked as an Academic Registrar in the Institute of Neurology at the National Hospital, Queen Square. In 1965, a Lilly International Travelling Fellowship took him to Harvard University as a Fellow in Neurology. During this time, he undertook clinical training and neurological research into peripheral nerve function and disorders.

Jim became a Visiting Physician at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the Repatriation General Hospital, Concord in the 1960s. In 1967 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Medicine at the University of Sydney, later becoming Associate Professor in 1970 and Bosch Professor in 1978, a position he held until retirement. From 1972 to 1978 he was Professor of Medicine at Sydney Hospital with clinical and teaching responsibilities there.

Jim has been actively involved in the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Australia since 1976 and was a member of their research advisory board for many years, including in the positions of Chairman and Vice-Chairman. He is presently Research Advisor to MS Research Australia. He was also a member of the International Advisory Panel of the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies. With Tony Basten he carried out the first clinical trail of immunotherapy in multiple sclerosis in Australia, initially with transfer factor and then later with alpha- and beta- interferons. These trials were aimed at testing whether the use of these substances reduced the number of attacks and later progression of the illness. Since these early studies, James has continued to research the epidemiology of multiple sclerosis, along with his research fellows and collaborators mapping its prevalence and incidence alongside the clinical features and course of the illness. Jim work in this area is ongoing and quoted in much of the medical literature on the subject.

He was appointed an Honorary Consultant Neurophysiologist at the Royal Newcastle Hospital and Consultant Physician at Royal North Shore and Sydney Hospitals in 1977.

In 1978 he became Visiting Professor at the National Hospital in Queen Square, London. That year was busy for Jim, also appointed Head of the Department of Neurology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital as well as Head of the Department of Medicine and Bushell Professor of Neurology at the University of Sydney. This was the first established Chair of Neurology at the University of Sydney and in Australia.

As Bushell Professor, Jim established a highly productive research group which became known internationally, and which worked mainly on peripheral nerve and muscle diseases and multiple sclerosis. With Richard Gye, John Hargrave and John Pollard he developed a technique of nerve grafting for treatment of leprosy and made visits to the East Arm Leprosy Hospital in Darwin to treat Aboriginal patients. Later, with Richard Gye and Stan Lamond, he introduced a consultant neurosurgery/neurology service to Fiji.

Between 1972 and 1994, Jim was appointed Sub-Dean, Pro-Dean and at times Acting Dean within the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney. He served on the Board of Directors of the Royal North Shore Hospital from 1978 to 1986, including as Vice-Chairman from 1982. In 1979, he was made Honorary Life Governor of the Australian Postgraduate Medical Foundation. From 1981–84, he served on the National Board of Directors of the Australian Brain Foundation, was President of the Australian Association of Neurologists and Director of the Australian Neurological Foundation. He was also a member of the Project Grants and Medical Research Committees of the National Health and Medical Research Council from 1976 to 1993. He was appointed Sir Arthur Sims Travelling Professor in 1983 and gave lectures in Canada, South Africa and Zimbabwe and in 1989 was awarded a Commonwealth Medical Senior Fellowship to sudy and report on medical teaching in the United Kingdom.

Jim joined the Board of Governors of the Institute of Respiratory Medicine at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1980 and in 1984, he was appointed Head of the Division of Medicine at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

He was elected to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science in 1981 and has been a member of its Council, Vice-President and Treasurer. He was elected to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1987.

In 1990, he became Chairman of the Institute of Clinical Neurosciences at RPAH and was appointed Director of Neurosciences for the Central Sydney Area Health Service in 1995.

James was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1986, for “service to medicine, particularly in the field of neurology”.<ref>http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au, accessed 7 February 2006.</ref> In 2001, he was awarded the Centenary Medal for “service to Australian society and science in clinical neuroscience”.<ref>ibid.</ref>

At present he is an Emeritus Professor with the University of Sydney (appointed in 1997) and remains a consultant to several Sydney hospitals.

==References==
<references />

Gye, Richard Spencer Butler

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:53:52 GMT

Admin:

[[category:Neurology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
BSc (Med) 1953
MB BS 1955
Hon MD 1993
DPhil (Oxon) MA (Oxon) FRACS FRCS (Eng)
Richard Gye developed the first academic unit of neurosurgery in Australia, and became the first full-time Dean of Medicine within the Faculty in 1974, a post he held for 15 years.

After leaving Knox Grammar School, Richard enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy, serving as a Commissioned Officer until the end of World War II. In 1948, he enrolled in Medicine at the University of Sydney, part of a large post-war intake.

His interest in neurology began early in his medical studies when Burkitt, Professor of Anatomy, requested that he review the vascular components of the optic radiation of the human brain. He was one of the first students to spend a year with Dr (later Professor) Peter Bishop whilst working for a Bachelor of Science (Medical) degree in the field of neurophysiology. He graduated with honours in 1953, obtaining, his MB BS, also with honours, in 1955.

Richard was then appointed Resident Medical Officer at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he became interested in surgery and gained his Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He was later appointed Professorial Surgical Registrar to John Loewenthal, and was awarded a Nuffield Dominion Travelling Fellowship in 1960 to further his studies and clinical experience in neurosurgery in Oxford.

Dr Pennybacker, Head of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, accepted Richard as House Officer, later appointing him as Senior Registrar to the Infirmary, one of four neurosurgical centres established in the 1930s and situated in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Oxford. (The Oxford Unit was developed by Professor Sir Hugh Cairns, originally from South Australia.) Providing neurosurgical services to over four million people, the demands in the Department were heavy and constant, and Richard was grateful for the wealth of training, guidance and clinical experience he obtained.
In 1961 he was admitted as a Member of Worcester College, Oxford, and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis, A Clinical and Experimental Study of Chronic Sub-dural Effusions, based on extensive clinical and laboratory studies, demonstrating that postural intracranial pressure changes were responsible for the lesions following mild head injuries in elderly patients with cerebral atrophy.

Richard returned to Sydney in 1964 to take up the position of Senior Lecturer in Surgery (Neurosurgery) at the University of Sydney, where he developed the first academic unit of Neurosurgery in Australia. His clinical work took place at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he was later made Head of the Department of Neurosurgery.

Richard was also appointed Head of Neurosurgery at the Repatriation General Hospital, Concord where he and James McLeod integrated the practice of neurology and neurosurgery. In response to a request from the Health Department in Fiji, they visited Suva at least twice a year providing a clinical neurology and neurosurgery service over a period of five years.

In 1968, they began to investigate the possibility of peripheral nerve transplants for loss of more than 5cm of nerve in soldiers wounded in Vietnam. These extensive wounds were difficult to treat by conventional techniques, and they proposed to examine the feasibility of transplants in experimental animals. John Pollard (now Bushell Professor of Neurology) undertook the project as a PhD study in 1969, and demonstrated that with the use of immunosuppressive agents, regeneration through transplants resulted in a good recovery of nerve function in rats. Mindful of the possible use of nerve transplants in humans, he devised a method of storing nerves for transplantation by freeze-drying and sterilising by irradiation.

Following the suggestion by Miles Little that nerve transplants could benefit leprosy patients with severe neuropathy, Richard and McLeod travelled to the East Arm Leprosy Hospital in Darwin. John Hargrave, Medical Director of the Hospital, felt that some of his patients could benefit from nerve transplantation. Although Richard and Hargrave had reservations that any significant regeneration within the conduit would occur since the nerve lesions were up to 20cm in length and not recent, they performed nerve transplants in a selected group of patients. The patients were post-operatively treated with an immunosuppressive agent, and after three years, two of the 23 patients treated regained good protective sensation, five had a partial recovery and there was no evidence of improvement in the remainder. Despite its limited success, the project did reveal that transplants could be used to treat severe nerve lesions provided that they were inserted with a minimum of delay after the injury had occurred.

In 1970, Richard was offered the position of Head of the Department of Neurosurgery following the impending retirement of his mentor, Dr Pennybacker, in 1971. After discussions with the Chairman of the Hospital Board of Directors, Richard accepted the invitation on the basis that he would be provided with modern facilities with the Department to be situated in the new John Radcliffe Hospital at Headington, Oxford, still under construction. The Department was also to receive increased funding for development and to further its research. With these assurances he moved to Oxford in 1971.

Though he set about supporting the integration of the impressive neurosciences group in the Radcliffe Infirmary and associated hospitals, he was disturbed to find that new developments in the NHS had led to the Boards of Management of Hospitals, including the Radcliffe Infirmary Board, being disbanded and replaced by Area Health Authorities. As time went by, it became clear that the new Area Health Authority would not honour the agreements made by the former Board, and that the poor working conditions in the Hospital would persist.
Thus when asked by Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Bruce Williams to return to the University of Sydney as the first full-time Dean of Medicine, Richard accepted the offer, taking up his post in 1974. According to Professor Young:

<blockquote>His reputation not only as a distinguished clinical and academic neurosurgeon but also as a medical administrator was recognised when he became the first full-time Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1974. At the same time he was appointed academic Head of Neurosurgery at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and worked closely with Professor Jim McLeod in developing liaison and integration between the surgical and medical components of clinical neurological sciences.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Following Richard’s appointment as Dean, the Faculty of Medicine underwent enormous change and development. He was responsible for undertaking the establishment of the new Westmead Hospital as Australia’s first fully designed university hospital. During his Deanship a total of 43 new chairs together with supporting staff and facilities were established in the Faculty of Medicine. These positions were in a number of areas including Westmead Hospital, Concord Hospital, Sydney Eye Hospital, in Occupational Health, and in the Department of Public Health (which he saved from threats to its very existence) as well as in the older teaching hospitals, Royal Prince Alfred and Royal North Shore.<ref>From Young’s Valedictory for Professor R S Gye in 1992.</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>After preparing and successfully implementing the new five-year curriculum despite his reservations on its intensive nature, Richard reintroduced a 6-year curriculum to the Faculty to lessen the pressure on undergraduate students and teachers in 1986.<ref>ibid.
</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>As Dean, Richard took an active interest in each of the teaching hospitals, chairing their Boards of Medical Studies, as well as an interest in the administration of a number of institutions and hospitals. He was a Member of the Board of Directors of Sydney Hospital, the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the United Dental Hospital, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Area Health Service and Western Sydney Area Health Service.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The Postgraduate Committee in Medicine expanded its work and increased its value under the leadership of Professor Gye. The Menzies School of Health Research and the Centenary Institute were amongst his specially favoured enterprises to which he gave invaluable support.</blockquote>

<blockquote>As Dean he had commitments to the New South Wales Medical Board, the Menzies Foundation, the Ramaciotti Foundations, the Australian Medical Council and the NSW State Cancer Council all of which called for his help, help that was freely given.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It is fair to say that Richard Gye was one of the earlier proposers of the policy of devolution in the University. He could see the value of the Faculty of Medicine developing some autonomy and independence to the benefit of medical teaching and research. He also proposed, at different times, the possibility of a graduate degree being developed within the Medical School of the University of Sydney.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

In 1988, Richard was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia for services to medicine.

Since his retirement as Dean, Richard has continued to actively support the Faculty and was instrumental in the development of the University’s Department of Neurosurgery. Before retiring from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1992, he was also engaged as Visiting Professor in Neurosurgery at the Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. Following his retirement, he has been appointed Consultant Emeritus to the Neurosciences Centre and has worked as a medico-legal Consultant in private practice.

In 1992, Richard became Emeritus Professor of the University of Sydney.

==References==
<references />

Gye, Richard Spencer Butler

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:52:49 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Neurology category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies BSc (Med) 1953 MB BS 1955 Hon MD 1993 DPhil (Oxon) MA (Oxon) FRACS FRCS (Eng) Richard Gye develo...

[[category:Neurology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
BSc (Med) 1953
MB BS 1955
Hon MD 1993
DPhil (Oxon) MA (Oxon) FRACS FRCS (Eng)
Richard Gye developed the first academic unit of neurosurgery in Australia, and became the first full-time Dean of Medicine within the Faculty in 1974, a post he held for 15 years.

After leaving Knox Grammar School, Richard enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy, serving as a Commissioned Officer until the end of World War II. In 1948, he enrolled in Medicine at the University of Sydney, part of a large post-war intake.

His interest in neurology began early in his medical studies when Burkitt, Professor of Anatomy, requested that he review the vascular components of the optic radiation of the human brain. He was one of the first students to spend a year with Dr (later Professor) Peter Bishop whilst working for a Bachelor of Science (Medical) degree in the field of neurophysiology. He graduated with honours in 1953, obtaining, his MB BS, also with honours, in 1955.

Richard was then appointed Resident Medical Officer at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he became interested in surgery and gained his Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He was later appointed Professorial Surgical Registrar to John Loewenthal, and was awarded a Nuffield Dominion Travelling Fellowship in 1960 to further his studies and clinical experience in neurosurgery in Oxford.

Dr Pennybacker, Head of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, accepted Richard as House Officer, later appointing him as Senior Registrar to the Infirmary, one of four neurosurgical centres established in the 1930s and situated in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Oxford. (The Oxford Unit was developed by Professor Sir Hugh Cairns, originally from South Australia.) Providing neurosurgical services to over four million people, the demands in the Department were heavy and constant, and Richard was grateful for the wealth of training, guidance and clinical experience he obtained.
In 1961 he was admitted as a Member of Worcester College, Oxford, and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis, A Clinical and Experimental Study of Chronic Sub-dural Effusions, based on extensive clinical and laboratory studies, demonstrating that postural intracranial pressure changes were responsible for the lesions following mild head injuries in elderly patients with cerebral atrophy.

Richard returned to Sydney in 1964 to take up the position of Senior Lecturer in Surgery (Neurosurgery) at the University of Sydney, where he developed the first academic unit of Neurosurgery in Australia. His clinical work took place at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he was later made Head of the Department of Neurosurgery.

Richard was also appointed Head of Neurosurgery at the Repatriation General Hospital, Concord where he and James McLeod integrated the practice of neurology and neurosurgery. In response to a request from the Health Department in Fiji, they visited Suva at least twice a year providing a clinical neurology and neurosurgery service over a period of five years.

In 1968, they began to investigate the possibility of peripheral nerve transplants for loss of more than 5cm of nerve in soldiers wounded in Vietnam. These extensive wounds were difficult to treat by conventional techniques, and they proposed to examine the feasibility of transplants in experimental animals. John Pollard (now Bushell Professor of Neurology) undertook the project as a PhD study in 1969, and demonstrated that with the use of immunosuppressive agents, regeneration through transplants resulted in a good recovery of nerve function in rats. Mindful of the possible use of nerve transplants in humans, he devised a method of storing nerves for transplantation by freeze-drying and sterilising by irradiation.

Following the suggestion by Miles Little that nerve transplants could benefit leprosy patients with severe neuropathy, Richard and McLeod travelled to the East Arm Leprosy Hospital in Darwin. John Hargrave, Medical Director of the Hospital, felt that some of his patients could benefit from nerve transplantation. Although Richard and Hargrave had reservations that any significant regeneration within the conduit would occur since the nerve lesions were up to 20cm in length and not recent, they performed nerve transplants in a selected group of patients. The patients were post-operatively treated with an immunosuppressive agent, and after three years, two of the 23 patients treated regained good protective sensation, five had a partial recovery and there was no evidence of improvement in the remainder. Despite its limited success, the project did reveal that transplants could be used to treat severe nerve lesions provided that they were inserted with a minimum of delay after the injury had occurred.

In 1970, Richard was offered the position of Head of the Department of Neurosurgery following the impending retirement of his mentor, Dr Pennybacker, in 1971. After discussions with the Chairman of the Hospital Board of Directors, Richard accepted the invitation on the basis that he would be provided with modern facilities with the Department to be situated in the new John Radcliffe Hospital at Headington, Oxford, still under construction. The Department was also to receive increased funding for development and to further its research. With these assurances he moved to Oxford in 1971.

Though he set about supporting the integration of the impressive neurosciences group in the Radcliffe Infirmary and associated hospitals, he was disturbed to find that new developments in the NHS had led to the Boards of Management of Hospitals, including the Radcliffe Infirmary Board, being disbanded and replaced by Area Health Authorities. As time went by, it became clear that the new Area Health Authority would not honour the agreements made by the former Board, and that the poor working conditions in the Hospital would persist.
Thus when asked by Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Bruce Williams to return to the University of Sydney as the first full-time Dean of Medicine, Richard accepted the offer, taking up his post in 1974. According to Professor Young:

<blockquote>His reputation not only as a distinguished clinical and academic neurosurgeon but also as a medical administrator was recognised when he became the first full-time Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1974. At the same time he was appointed academic Head of Neurosurgery at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and worked closely with Professor Jim McLeod in developing liaison and integration between the surgical and medical components of clinical neurological sciences.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Following Richard’s appointment as Dean, the Faculty of Medicine underwent enormous change and development. He was responsible for undertaking the establishment of the new Westmead Hospital as Australia’s first fully designed university hospital. During his Deanship a total of 43 new chairs together with supporting staff and facilities were established in the Faculty of Medicine. These positions were in a number of areas including Westmead Hospital, Concord Hospital, Sydney Eye Hospital, in Occupational Health, and in the Department of Public Health (which he saved from threats to its very existence) as well as in the older teaching hospitals, Royal Prince Alfred and Royal North Shore.<ref>From Young’s Valedictory for Professor R S Gye in 1992.</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>After preparing and successfully implementing the new five-year curriculum despite his reservations on its intensive nature, Richard reintroduced a 6-year curriculum to the Faculty to lessen the pressure on undergraduate students and teachers in 1986.<ref>ibid.
</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>As Dean, Richard took an active interest in each of the teaching hospitals, chairing their Boards of Medical Studies, as well as an interest in the administration of a number of institutions and hospitals. He was a Member of the Board of Directors of Sydney Hospital, the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the United Dental Hospital, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Area Health Service and Western Sydney Area Health Service.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The Postgraduate Committee in Medicine expanded its work and increased its value under the leadership of Professor Gye. The Menzies School of Health Research and the Centenary Institute were amongst his specially favoured enterprises to which he gave invaluable support.<blockquote>

<blockquote>As Dean he had commitments to the New South Wales Medical Board, the Menzies Foundation, the Ramaciotti Foundations, the Australian Medical Council and the NSW State Cancer Council all of which called for his help, help that was freely given.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It is fair to say that Richard Gye was one of the earlier proposers of the policy of devolution in the University. He could see the value of the Faculty of Medicine developing some autonomy and independence to the benefit of medical teaching and research. He also proposed, at different times, the possibility of a graduate degree being developed within the Medical School of the University of Sydney.<ref>ibid.
</ref></blockquote>

In 1988, Richard was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia for services to medicine.

Since his retirement as Dean, Richard has continued to actively support the Faculty and was instrumental in the development of the University’s Department of Neurosurgery. Before retiring from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1992, he was also engaged as Visiting Professor in Neurosurgery at the Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. Following his retirement, he has been appointed Consultant Emeritus to the Neurosciences Centre and has worked as a medico-legal Consultant in private practice.

In 1992, Richard became Emeritus Professor of the University of Sydney.

==References==
<references />

Miller, Sir Ian Douglas

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:46:58 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Neurology category:male category:1920 to 1940 category:Biographies MB 1924 MD 1979 Sir Ian (Douglas) Miller is credited with being Australia’s first neurosurgeon...

[[category:Neurology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1920 to 1940]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB 1924
MD 1979
Sir Ian (Douglas) Miller is credited with being Australia’s first neurosurgeon, performing the first operation for a brain tumour in 1933. He was one of the founders of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia.

Douglas, the son of a GP, was born in Melbourne in the first year of the last century. He finished his schooling at Xavier College, which he felt had provided him with a good classical foundation, and went to Sydney to study Medicine in 1919. During his university years, he met Alexander MacCormick while he was in the famous Sydney surgeon’s private hospital for the removal of a cyst in his back. While he was recovering, Douglas asked MacCormick if he could come into theatre to watch him, and was delighted to be allowed. He had been observing for many days when MacCormick asked him whether he would like to assist, to which he eagerly agreed. These early experiences were what instilled in Douglas the desire to do surgery when he graduated.

He had spent a year as Resident at St Vincent’s Hospital, when MacCormick generously asked him if he wanted to be his Junior Assistant. Douglas fondly recalls:

<blockquote>Yeah, yeah, 75 pounds a year! So, for that I used to roll up in the early mornings, always started at half past seven, and I lived… across the other side of the harbour, so I had to leave home very early. And we’d work through, always had, every morning he’d have a list of operations. We’d work through those. And drive from one private hospital to another. He had a chauffeur who used to carry the bags in, and the theatre sister always came, and his first assistant, who at the time was Benjamin Edye. And we all went in the car from one hospital to another, and jumped out, and the chauffeur ran in with the bag, and then the theatre sister would go in and set up everything, and then MacCormick and his team would come in, do the operations, clear out. And everything would be put back in the bag, and off we’d go to the next one. It’s very hard to believe these days!
While he was assisting MacCormick, Douglas was also demonstrating in the Department of Anatomy, having to dash off after morning surgery to get to the dissecting room in time.</blockquote>

In 1927, Douglas travelled to England, working as a ship’s doctor for a pound a day. Once there, he was a student at Middlesex University, also doing relief work at Hackney Infirmary, where he gained a great deal of technical experience. His ultimate goal was to pass the FRCS exam, notoriously difficult to pass in those days. He failed his first attempt but passed the second time round. He recalls the whole experience with equanimity, “I came to the conclusion it was a good thing to have failed because I learnt more than I would otherwise have learnt. And then got through.”

Having obtained this qualification, he returned to Australia to do general surgery at St Vincent’s. Brain surgery was all but non-existent in those days, and something Douglas became involved in quite coincidentally in 1933: he was treating a Russian man who had become blind and, having examined him and taken X-rays and so on, Douglas came to the conclusion that his patient had a tumour in his pituitary gland. As there was nobody in Sydney who could, or would, tackle this problem, he decided to team up with the newly appointed Professor of Surgery, Harold Dew. After practicing on dead bodies in the dissecting room and mortuaries, they felt ready to operate on the man. The case was successful and word spread quickly, so that soon they were inundated with neurosurgical problems about which they knew nothing. Consequently, in 1934, Dew arranged for Douglas to go to England to work with Hugh Caims at the London Hospital, where together with Caims, he developed the beginnings of real neurosurgery.

In 1939, he married an Australian woman in Surrey. However, with the onset of World War II, he was sent to Egypt to be in charge of a general surgical clearing place in the Western Desert, and then to an Australian hospital in Nazareth, where he was in charge of surgery. After his success there, he was appointed to Head of the Centre for Head Injuries in Cairo.

Returning to Australia after the War, he devoted himself exclusively to developing neurosurgery at St Vincent’s Hospital and in Sydney, helped by the many ground-breaking advancements in anaesthesia, instrumentation and lighting that were being made at the time, and which contributed greatly to the development and success of neurosurgery.

Douglas quickly became a leading figure in the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, becoming President from 1957 to 1959. In that role, he was also fast becoming an important diplomat in medical circles. He travelled to various countries in South-East Asia, both as an ambassador and as a teacher educating the local hospital staff in neurosurgery, an area of medicine in which they were completely undeveloped.

Douglas recalls a surprising response on his trip to China in 1957:

<blockquote>I went… with a special group invited to China – this was very shortly after the Communist Revolution – and 20 Australian specialists were invited for a month. And we went up to China, and handed in our passports of course…some of the chaps got very nervous after this! But they, they looked after us like royalty. It was wonderful, really.<ref>Miller D, A Surgeons Story, John Ferguson Pty Ltd, Sydney, 1985.</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>… I remember there was a neurosurgeon in… Peking it was then called, and he seemed to be the only neurosurgeon in Peking for… God knows how many million people! And I said to him, “I’m very interested in what you do about head injuries.” “Oh,” he said, “we don’t have them.” I said, “How do you mean you don’t have head injuries?” He said, “Chairman Mao says we are not to have head injuries.” Finish conversation. <ref>All quotes and information have been taken from Blythe, Max. 1993 Interview with Sir Douglas Miller, The Royal College of Physicians and Oxford Brookes University Medical Sciences Video Archive MSVA 89. Generously provided by Oxford Brookes University Medical Sciences</ref> </blockquote>

Sir Douglas retired from St Vincent’s Hospital in 1960 but remained Chair of their Board of Directors until 1973.

==References==
<references />

Phillips, Gilbert Edward

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:41:12 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Neurology category:male category:1920 to 1940 category:Biographies BSc 1926 MSc 1927 MB BS 1929 MSurgery 1936 Gilbert Phillips was one of the founders of the North...

[[category:Neurology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1920 to 1940]]
[[category:Biographies]]
BSc 1926
MSc 1927
MB BS 1929
MSurgery 1936
Gilbert Phillips was one of the founders of the Northcott Neurological Centre. He was the first to study the blood groups of Australian Aboriginals and Maoris.<ref>This profile is drawn from an obituary published in the MJA; regrettably, original publication details unclear.</ref>

Gilbert Edward Phillips was born in Sydney, 1905. He entered university with an exhibition in medicine in 1923. In the following two years he obtained credits in second and third year Medicine, and then proceeded to take a Bachelor of Science in Physiology in 1926, obtaining first-class honours and the University Medal. He continued with fourth year Medicine, also gaining a Master of Science in Physiology, again with first-class honours and winning the University Medal. The subject of his master’s thesis was An Introduction to the Study of Iso-Haem-Agglutination Reactions of the Blood of Australian Aboriginals. A year or so later, Gilbert went to New Zealand to study the blood groups of the Maori and was admitted to kinship of a Maori tribe. (He was to visit New Zealand once more in 1950, as Medical Adviser to the team representing Australia at the Empire Games). In 1929, he obtained his final degree in Medicine. In 1936, he was awarded a Master of Surgery and two years later, became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

In the early 1930s, Gilbert worked as a Liston Wilson Research Fellow, first in the Department of Anatomy for a year. With the aid of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship from 1931 to 1933, he then went to England to work as Research Assistant to Sir Charles Sherrington from Oxford and Professor ED Adrian from Cambridge, publishing work on the sympathetic nervous system, postural reflex action, the cochlea, myotatic reflexes in sympathectomized muscle, and on the perception of flicker in lesion of the visual pathways, et cetera. Gilbert was also Clinical Clerk to Dr Gordon Holmes at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, London and Surgical Assistant to Hugh Cairns, later Sir Hugh Cairns, at that time at the London Hospital.

These years with Sherrington, Adrian, Gordon Holmes and Cairns were the formative years of his life, during which Gilbert laid the foundations of knowledge fundamental to the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. His whole life was dominated by the endeavour to integrate all these scientific and practical disciplines in the service of neurology and neurosurgery.

In 1934, on his return to Sydney, Gilbert was made Assistant Lecturer in Surgery at the University and given a full Lectureship in 1935 and 1936, one of the conditions of the Rockefeller Fellowship. At the same time, he was Honorary Neurological Surgeon at the Lewisham General Hospital and carried out work on the general treatment of head injuries. From this time until his death, Gilbert was also Lecturer in Neurology and Applied Neurophysiology in the Department of Anatomy.

Around 1934 he completed his work on myotatic reflexes in association with Stuart Morson, then a student, for which they were awarded the 1935 Peter Bancroft Prize of the University of Sydney. In 1937, as part of his Rockefeller Fellowship, he began visiting the prominent neurological centres in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

During the War, Gilbert served in the Royal Australian Air Force in Richmond, NSW and his services there led to the development of two research centres of the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne. Just after the War, the famous American General, George Patton, was injured in a car accident. Gilbert and Cairn were flown to Austria, but found that little could be done for Patton, who had a fracture of the upper cervical part of the vertebral column.

In the period from 1947 to 1951, he was instrumental in establishing the diagnostic neurological centre later to be called the Northcott Neurological Centre. However, his career was cut short by his untimely death in 1952 at the age of 47.

Benjamin, Bruce Neil Proctor

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:37:52 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Otolaryngology category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:BiographiesMB BS 1956 DLO FRACS FAAP FACS (Hon) Professor Bruce Benjamin is described as “a pioneer...

[[category:Otolaryngology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]MB BS 1956
DLO FRACS FAAP FACS (Hon)

Professor Bruce Benjamin is described as “a pioneer in ear, nose and throat (ENT) surgery”. He was the first ENT Registrar at Sydney Hospital, and the first in Australia to use the CO2 laser for ENT surgery. He was Foundation President of the Australasian Society of Paediatric Otolaryngology in 1993 and designed the Benjamin jet tube for anaesthesia during microlaryngoscopy.

After graduating, Bruce was initially a Junior Resident Medical Officer at Royal North Shore Hospital. In 1957, he moved to St Vincent’s as a Senior Resident Medical Officer followed by a year as Pathology Registrar, mostly doing post mortems. Next, he had the unexpected opportunity to become the first ENT Registrar at Sydney Hospital. His colleagues declared his decision to be “crazy” and to have “no future”, saying that surely antibiotics would cure tonsillitis, otitis, sinusitis, etc. Their assessment of the future was most certainly invalid. In fact, the operating microscope was already on the drawing board and ENT surgery was about to expand into unimaginably exciting fields such as microsurgical reconstructive middle ear surgery, laryngeal microsurgery, and laser procedures. In the mid 1970s at Sydney Hospital, the ENT department received the second coherent laser off the Boston assembly line, and Bruce was the first in Australia to use the CO2 laser in the airways of both adults and children and in head and neck cancer surgery.

In his progress in medicine as an ENT surgeon, Bruce’s initial hospital appointment was to RAHC Camperdown in 1961 as an Honorary Medical Officer and his first list was ‘six T’s and A’s’ – all recommended for operation by another surgeon. After the Hospital moved to Westmead, he stayed on there for several years, finally becoming a Consultant in 1999, thus serving a total of 40 years. In the 1960s, paediatric Ear Nose and Throat surgery was mainly concerned with removal of tonsils and adenoids, sinus washouts, drainage of suppurative conditions and removal of foreign bodies in the oesophagus and tracheo-bronchial tree. The latter was often a hazardous, uncertain, hair-raising adventure, but is now much safer and more controlled.

In 1961, Bruce became an Assistant ENT Surgeon at Sydney Hospital doing a diversity of ontological, nasal and paranasal, pharyngeal, laryngeal and neck cancer surgery. He was elevated to Consultant in 1985. Later, a position became available at Royal North Shore Hospital, and Bruce worked there happily for 15 years, principally in adult laryngeal and upper airway diseases. Besides his public hospital duties, he also worked at St Luke’s Hospital.

During his time in practice there were undreamed-of improvements in clinical skills, diagnostic accuracy and surgical precision. Endoscopic visualisation using fibre optics is now further refined by using telescopes, precision tools and endoscopes for patients of all ages from very low birth weight to adults. The indications for operative interference are more stringent. Patient safety is paramount. The management of acute or acute-on-chronic airway obstruction in children and adults, whether of a congenital, acquired or inflammatory nature, demands close cooperation with an experienced anaesthetist. At Sydney Hospital the Benjamin jet tube, an innovative anaesthetic tube for adult micro-laryngoscopy, was developed; it still remains in use 25 years later.

Five years after commencing consultant ENT practice in Macquarie Street, Bruce made numerous yearly visits to North America, attending courses and gaining a wider experience in the swiftly-developed and fascinating field of laryngo-broncho-oesophaglogy in both adults and children. The latter had been a neglected topic until the 1970s and 1980s. This paediatric sub-specialty had developed so rapidly that the American Society of Paediatric Otolaryngology, of which Bruce is a Foundation Member since its inception in 1985, now has more members than any other American ENT association. Bruce has also been a member of another four “of these learned ENT societies”.

His keen interest in photography combined with application of the superb rod-lens telescopes and the Karl Storz endoscopic equipment enabled Bruce, over a 30-year period, to improve the photographic documentation of the pharynx, larynx, tracheobronchial tree and oesophagus in health and disease. The slides and photographs have been utilised in many ways to illustrate lectures, teaching publications, posters and other presentations including over 100 scientific journal articles and 21 chapters in textbooks. Bruce has written or edited five major reference books and atlases, three as solo author.

A number of highly regarded honours have been bestowed on Bruce. He served on committees with the Sydney Hospitallers, the Shepherd Centre, and the Royal Flying Doctor Service; and he was Chairman of the Otolaryngological Society of NSW. He is or has been on the Editorial Board and a Consultant Reviewer of nine medical journals. The Bruce Benjamin Medal was inaugurated and presented at the Australian Laryngeal Meeting at Sydney Hospital in June 2000.

At the University of Sydney, he lectured to undergraduates on diseases of the Ear, Nose and Throat and was then Lecturer in Laryngology for ten years, followed by an appointment as Clinical Associate Professor, which was later upgraded to Clinical Professor of ENT/Head and Neck Surgery. At a postgraduate level, he was Secretary and of Chairman of the Board of Otolaryngological Studies. The latter became the NSW Regional Subcommittee of the RACS and was charged with the administration of ENT Registrar training in NSW. For six years, Bruce was on the Federal Surgical Board in ENT Training, which he felt to be both a stimulating and worthwhile responsibility. In addition and as a separate program, he began a Fellowship in Paediatric and Adult Laryngo-broncho-oesophagology which was a hands-on training position for Fellows to become familiar with the techniques of endoscopy and anaesthesia that Bruce and his colleagues developed in Sydney.

Professor Bruce Benjamin retired in 1999.<ref>This profile is an edited excerpt of the profile written by Professor Bruce Benjamin and published in Purchas, James Maurice (2005) The University of Sydney, Faculty of Medicine 1956 Graduates Jubilee Book, Published by editors Purchas J, Benjamin B & Hepburn S, Canberra.</ref>

==References==
<references />

Clark, Graeme M

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:35:37 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Otolaryngology category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MB BS 1958 MSurgery 1969 Ph D Med 1970 MD 1989 FRCS (Edinburgh) FRCS (England) FRACS Ho...

[[category:Otolaryngology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1958
MSurgery 1969
Ph D Med 1970
MD 1989
FRCS (Edinburgh) FRCS (England) FRACS Hon MD (Hanover) Hon MD (Sydney) Hon DSc (Wollongong) Hon DEng (CYC Taiwan) Hon LLD (Monash) Hon FAudSA Hon FRCS (England)

One of our most distinguished alumni in the field of Otolaryngology is Professor Graeme Milbourne Clark, foundation Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne and pioneer of the multiple-channel cochlear implant, the ‘bionic ear’.

Professor Graeme Clark pioneered the multiple-channel cochlear implant which has brought hearing and speech understanding to tens of thousands of people with severe-to-profound hearing loss in more than 80 countries.

Graeme Clarke graduated from Medicine at the University of Sydney in 1958 and became Resident Medical Officer at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH), Sydney. In 1960, he also became Lecturer in Anatomy in the Faculty of Medicine. By 1961, he had graduated to being Registrar in Neurosurgery and Otolaryngology at RPAH. He went to London in 1962 and was appointed Senior House Surgeon of the Royal National Ear Nose and Throat Hospital in London. He remained in England for four years, working at Bristol General Hospital and the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.

When he returned to Australia, Graeme first went to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, where he was the first Assistant Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) surgeon, later becoming Senior Honorary ENT Surgeon. In 1967, he again lectured at the University of Sydney, this time in physiology. In 1969, he served as a Senior Research Officer of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

Graeme became the foundation Professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne in 1970, retiring from that position in 2004, when he was made Honorary Laureate Professorial Fellow at the University and became full-time Director of the Bionic Ear Institute.

Graeme had commenced basic research on electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve fibres at the University of Sydney in 1967. His research showed that multiple-channel (electrode) stimulation rather than a single-channel cochlear implant would be required for the management of a severe-to-profound hearing loss. Since 1970, Graeme has led the research on electrical stimulation of the auditory nerves in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne and the Bionic Ear Institute. This research has demonstrated that a multiple-channel cochlear implant can provide significant understanding of speech for severely-to-profoundly deaf children and adults and enable near normal speech for deaf children through electrical stimulation of the hearing nerves in the cochlea. The research also demonstrated that bilateral and bimodal cochlear implants can enable people with hearing aids and implants to localise sound and hear more effectively in a noisy environment. In a series of studies on experimental animals, he showed that a multiple-channel cochlear implant was safe, with minimal risk of meningitis from middle ear infection, if a fibrous tissue sheath was produced around a single-component multiple-electrode array and this was facilitated with a fascial graft.

It was not previously thought possible to provide speech understanding with a small number of electrodes, as the cochlea (inner ear) is innervated by 10,000 to 20,000 neurons in a complex manner. However, the multiple-channel cochlear implant resulting from the discoveries of Graeme and his co-workers is the first sensori-neural prosthesis to effectively and safely bring electronic technology into a direct physiological relationship with the central nervous system and human consciousness. Graeme also established the surgical and audiological principles that are the basis for its regular clinical use.

A month after Graeme and his team operated on Rod Saunders to implant the University of Melbourne’s first bionic ear, they asked Saunders to return so they could see whether the surgery had worked and how they could help him understand speech. When they tested him with an electric current, all Saunders could hear was the hissing sound frequently experienced by deaf people. Finally, just before the third hearing test, they discovered a fault in the test equipment, which could account for the lack of results.

Below is an excerpt from Sounds of Silence, describing the third appointment with Rod Saunders.

<blockquote>At the second test session I was eager to find out whether Rod could recognise the voicing and rhythm of speech. To test for these skills, we used the computer to play tunes through the implant. The first was the then national anthem, “God Save the Queen”. Our answer came immediately as Rod stood to attention, disconnecting some of his leads as he did so. It was good to have selected a patient with a sense of humour. Then Jo suggested, “Why not test him with Waltzing Matilda?” Rod had no trouble with that one either. He could recognise the songs he knew, but could he hum the tune of a song that had come out after he went deaf? We found that he could, which was very encouraging.<ref>From Clarke G (2000) Sounds from silence: Graeme Clark and the bionic ear story, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.</ref></blockquote>

His work to develop the multiple-channel cochlear implant and take it through to commercial reality took 18 years, from 1967 to 1985, and is outlined in the History of the Cochlear Implant. The cochlear implant originally developed by the Melbourne research team and manufactured by the Australian company Cochlear Limited has held up to 80 per cent of the world market over the last 20 years.

In addition to this research, Graeme has played a key role in the development of the Automatic Brainwave Audiometer, the first method for objective accurate measurement of hearing thresholds for low and high frequencies in infants and young children, and the Tickle Talker™, a device enabling deaf children to understand speech through electro-tactile stimulation of the nerves of the fingers.

Graeme was awarded the AC (Companion of the Order of Australia), Australia’s highest civil honour, for services to medicine and to science through innovative research to further the development of cochlear implant technology for worldwide benefit in 2004.

In 2005, he received the Excellence in Surgery Award from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons which recognises the highest level of surgical achievement by world standards, advanced innovation in the field, continued quality and worth of the innovation, and the highest standard of ethics. He received the A Charles Holland Foundation International Prize for fundamental contributions to the progress of knowledge in audiology/otology, at the XVIII World Congress of the International Federation of Otorhinolaryngological Societies in Rome. He received the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Medal for outstanding contributions to medicine at the Quincentenary Ceremony for the Presentation of Diplomas.

Graeme also received the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science, Australia’s pre-eminent award for excellence in science, recognising outstanding achievement by Australians in science and technology to promote human welfare in 2004. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his contribution to science, both in fundamental research resulting in greater understanding, and in leading and directing scientific and technological progress in industry and research establishments. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of The Royal College of Surgeons of England, awarded for outstanding achievement in medicine. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Acoustical Society for notable contribution to the science and practice of acoustics, and received the Doctorate of Laws honoris causa from Monash University, its highest honour.

In 2003, Graeme was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine in London for exceptional distinction, with recipients drawn from across the world and from a wide range of endeavours, particularly in the medical sciences. He received the Doctorate of Engineering honoris causa from Chung Yuan Christian University in Taiwan.

In 2002, Graeme was elected an Honorary Member of the American Otological Society. He received the Doctorate of Science honoris causa from the University of Wollongong, Australia. In 1998, he was elected Fellow of both the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

Graeme has received Honorary Doctorate of Medicine degrees from the University of Sydney and the Medizinische Hochschule, Hanover along with many other awards and prizes.

==References==
<references />

Dunea, George

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:29:56 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Nephrology category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MB BS 1958 FRCP (Lon) FRCP (Edin) FACP FASN George Dunea began writing his ‘Letter from Ch...

[[category:Nephrology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1958
FRCP (Lon) FRCP (Edin) FACP FASN

George Dunea began writing his ‘Letter from Chicago’ for the British Medical Journal in 1975, and has published 302 columns to date. He has been Chairman of the Division of Nephrology at Cook County Hospital since 1969.

George graduated from Medicine in 1958 and completed his Internship at the Royal North Shore Hospital, followed by a Residency at the Parramatta District Hospital in 1959. In 1960, he travelled to England and worked at Oldchurch Hospital in Essex and Orpington Hospital in Kent. For the next three years, he remained in England as registrar at various hospitals, as well as having several clinical attachments. He first worked in kidney disease at the Royal Free Hospital in London under Stanley Shaldon, a pioneer in dialysis who had developed one of the first dialysis units in England and initiated percutaneous cannulation of the femoral vessels as a means of accessing the circulation.

In 1964, George decided to further his training in Nephrology by accepting a fellowship in the Department of Artificial Organs at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio. There he worked under the direction of Willem J Kolff, who had constructed the first artificial kidney in the Netherlands during World War II, had developed one of the earliest dialysis centres in the United States, and was pioneering cadaver kidney transplantation. According to George:

<blockquote>Stimulated by the work of Dr Yatsidis in Athens, we constructed a “charcoal artificial kidney” for hemoperfusion and attempted to treat patients with renal failure. We thus were the second ones to ever pass patients’ blood over activated charcoal, a method that for some time became popular and widely used for treating intoxications.<ref>From personal correspondence with George Dunea.</ref></blockquote>

In 1965 George moved to Chicago to continue his fellowship at Presbyterian St Luke’s and University of Illinois Hospital, under the direction of Robert M Kark, who had pioneered the introduction of kidney biopsy in the United States. During his fellowship, George carried out research in several fields and described the acute renal failure of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura and the nephropathy of brucellosis.

In 1966, he accepted the position of attending physician at Cook County Hospital and in 1969 became chairman of the Renal Division. However, money was scarce, inventiveness called for. George describes how he converted a Maytag washing machine into a dialysis machine:

<blockquote>The washing machine system we used in Chicago was based on an earlier one by Kolff. But whereas he used four shallow coils and no blood pump, we threw out the ringer and connected the drain to a commercially available dialyzer for recirculation and were able to use a regular finger pump to propel the blood. When we had enough funds to acquire regular dialysis machines we allowed the old washing machine to disappear into the bowels of the County Hospital.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

Research was continued in several fields, resulting in the eventual publication of some 150 scientific papers, including on dialysis encephalopathy:

<blockquote>Dialysis encephalopathy due to aluminium interaction was first reported by Dr Alfrey in Colorado. We published the second series in The Lancet, rather dramatically calling it a mysterious and fatal disorder and coining the name ‘dialysis dementia’, which stuck. We later confirmed that it was due to a change in the Michigan Lake water purification system and that indeed it was due to aluminium, as shown by Alfrey.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

Further papers published by his team dealt with developing better ways to treat chronic renal failure, descriptions of various clinical conditions, and basic work designed to stop the progression of renal disease. Numerous fellows were trained in nephrology in association with the School of Medicine, University of Illinois.

In 1975, he began to write a regular column for the British Medical Journal called Letter from Chicago, now called Soundings. As with his other achievements, George is somewhat self effacing:

<blockquote>In 1964 I wrote a ‘Personal View’ for the BMJ. It led to my being invited by their new editor, Dr Stephen Lock, to write a regular letter from Chicago. Others were supposed to write from Leningrad, Paris, Adelaide, etc, but eventually they all dropped out (as they probably had better things to do!). I had not done much non-technical writing before that, and at the beginning found writing somewhat difficult. But my column was strangely successful; I received lots of fan mail from a variety of people from all over the world. Some years ago my former father-in-law, a journalist, commented that it was most unusual for any journal or newspaper column to go on for such a long time. I believe that they may be planning make some changes, but for the time being I am continuing to write – even though I may be burning out and have often thought it is about time to quit.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

According to Yvonne Cossart, George’s column was significant because it provided the British audience with some missing cultural understanding of the practice of medicine in the United States, as they had up to that point only been exposed to highly technical material from there. George’s writing provided the more humane view of the technology used in medicine.<ref>From personal correspondence with Yvonne Cossart.</ref> In his 302 columns, he has addressed a variety of topics on health care under such inviting and humorous titles as Confusion Oriental Medical Records, Sweet and Sour Pills, Psychiatrists in Restraints, Writing about Dying, Hyperactive Judges, Freeing the Women, Swallowing the Golden Ball, Consultants and Consultoids, Dangers of Afghan Food, Venice from the Air, Downsizing a Rhinoceros General, Cunegonde’s ears or multiple medical errors, The Gas we Pass, Au Zinc, Some diseases must Declare Themselves, Client on Diets, If I Ruled the World, Speech that Irritates, and Cats, Mice, and Cocaine.

In addition, he has written numerous scientific articles and edited various journals and texts. He was one of the editors of the Third Edition of The Oxford Illustrated Medical Companion.

In 1991, he became President and CEO of the Hektoen Institute of Medicine that supports research and education through grants, lectures, and learned activities. George remains President and CEO of Hektoen Institute of Medicine; Chairman, Division of Nephrology-Hypertension at Cook County Hospital; and Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois.

==References==
<references />

Lawrence, James Roland

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:22:23 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Nephrology category:male category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies MM ad eundem gradum 2001 MB BS (Adel) 1954 Hon D Med Sc (USM) FACP (Hon) FRCPE James (Jim) La...

[[category:Nephrology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MM ad eundem gradum 2001
MB BS (Adel) 1954 Hon D Med Sc (USM) FACP (Hon) FRCPE

James (Jim) Lawrence was the inaugural Director of the Renal Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1964. In this capacity, he was a leader in the first successful renal transplant in Australia. He was Founding Director of the Australian Kidney Foundation.

Jim was born in Mt Gambier, South Australia in 1930. He studied medicine at the University of Adelaide and graduated in 1954, after which he became Resident Medical Officer at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. He worked as a Lecturer in Pathology at the University of Adelaide in 1956 and as a Medical Registrar at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1957. A year later, he was a Barker Research Fellow in the University of Adelaide’s Department of Medicine.

Jim made the decision to specialise in the emerging field of renal medicine in the late 1950s. This was “a case of good timing because artificial kidneys had just become available, transplants were occurring, and kidney biopsies and immunology were unravelling renal disease”.<ref>Profile of James Lawrence in ’50 Year Member Luncheon 2005’, Australian Medical Association, presented at The Refectory, Holme Building, University of Sydney, 18 June 2005.</ref> Jim obtained a scholarship from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians to undertake renal medicine research in Chicago, and from 1958 to 1959 he was a Research Assistant and Fellow at the University of Illinois.

Moving to the United Kingdom in 1961, Jim was a Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and then in the Medical Unit of University College Hospital Medical School in London.

He returned to Adelaide in 1964 as Director of the new Renal Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. He was offered this position at the young age of 33 “because at the time there weren’t many senior doctors who knew much about the new specialty of kidney disease”.<ref>ibid.</ref> In this capacity in 1965, he was part of the first team in Australia to perform a successful renal transplant. He established a renal unit providing care of end-stage renal failure using newly developed long-term dialysis, and in 1965 the first successful renal transplant in Australia was performed in the Unit. The Unit introduced the concepts of integrated multidisciplinary team care, and embarked on collaborative studies of newly recognised renal disease based on renal biopsy and immunology as well as analgesic nephropathy. National networks were built for transplant donor exchange and tissue typing. Jim and his interstate colleagues worked to establish the new medical specialty in Australia and New Zealand, and for many years attracted outstanding academic and clinical trainees in renal medicine from across Australia and Southeast Asia. His energy and leadership saw him elected as founding Vice President, and then President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology 1966 to 1970. Australia made major contributions to the rapidly evolving field of renal disease and its management. As a founding Director of the Australian Kidney Foundation, Jim served on the Board from 1983 to 1999 and was Vice president from 1983 to 1999.

In 1976, he was appointed Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney and Foundation Chair at the Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, which he remained until 1997. As an enthusiastic teacher and leader he played a major role in establishing the Clinical School at CRGH, together with his Academic and Staff Specialist colleagues. From 1988 to 1991, he was Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Sydney.

Jim was active in the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, as Censor from 1967 to 1979, Councillor for eight years from 1980, and Chairman and Honorary Director of the Board of Continuing Education 1981 to 1988. He was a Member of the Asian Pacific Committee from 1981 to 2001 and convened the Scientific Program RACP International Golden Jubilee Meeting.

Lawrence made a particular contribution to the evolution of more modern integrated undergraduate and post graduate teaching and assessment in the Faculty. In 1977, he became a Member of the University’s Postgraduate Committee in Medicine, and was Honorary Director from 1989 to 2000. Since its inception in 1978 and until 2000, he convened the Basic Physician Training Program, the Committee’s flagship course. His role in continuing education also extended to the Australian Postgraduate Federation in Medicine, of which between 1980 and 2001, he served as Councillor, Vice President, and President. He was a member of the NSW Postgraduate Medical Council from 1989 to 1994.

Between 1992 and 1998, Jim was Deputy Chair of the Academic Board and Chair of the Committee for Graduate Studies at the University of Sydney. A tribute to Jim and his contribution in these roles was given at his last Academic Board meeting in 1998:

<blockquote>… Jim Lawrence has so unstintingly and generously given of his time, experience, unfailing tact and wisdom to the collegial life and good governance of the University… As Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee for seven years, Jim Lawrence has been committed to both ensuring that our graduate students are nourished and cherished and that the degrees with which they graduate have the highest possible currency. </blockquote>

In this position, Jim also developed the Postgraduate Studies Handbook and instituted the program for supervisor training in collaboration with the Centre for Teaching and Learning. He oversaw the enhancement of the postgraduate review process and was responsible for the selection of examiners in consultation and assessment of appeals. His time as Chair was one of reform and resulted in increased accountability of supervisors and standards across all Faculties.

Throughout his career Jim has been an effective member of numerous other Faculty and University committees. He was Associate Dean of the Undergraduate Medical Program and International affairs from 1995 to 2001. In 1985, under the auspices of IDP, he began an association with University Sains Malaysia and for 10 years from 1995, was Senior Consultant Advisor to the USMUS (University Sains Malaysia, University of Sydney) postgraduate exchange education program. In 2005, Jim was recognised for his contribution to the growth of the School of Medical Sciences in USM with the award of an Honorary Doctorate

From 1998 Jim was a Visiting Professor of Medicine at Canterbury Hospital for two years, and Visiting Professor (Physician Education) at Westmead Hospital for four years. Between 2000 and 2004, he was a member of the Academic Council International Medical University, Malaysia.

Jim was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “service to medical education and to nephrology” in 1993.<ref>Quote from www.itsanhonour.gov.au, accessed 10 January 2006.</ref> In 2002 he was appointed Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and remains active within the University of Sydney.

==References==
<references />

Sands, John Robert

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:13:32 GMT

Admin:

[[category:Nephrology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1940 to 1960]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1941
FRACP

John Sands was integral to the development of the renal unit at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the earliest renal transplantation program in the City of Sydney.<ref>This profile is an edited version of Greenaway J in Wiseman J and Mulhearn R (1994) Roll of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (II) Sydney, RACP. Reprinted with courtesy of RACP.
</ref>

Graduating from the University of Sydney in September 1941, John served as a junior Resident at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH). By the end of 1942, he had enlisted in the AIF, and served the remainder of the war in the Pacific area of operations. Following the war, he returned to residency at RPAH for a refresher period. Announcing his intention to do medicine, he was promptly assigned to the orthopaedics ward. Six months later he was a Member of the College.

There followed several years in general practice, and in 1955 he was appointed Honorary Assistant Physician to RPAH. In 1963, he became what was then termed a Senior Physician in charge of a general medical unit. His particular interest was in renal medicine, and he played a critical role in fostering and developing the renal unit and the transplantation program in the city of Sydney. Characteristic of the man was that once the program and unit were firmly established and there were others trained to the appropriate degree, he stepped down from the Directorship of the unit. But his service to the Hospital amounted to much more than that mentioned above. He served on innumerable committees, and played a major role in the reorganisation of the division of medicine in the 1970s. He was greatly respected and sought after as a teacher, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Outside the Hospital his contributions were no less significant. In his earlier years he served on the committee of the Eastern Suburbs Medical Association and became its Chairman. For some years he was a Councillor of the Medical Defence Union. But it is in his activities within the College that he made his greatest contributions to medicine within this country. Elected as a Member Councillor in 1958, he was created a Fellow of the College in 1960 and was appointed Assistant Honorary Treasurer. In 1962, he became Honorary Treasurer, a post he held until 1968. His financial expertise was of inestimable value to the College at that time, which included the March of Medicine Appeal. From 1968 to 1974 he continued as an elected Councillor of the College, and finally from 1974 to 1976 as Vice President. However, during these very active and creative years, perhaps the greatest contribution of all to the College, in conjunction with Professor Bryan Hudson, was the total reorganisation of the College training program for young physicians. Others were, of course, involved but these two were the driving force, an effort which amongst other things required the visiting of every teaching hospital in the country.

In addition, for many years he was active in business on the board of John Sands Limited from the age of 25 years and elected to the chair in 1965, following the death of his father. The company thrived, a performance noted by others, and in 1974 he was invited to join the Board of the Bank of New South Wales. His performance in the business world was extraordinary, greatly valued by others, and, as Sir Robert Norman stated in his peroration at the memorial service at St Stephen’s Church on 1 February 1980, the business community of the city lost a fine man of outstanding ability.

What has been detailed so far outlines the bare bones of a remarkable career of a remarkable man. But it gives little colour to the personality, little indication of the love, affection and respect accorded him by his innumerable friends, colleagues and patients. He had a rapier-like wit, never malicious, and a wonderful sense of the ridiculous. These attributes thrived in a mind that was avaricious for knowledge, fertilised by an extraordinary breadth and depth of extracurricular reading. A lovely story concerns a period of service in a field ambulance during the war, an experience shared with his brother-in-law, N E Brand of Lismore. When they were stationed at Oro Bay in the North of New Guinea, the authorities at base finally realised that a particular serviceman had remained, for an unusually long time at the field ambulance, suffering a remarkable number of relapses of malaria. It emerged that the particular serviceman had been a diver in civilian life, that there was a sunken freighter in the harbour, whose cargo included a considerable quantity of liquor, and that the former diver’s skill kept himself, his companions, and the two medical officers supplied with sustenance.

John Sands loved the young and was constantly probing and striving to improve their training and their opportunities in medicine. And quite apart from formal avenues, many was the time when a quiet word here, or a helping hand there, often unbeknown to the recipient, influenced a career. Says J M Greenaway, “it was my privilege to propose his health at the dinner given him by the division of medicine of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on his retirement from the active staff in 1978. In that speech I quoted from Mark Anthony’s eulogy of Brutus:

<center>His life was gentle and the elements
So mix’d in him that nature might stand up
And say to all the world ‘This was a man!’</center>

In the manner of passing I found not one tittle of evidence to alter my opinion.”

==References==
<references />

Sands, John Robert

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:13:15 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Nephrology category:male category:1940 to 1960 category:Biographies MB BS 1941 FRACP John Sands was integral to the development of the renal unit at Royal Prince ...

Reader, Sydney Ralph

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:10:10 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Nephrology category:male category:1940 to 1960 category:Biographies MB BS 1940 MD honoris causa 2006 DPhil (Oxon) FRCP FRACP Ralph Reader established the first de...

[[category:Nephrology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1940 to 1960]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1940
MD honoris causa 2006
DPhil (Oxon) FRCP FRACP

Ralph Reader established the first department of Renal Medicine at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1957 and was the first medical director of the National Heart Foundation of Australia in 1961. Shortly after his return from Oxford in 1951 the RACP appointed Ralph Hon Secretary of the inaugural editorial committee of its newly established Australasian Annals of Medicine, (now the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Medicine). From 1975 to 1982 Ralph was Chairman of the first WHO-ISH Liaison Committee for Mild Hypertension.

Ralph was appointed in 1940, with three of his other colleagues, as students in Residence at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital to relieve the shortage of resident doctors joining the armed services. He graduated in 1940 and in 1941 was appointed Professorial Resident Medical Officer to the clinical professors at the hospital; at that time being Dew, Lambie and Dawson. During that year he enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve and was commissioned Surgeon Lieutenant with seniority 21 July 1941. He was advised, however, to complete his year of residency and to find temporary employment until he was called up for active service. Ralph was mobilised in 1942 and until 1946 he served as a Surgeon Lieutenant and acting Lt Cdr and Medical Specialist with the RANVR.

After World War II he returned to the University of Sydney and took up a research scholarship within the Department of Medicine. During his war service he had developed an interest in the pathogenesis of acute glomerulonephritis and the causes of nephritis and applied to Professor Lambie to develop these interests within his department.

From 1948 to 1950 he was a Nuffield Dominions Fellow within the Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford. Working with Professor Witts at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Ralph had the opportunity to investigate “the popular concept that rheumatism was pathogenetically related to environmental chilling and tissue temperature changes”, receiving his DPhil for this work in 1952.

While still in Oxford, Ralph was appointed Honorary Assistant Physician at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and on his return, in 1951, began clinical duties, student tutorials, fourth year lectures in nephrology as well as developing his research into the role of complement in immunological diseases such as acute and chronic glomerulonephritis in Professor Lambie’s lab. At the same time, he set up practice in Macquarie Street (and later the Medical Specialist Centre established adjacent to RPAH) and remained active as a consultant for the next ten years.

In his final three years at RPAH he was promoted to acting physician status in charge of one or the six medical units when Harry Maynard Rennie went to the Page Chest Building. Ralph says that “this was symptomatic of a trend to the subspecialties at the hospital and indeed of medicine generally in Australia at that time”. Ralph channeled his own interest in renal disease into the establishment of the ‘Renal Group’ and with his leadership, this voluntary group “sought out interesting cases, consulted when requested and introduced the advances in diagnostic and therapeutic methods that were rapidly evolving”. Dr Hal Selle, General Superintendant in 1957, made a room available for them within the hospital to base their meetings. From these humble beginnings, over ten years “an enthusiastic series of registrars had voluntarily spent time” working with the group: for example Jim Johnson, Don Deller, Colin Johnston, Trefor Morgan and Denis Wade, who later took up clinical chairs and continued their interest in renal disease throughout Australia. When Ralph resigned from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, John Sands took over the leadership of this unit.

However, Ralph’s flair for leadership in clinical practice and research had been recognised and in 1961 he was invited to join the National Heart Foundation as Medical Director, an appointment he accepted. He was enthused to direct a “community based and funded health organisation promoting research, professional and community education and rehabilitation in cardiac disease”. He also saw this as an opportunity to conduct his own research and further develop his understanding of hypertension within a different context.

Ralph remained Medical Director until 1971, at which time he became Director and CEO, finally retiring from the Foundation in 1980.

His own words reflect upon the necessity for the Foundation and the nature of the early studies he undertook on their behalf:

<blockquote>When I joined the National Heart Foundation in 1961 the over riding consideration was the increasing mortality, in fact an epidemic of coronary heart disease and much was made of this in the promotion of the Foundation. But the crude mortality rates were questioned and it was claimed that the apparent increase was due to increasing age of the population. Age adjusted analysis, however, showed that the increase occurred at all ages and we published a report of those in 1966. I continued monitoring trends in cardiovascular mortality until the practice was taken over by the taken over by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.<ref>Personal correspondence.</ref></blockquote>

The increasing mortality rates continued but he reported in 1972 that a reversal of the trend had become apparent. His findings caused a stir because it was two years before this trend was reported in other countries. Under his “breathless stewardship” the Heart Foundation strove to initiate programs that addressed the control of “risk factors like high cholesterol, smoking, hypertension”<ref>Bauer G (1990) Four Chapters in The History of Australian Cardiology. The Cardiac Sociaty of Australia and New Zealand.</ref> as well as the educating the community about coronary care, signs of heart attack, heart-lung resuscitation and cardiac rehabilitation.

Ralph states that The Australian National Blood Pressure Study: 1973 to 1979 was the most ambitious and significant project undertaken during his period of service with the Heart Foundation. He says:

<blockquote>Previously hypotensive drugs had been restricted to severe and symptomatic hypertension. This study demonstrated the value of these drugs for the 90% of hypertensives with mild and symptomless level; it was a randomized, blinded, placebo controlled trial in 3427 subjects with mild hypertension with no evidence of cardiac complications. The average length of patient observation was just over four years. As a result of this and similar studies, antihypertensive drugs were quickly adopted world wide for all hypertensive patients. In Australian men aged 20 to 69, deaths from stroke, a measure of the impact of hypertension in the community, have been falling since the drugs were introduced from 80 per 100,000 in 1951 to 22 in 1990.<ref>Personal correspondence.
</ref></blockquote>

In recognition of his work in this area the International Society of Hypertension appointed Ralph an Emeritus Fellow which is, in his words, “a rare honour”.

As one of its founding fathers, Dr Reader was widely regarded as the face of the National Heart Foundation and under his stewardship, significant advances were made in the organisation’s research, education and rehabilitation programs. Gaston Bauer acknowledges the impact of Dr Reader’s work in one of his writings on the history of Cardiology in Australia when he says:

<blockquote>Since 1961 research, education and rehabilitation in the field of cardiology have been greatly assisted by the National Heart Foundation of Australia. The impact of the Foundation under the wise guidance of… Dr Ralph Reader has been felt in every cardiac department and unit throughout the Commonwealth.<ref>Bauer G op cit.
</ref></blockquote>

On his retirement from the Foundation, The Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand established The Ralph Reader Young Investigator Prize in recognition of his concern for young Research Fellows fostered by the Foundation. The prize has been awarded annually since 1981.

As well as chairing the WHO-ISH committee on Mild Hypertension Ralph conducted many assignments for WHO, including a tour of South East Asia investigating rheumatic heart disease, 1968, a survey of therapeutic trials in mild hypertension in USA, Europe, England and Australia, 1973, a review of prevalence and control of hypertension in India, 1981, and attended many international WHO conferences on cardiovascular problems, sometimes acting as rapporteur.

In 1976 Ralph was made a companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for his services to medicine. Ralph retired from the Foundation in 1980, but remains to this day one of the Foundation’s honoured National Members-at-Large.

In this our anniversary year, the University of Sydney has awarded Dr Ralph Reader an honorary Medical Doctorate in recognition of his services to clinical practice and medical research, conferred on 16 June 2006 during our anniversary celebrations.

==References==
<references/>

Blackburn, Charles Ruthven Bickerton

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:58:33 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Leadership across generations category:male category:1920 to 1940 category:Biographies MD 1939 MD honoris causa 1991 Charles (Ruthven) Blackburn is considered to ...

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[[category:1920 to 1940]]
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MD 1939
MD honoris causa 1991

Charles (Ruthven) Blackburn is considered to be the pioneer of Clinical Research at the University of Sydney. As such he forged strong and ongoing links between researchers and clinical practitioners at both Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and within the Faculty. He was also responsible for establishing key academic and research posts and for appointing highly competent staff to fill these positions.

The son of Sir Charles Bickerton Blackburn, Chancellor of the University and a former Dean of the Faculty, Ruthven had an outstanding academic record at the University of Sydney. Following a year in the Faculty of Arts, he entered Medicine and graduated in 1936 with first-class honours, winning first place in his Final Year Examination, the Harry J Clayton Memorial Prize for Medicine and Clinical Medicine, the Hinder Memorial Prize for Clinical Surgery and the Windeyer Prize for Obstetrics and Clinical Obstetrics (prox ac). He was a Resident at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and obtained his MD in 1939 for research on myeloma.

In 1940, he joined the AIF and had a distinguished record of war service. He served in the Middle East and New Guinea and finally, in Cairns, as Lieutenant Colonel and Commanding Officer of the Medical Research Unit. There he worked in close association with Sir Neil Hamilton Fairley, carrying out important studies on the chemotherapeutic suppression and prophylaxis of malaria.

After discharge from the army, he was appointed Assistant Physician at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Following a year as Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at Columbia University, New York, where he came under the influence of Robert F Loeb, he was appointed Director of the Clinical Research Unit at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He later became Senior Physician, Member of the Board of Directors, Chairman of the Division of Medicine, and Chairman of the Project Planning Team, thus exerting a profound influence on the Hospital and initiating many important changes.

When he was appointed Bosch Professor and Head of the Department of Medicine in 1957, he had an immediate impact on the students and on the teaching of Medicine not only in the Medical School of the University of Sydney, but throughout Australia. C G Lambie had developed an excellent system of medical education, but the method and content of teaching had changed little in the twenty-six years during which he held the Chair. Ruthven inherited a Department in which there was almost no active research, no academic staff and very little in the way of physical facilities. There were, however, several loyal and devoted members of the non-academic staff, W Muir, C Kirkwood, P Donnelly and W Green, who maintained the laboratories, workshops and classes. They continued to serve with Ruthven throughout his 21 years in the Chair.

Ruthven immediately set out to build an academic Department of Medicine with three principal aims: to develop academic Departments in each of the Teaching Hospitals; to develop a strong research-orientated academic group on campus and to attract first-class people into academic medicine; to establish close and harmonious relationships with the teaching hospitals; and to eliminate or blur the difference between academic and non-academic physicians.

He appointed part-time Lecturers and Assistants to the Professor at each of the Teaching Hospitals: Stanley Goulston at Royal Prince Alfred, Alan McGuinness at Sydney, D W Piper at Royal North Shore, and John Hickie at St Vincent’s. Over the years, Professorial academic appointments were made at these hospitals: John Read at Sydney, D W Piper at Royal North Shore and later, when they became full Teaching Hospitals, James Lawrence at the Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, and Peter Castaldi at the Westmead Centre. (St Vincent’s Hospital left the University of Sydney to become a teaching hospital of the University of New South Wales in 1969.) Thus, whereas previously academic medicine had been concentrated entirely at Prince Alfred, Ruthven succeeded in developing it at all the other Teaching Hospitals and establishing an evenness of teaching and academic standards. He himself visited and taught students at each of these Hospitals regularly so as to ensure this uniformity.

To develop a strongly research-orientated academic Department, he decided to strengthen background physics and mathematics in three research areas: clinical physiology, clinical biochemistry and clinical pharmacology. The research physicist Kemp Fowler was appointed as Reader; he had made the first respiratory mass spectrometer at Hammersmith Hospital and developed a mass spectrometer at the University of Sydney. John Read was later to become Professor and developed respiratory physiology. Subsequently, Barry Firkin was appointed Associate Professor of Biochemistry. James McRae, who had trained in Nuclear Medicine and developed this field in Australia, was also appointed Associate Professor. As the academic staff increased, strong research units developed in gastroenterology, cardiology, endocrinology, neurology, immunology, renal medicine, haematology and epidemiology.

In 1968, the new Scandrett Chair of Cardiology was established and Paul Korner was appointed as Foundation Professor. An outstanding physiologist, he developed a cardiological research centre of international renown and trained many young cardiologists and research workers. Upon being appointed Director of the Baker Research Institute in Melbourne in 1974, he was succeeded in the Scandrett Chair by David Kelly, who is assisted by a Senior Lecturer, Peter Fletcher.

Ruthven appreciated the importance in medicine of the rapidly developing science of immunology, and negotiated the establishment of a joint Senior Lectureship in Immunology with the Department of Bacteriology, to which Antony Basten was appointed in 1971.

In 1973, Ruthven submitted a proposal to establish a Chair of Neurology, which was unanimously approved and, due to the generosity of the Bushell Trust, was founded in 1978. James McLeod was appointed to the Chair, assisted by Associate Professor John Pollard. In 1973, John Prinneas, who had previously been a Wellcome Research Fellow in Neurology and then a Senior Lecturer, accepted a Chair in Neurology in the USA which, together with the Chair of Cardiology, was associated with Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

John Turtle developed a strong endocrinology research group, being appointed to the Chair of Medicine at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on Ruthven’s retirement. Dennis Yu is Associate Professor in the Endocrinology Unit, based at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Ann Woolcock, who had worked with the late Professor John Read, was appointed Senior Lecturer in 1973 and later promoted to Associate Professor. She established an active research team in respiratory medicine at the University and at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, which included Associate Professor Colin Sullivan and a part-time Senior Lecturer, Ivan Young.

The Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research was established in the Blackburn Building and at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and Martin Tattersall was appointed Director and Professor of Cancer Medicine in 1977. In 1982 a Chair of Rheumatology was endowed at the Royal North Shore Hospital.

At the time of Ruthven’s appointment as Professor of Medicine in 1957, he was the only full-time Member of its academic staff. At the time of his retirement there were six full-time Professors and ten other full-time members of the academic staff, as well as Professorial units in all the teaching hospitals.

Ruthven retired from the University of Sydney in 1978 and was appointed Emeritus Professor.<ref>This profile is an edited version of information that appears in Young, Sefton and Webb (1984) The Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine, Sydney University Press, Sydney.</ref> On Australia Day 2006, he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia. The citation for his award clearly sums up his achievements and influence on Australian medicine:

For service to the development of academic medicine and medical education in Australia, particularly in relation to the evolving relationship between research and clinical practice, and as a mentor influencing the professional development of a generation of leading health care professionals.<ref>http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/</ref>

==References==
<references />

Blackburn, Sir Charles Bickerton

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:19:59 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Leadership across generations category:male category:1883 to 1900 category:Biographies MB ChM 1899 MD 1903 Hon DLitt 1965 BA (Adel), FRACP (Foundation), PRACP, FR...

[[category:Leadership across generations]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1883 to 1900]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB ChM 1899
MD 1903
Hon DLitt 1965
BA (Adel), FRACP (Foundation), PRACP, FRCPE (Hon), FRCP

Sir Charles Bickerton Blackburn was one of the founders of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and was its foundation President. He was Dean of Medicine at the University of Sydney from 1932 to 1935 and in 1941, was elected Chancellor, serving in the position for 23 years. On his retirement, the Senate appointed him Chancellor Emeritus and his work is commemorated by the Chancellor’s Garden.

Charles was born in April 1874 in the Parish of Greenhithe in Kent, the second son of Archdeacon Thomas Blackburn, an Anglican priest. Soon afterwards his family moved to Hawaii, then British territory, where Charles spent the first seven years of his life. They then moved to Woodville, near Adelaide. This became their final home, and the two sons attended St Peter’s Collegiate School in Adelaide where Charles at once distinguished himself. Enrolling as an undergraduate at the University of Adelaide, he became a BA, at the age of 19, a significant omen of future achievement. He then entered the Faculty of Medicine at the same University. In 1895, as he was about to commence his clinical training, an academic dispute interrupted the progress of his class and he transferred to the University of Sydney. Despite instructions by the Dean, Professor Anderson Stuart, on what ‘not’ to do in his medical school, it was not long before Charles was caught playing cricket in one of the corridors and fined one pound!

He graduated with honours, top of the year, in 1899 (when only 11 out of 23 managed to complete their degree), and was appointed to the Resident Staff of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Two years later, he was the Medical Superintendent of this institution. Hospital duties did not prevent him from preparing a thesis for his MD degree, which he was awarded in 1903. His ability was noticed by Anderson Stuart, who was also Chairman of the Hospital Board, and in 1903, Charles was appointed Honorary Assistant Physician.

Charles commenced practice at 229 Macquarie Street, Sydney and attended outpatients at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he was also required to undertake student teaching, although not yet an official Medical Tutor.

He became a full Honorary Physician with inpatient responsibility and a full teaching load in 1911, and continued these duties until his retirement from the active staff in 1934. He remained an Honorary Consultant Physician till his death 38 years later, also serving as Honorary Consultant to the Prince Henry Hospital for many years.

In 1916, Charles enlisted in the AIF in World War I and was appointed Pathologist to the 14th Australian General Hospital in Egypt. His wide clinical knowledge ensured that he was also in demand as a consultant. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire, and twice mentioned in dispatches. During the World War II, he remained in Australia but retained his rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and acted as a Senior Consultant at the 113th AGH, Concord.

From 1932 to 1935, Charles was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney, in addition to his other commitments at Prince Alfred Hospital and at the NSW branch of the British Medical Association. He had been elected a Councillor of the British Medical Association (BMA) in 1910, and became its President for a year in 1920. He remained a Councillor for almost forty years, as well as being an active Member and Chairman of the Ethics Committee, where his long experience was extremely valuable. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Medical Association in 1964, and became life Vice President of the branch. He attended all council meetings conscientiously, but would rarely speak until his opinion was requested. He was an excellent mediator and considered irreplaceable as Chairman of the Ethics Committee.

Sir Charles was made a Knight Bachelor in 1936, and Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1960.

Having been elected to the University of Sydney Senate in 1919, he served as a Fellow for the next 45 years, becoming Chancellor from 1941 to 1964, and Chancellor Emeritus by resolution of the Senate from March 1965 until his death. His appointment as Chancellor Emeritus, we are told, gave him the greatest satisfaction. In November 1965, Sir Charles was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa in recognition of his service to the University of Sydney. During his chancellorship, he is said to have conferred degrees on 31,000 students.

One of his greatest achievements was in his role as the first President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He gave a memorable address at the inaugural ceremony held with due pomp in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney in the presence of many distinguished guests including representatives of overseas colleges. He concluded by summarising what he considered to be the essential objective of the College: “fostering facilities for young graduates to acquire advanced knowledge of medicine.”

Sir Charles would never permit anyone to harbour the impression that he alone had been responsible for the creation of the College. He had not been one of the prime movers of the concept, which was the product of many minds and hands, from all parts of Australia and New Zealand. It was the offspring of the Association of Physicians, and, as a very senior and popular member, Sir Charles was an eminently suitable and capable candidate for the inaugural Presidency. He took on the task with great zeal, working hard to guide the fledgling College in its formative days. He was largely responsible for obtaining the funds needed to buy a suitable building for the College headquarters and his own home became the meeting place for the Executive Committee before 145 Macquarie Street was available for occupation.

Sydney gained, much when he changed medical schools from Adelaide. He was a remarkable and dedicated leader with the ability to represent his profession with dignity and charm. His ability to flatter was a useful attribute. He described me as “One of the best residents I have had!” I lost some of my joy when several others told me they had been granted identical praise.

At his funeral, many spoke of Sir Charles’ contribution. According to Professor B R Williams, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney, “He represented the University with distinction in community affairs, both in the style and content of his public speeches. He was regarded with quite remarkable affection.” The late Professor David Maddison, then Dean of the Medical Faculty hailed him as “one of the most remarkable phenomena of his age, not only in medicine but in society at large. He was a man of extraordinary dignity”. Dr N Larkins, then Secretary of the NSW branch of the Australian Medical Association, described him as a “great patrician, and undoubtedly the doyen of the medical profession in NSW”. Appropriately, his name has been given to the Blackburn Pavilion at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and to the Blackburn Building which houses much of the Medical Faculty within the University.

His chief distractions were his garden and his golf. He was slightly better at the former, but liked winning at the latter, and shamelessly demanded a variable handicap with each opponent! He never had to wait at the first tee at the Royal Sydney Golf Club, for the starter would call his name as soon as he appeared. Those of us fortunate enough to have been associated with him in one way or another were privileged to learn, not so much the science of medicine, as bedside care, clinical evaluation, encouragement of our fellow mortals and relief of their anxieties and pain. His success as a physician was the result of intelligent conservatism plus shrewd individual analysis, rather than scientific originality. He was not a braggart – if he did evince a preference for being in the front row, he deserved it.

His Presidential portrait still hangs in pride of place in the Council Room of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. For many years this has meant that his portrait hung above the head of the current president during Council meetings. Whist the room has now been transformed around it, his portrait remains in its original place in recognition of his inaugural Presidency.<ref>This profile is an edited version of Maddox, K in McDonald, G L (1994) Roll of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (I) Sydney, RACP. Reprinted with courtesy of RACP.</ref>

==References==
<references />

Fenner, Frank

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:10:41 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Infectious diseases category:virology category:male category:1940 to 1960 category:Biographies DTM 1940 MB BS (Adel) MD (Adel) FRS FAA Hon MD (Monash) Hon DSc ...

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[[category:male]]
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DTM 1940
MB BS (Adel) MD (Adel)
FRS FAA Hon MD (Monash) Hon DSc (ANU, Oxford, Brookes)
Dr honoris causa (Univ Liege) FRACP FRCP (Lon)

Frank Fenner was a pioneer of myxomatosis research in Australia and his research into ‘mouse pox’ led to key developments in general understanding of the pathogenesis of viral disease. He played a central part in the global eradication of smallpox, chairing the World Health Organization Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication, and was one of the authors of the key text, ’Medical Virology’.

Frank Fenner was born in Ballarat, Victoria in 1914 and studied at the University of Adelaide, completing his MB BS in 1938 and his MD in 1942. He also received a Diploma of Tropical Medicine from the University of Sydney in 1940. Between 1940 and 1946, he served in the Middle East, Australia and Papua New Guinea as an Officer in the Australian Army Medical Corps, working as a physician, hospital pathologist and malariologist.

After the war, he went to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne to study the virus that causes smallpox in mice. Fenner’s work with ‘mouse pox’ resulted in his formulation of a more general theory of the pathogenesis of viral disease. These early discoveries not only directed his own future research, but were highly influential for the development of diagnostic tests and vaccines.

In 1949, a fellowship took him to the Rockefeller Institute in New York, where he worked on tubercle bacilli. Returning to Australia in 1949, he was appointed Professor of Microbiology at the new John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University.

<blockquote>I wanted to get onto virus work and here was a disease that killed 99 per cent of rabbits and had spread all over the Murray-Darling Basin in a matter of six weeks. I did the lab work and the CSIRO people did the field work.<ref>Interview with George Negus, 17 February 2003, accessed on http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_in_time/Transcripts/s785936.htm
</ref></blockquote>

He began studying the myxoma virus in particular, focusing on the balance between virus virulence and host resistance. Of his early days in myxomatosis research, Fenner says:

<blockquote>We did look at everything. I remember we started off with electron microscope observations of the particle and showed it was a poxvirus. Then I worked on the pathogenesis: the same things I had done with mouse pox, I did with myxomatosis. We worked on mosquito transmission, doing what we call wipe-off experiments, i.e. we had mosquitoes in little tubes, let them probe through a tumour and then saw how many positives of the different strains of virus would be taken along. That gave us the clue to why there was a selection for less virulent strains, because the very virulent one was very well transmitted but the rabbits died in four days; some intermediate ones were just as well transmitted but the rabbits lived for three weeks with infectious lesions. So there was tremendous selective advantage…</blockquote>

<blockquote>Looking back, I see that we published a paper on the pathogenesis, on the classification, on the morphology, on the relationship with other viruses of that group, the poxvirus group, on the immunity – passive immunity, active immunity – almost all aspects of all the things you could look at in the lab. But the most significant work was the study of the changes in virulence, which occurred very early and went on progressively.<ref>ibid.</ref></blockquote>

Fenner became Director of the John Curtin School from 1967 to 1973. During this time he was also Chairman of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication. In 1973 Frank was appointed to establish the new Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University and was Director until 1979.

Over the years Fenner has been elected to the fellowship of several academies, including Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (1954), Fellow of the Royal Society (1958) and Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences (1977).

Frank has been the recipient of numerous awards, medals and honours throughout his career. These include the Britannica Australia Award for Medicine (1967), the Matthew Flinders and Macfarlane Burnet Medals of the Australian Academy of Science (1967 and 1985), the Australia and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science Medal (1980), the Japan Prize (1988), the Copley Medal of the Royal Society (1995), the Albert Einstein World Award for Science (2000), and the Prime Minister’s Science Prize (2002).

In 1945, Frank was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for work in malaria control, and in 1976, was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for services to medical research. In addition to these honours, he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia for service to medical science, to public health and to the environment in 1989, and most recently, was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to microbiology.<ref>This profile is an edited extract from the biography and interview with Frank Fenner published online at http://www.science.org.au/scientists/notesff.htm, accessed 20 December 2005.</ref>

==References==
<references />

Cossart, Yvonne

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:05:17 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Infectious diseases category:virology category:female category:1960 to 1980 category:Biographies BSc (Med) Hons 1957 MB BS Hons 1959 DCP (Lond) MRC Path FRCPA ...

[[category:Infectious diseases]]
[[category:virology]]
[[category:female]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
BSc (Med) Hons 1957
MB BS Hons 1959
DCP (Lond) MRC Path FRCPA

In 1975 Yvonne Cossart discovered the ‘B19’ virus, which is known to be the cause of Fifth Disease in children as well as being a cause of aplastic anaemia, hydrops fetalis and acute arthritis. She is Bosch Professor of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Sydney.

Yvonne Cossart was born in 1934 and studied at the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1957 and the MB BS in 1959. It was during these years that her interest in virology was ignited by undertaking classical virology research in the University of Sydney’s Department of Bacteriology headed by Professor Patrick De Burgh. In 1959, she first became Resident Medical Officer at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, becoming Registrar in Pathology from 1960 to 1962. At Royal Prince Alfred Hospital she also established a virus diagnostic laboratory within the Department of Microbiology.

Yvonne then travelled to London, where she undertook postgraduate studies in clinical pathology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School. From 1963 to 1966 Yvonne was responsible for the enterovirus section of the Virus Reference Laboratory in the Central Public Health Laboratory, Colindale, where she was particularly concerned with devising laboratory methods for the surveillance of the efficacy and safety of poliomyelitis vaccination. During this time, she was also a member of the Medical Research Council Committee on Vaccination. From 1963 she worked for 13 years on a five-member panel which supervised the use of specific immunoglobulins and provided clinical advice and laboratory diagnosis for smallpox, rabies and other exotic infections. At this point, Yvonne was well on the way to becoming a world leader in the field of Infectious Diseases.

After being appointed as a consultant virologist in 1967, Yvonne began work on hepatitis, which remains her main area of interest. Initially, she was involved in providing a diagnostic and clinical advisory service for the whole of England and Wales, and later in producing reagents and in reference work. Her group designed effective control measures to contain hepatitis B in renal dialysis units in the UK and participated in the trials of hepatitis B immunoglobulin as post-exposure prophylaxis for needle-stick injury. She became Chairman of the Public Health Laboratory Service Working Party on Hepatitis in 1967, a position she retained for nine years. Between 1973 and 1976 she was Convenor and Chairman of the Society for General Microbiology Workshops on Hepatitis. Further to these appointments, Yvonne was a member of numerous committees concerned with testing, epidemiological surveys and the prevention of hepatitis in hospitals and in the community. In 1975, she and her colleagues recognised a previously unknown parvovirus in blood donations and transfusion recipients. This virus ‘B19’ is now known to be the cause of Fifth Disease in children and can also cause aplastic anaemia, hydrops fetalis and acute arthritis.

On return to Australia in 1977, Yvonne was appointed Senior Lecturer in the Department of Bacteriology at the University of Sydney, still under the leadership of Professor Patrick De Burgh. With outstanding initiative and enthusiasm, Yvonne began to shape an innovative foundational structure for the research and teaching of virology in the Department. Her return to Australia coincided with the first availability of hepatitis B vaccines and she was involved in studies of the immunisation of health care workers and the implementation of prophylaxis for babies of hepatitis B carrier mothers. Most recently, her group has been investigating the effect of biofilms in efficacy sterilisation and disinfection both in the laboratory and in endoscopy units. In the Department of Infectious Diseases she became Associate Professor from 1979 to 1985 and Head from 1981 to 1992. She expertly led the Department for over a decade amid major financial, managerial and structural changes within the University and the Medical Faculty. She was appointed to the prestigious Bosch Chair in 1986. Yvonne has continued her work on hepatitis and parvovirus, but her interests have expanded to include human papilloma viruses. Her work on these viruses has included both epidemiological and experimental studies.

For studies of the effects of drugs and disinfectants on hepatitis B, Yvonne worked with Karen Vickery to characterise the duck hepatitis B model infections using the Australian DHBV strain isolated by PhD student J Freiman. This model has been adopted by several other Australian hepatitis research groups and there is long term collaboration with the DHBV group at Stanford University in California.

For many years as part of the papilloma group, Yvonne and her colleagues Barbara Rose and Carol Thompson have worked with clinicians from the gynaecology service at King George V Hospital and with members of the Sydney Sexual Health Clinic to investigate the clinical and epidemiological significance of the detection of different human papilloma types in cervical scrape and cervical biopsy specimens. The group has demonstrated that molecular detection of HPV DNA in lymph node biopsies is more sensitive than conventional histopathology in identifying micro-metastases, and that archival pathological specimens of cervical cancers from the early years of this century contain the same spectrum of viruses as our current material.

Yvonne was involved in the development of the Faculty’s Graduate Medical Program and, together with M Pegler, she has developed the first year teaching program which is undertaken by all students in the current medical curriculum. The course is designed to stimulate students towards an awareness of the social and cultural determinants of the attitudes of patients and doctors, and how this impacts on the paradigm of health care adopted in different societies.

Yvonne has maintained an active involvement in Faculty and University affairs. She is currently an international journal editor and reviewer as well as a member on numerous Scientific Advisory Comittees at Commonwealth and State levels. In addition, Yvonne continues to supervise post-graduate research students at all levels with excellent success in research into the molecular basis of the virus/host interaction.

In 1998, Yvonne was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to medicine as a specialist in infectious diseases, especially in the areas of virological research, epidemiology and disease prevention, and to education.<ref>http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au</ref> <ref>This profile has been prepared from information provided by Yvonne Cossart and the citation by Ray Kearney on Yvonne’s retirement as Bosch Professor in 2006.</ref>

Yvonne retires from her role as Bosch Professor in 2006.

==References==
<references />

White, David Ogilvie

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:00:45 GMT

Admin:

[[category:Infectious diseases]]
[[category:virology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1954
MSc 1965
MD 1971
PhD (ANU)

David Ogilvie White pioneered the field of Virology to the University of Melbourne.

David was born in Canberra in 1931 and studied at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1954. He completed his PhD at the Australian National University in 1958 on the influenza virus, which was to become the focus of his research throughout his career.

He became a Lecturer in Microbiology at the University of Melbourne, introducing the field of virology to that Department.<ref>Bright Sparcs Biographical Entry, available http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/biogs/P000888b.htm, accessed 21 December 2005.</ref> David remained at the University of Melbourne being appointed Professor of Microbiology in 1967; Assistant Dean to the Faculty of Medicine in 1971; Dean of the Research and Graduate Studies in 1974; and Pro Vice-Chancellor and Councillor of the University from 1975 to 1978. He was Chairman of the Professorial Board from 1977 to 1978, and Chairman of the Academic Board in 1978 and 1979.

David developed a strong international reputation and was offered fellowships at the US National Institute of Health, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, the University of Cambridge, and the University of London. He received an MD from the University of Sydney in 1971.

David was involved in many national and international committees, including as Foundation President of the Cell Biology Society of Australia and as a Foundation Member of the Commonwealth AIDS Research Grants Committee.<ref>Robins-Browne R and Studdert M 2005, ‘Vale David Ogilvie White’, Uni News, The University of Melbourne, vol 14, no. 2, 21 February–7 March 2005.</ref> He was President of the Australian Society for Microbiology for two years from 1988, overseeing the establishment of the Society’s National Office during this time. In 1989, he was made a Fellow of the Australian Society of Microbiology and Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in Australia.

His colleagues Roy Robins Browne and Michael Studdert discuss the contributions to virology he made throughout his career:

<blockquote>White made major contributions toward elucidating the molecular biology and immunology of influenza virus. In one of several overseas appointments, he was Damon Runyon Fellow in Cancer Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York in 1965 and 1966, where with MD Scharff and JV Maizel, he published a series of papers characterizing the polypeptides of human adenovirus using the then novel method of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. With his students in Melbourne between 1969 and 1973 he published a series of papers characterizing the polypeptides of influenza virus. Between 1975 and 1995, the major focus of his group, that included postdoctoral fellows Margot Anders, David Jackson and Lorena Brown, turned to defining the nature and diversity of major histocompatibility complex, class II restricted T cell epitopes of the influenza virus hemagglutinin utilising a range of technologies including T cell cloning and synthetic peptides and monoclonal antibodies. In addition, studies were undertaken using anti-idiotypic antibodies. There were also papers published on herpes simplex virus, papilloma virus, paramyxoviruses and Kunjim Flavivirus. Antiviral chemotherapy was a major interest and the subject of a number of original and review publications.<ref>Robins-Browne R and Studdert M 2005, ‘Obituary: In Memoriam David Ogilvie White (1931-2004)’, Virology Division News, iss. 150, pp1045–46.</ref></blockquote>

David collaborated with students and colleagues to publish more than 100 original research papers and was the author of six major books on virology, including Medical Virology with Frank Fenner, a text translated into five languages and used in medical schools across the globe.<ref>Robins-Browne R and Studdert M 2005, ‘Obituary: David Ogilivie White’, Medical Journal, of Australia, vol 182, no. 6, issued 21 March 2005.</ref> He was an editor of the international journal, Archives of Virology, and served on the editorial boards of a number of other journals.

In 1992, David was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “service to education, particularly in the field of microbiology”.<ref>http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au, accessed 21 December 2005.
</ref>
His dedication to undergraduate teaching has been recognised by the University of Melbourne and the Australian Society of Microbiology, both of which have established an annual Excellence in Teaching Award in his honour.

==References==
<references/>

White, David Ogilvie

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:00:25 GMT

Admin:

[[category:Infectious diseases]]
[[category:virology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]]
MB BS 1954
MSc 1965
MD 1971
PhD (ANU)

David Ogilvie White pioneered the field of Virology to the University of Melbourne.

David was born in Canberra in 1931 and studied at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1954. He completed his PhD at the Australian National University in 1958 on the influenza virus, which was to become the focus of his research throughout his career.

He became a Lecturer in Microbiology at the University of Melbourne, introducing the field of virology to that Department.<ref>Bright Sparcs Biographical Entry, available http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/biogs/P000888b.htm, accessed 21 December 2005.</ref> David remained at the University of Melbourne being appointed Professor of Microbiology in 1967; Assistant Dean to the Faculty of Medicine in 1971; Dean of the Research and Graduate Studies in 1974; and Pro Vice-Chancellor and Councillor of the University from 1975 to 1978. He was Chairman of the Professorial Board from 1977 to 1978, and Chairman of the Academic Board in 1978 and 1979.

David developed a strong international reputation and was offered fellowships at the US National Institute of Health, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, the University of Cambridge, and the University of London. He received an MD from the University of Sydney in 1971.

David was involved in many national and international committees, including as Foundation President of the Cell Biology Society of Australia and as a Foundation Member of the Commonwealth AIDS Research Grants Committee.<ref>Robins-Browne R and Studdert M 2005, ‘Vale David Ogilvie White’, Uni News, The University of Melbourne, vol 14, no. 2, 21 February–7 March 2005.</ref> He was President of the Australian Society for Microbiology for two years from 1988, overseeing the establishment of the Society’s National Office during this time. In 1989, he was made a Fellow of the Australian Society of Microbiology and Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in Australia.

His colleagues Roy Robins Browne and Michael Studdert discuss the contributions to virology he made throughout his career:

<blockquote>White made major contributions toward elucidating the molecular biology and immunology of influenza virus. In one of several overseas appointments, he was Damon Runyon Fellow in Cancer Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York in 1965 and 1966, where with MD Scharff and JV Maizel, he published a series of papers characterizing the polypeptides of human adenovirus using the then novel method of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. With his students in Melbourne between 1969 and 1973 he published a series of papers characterizing the polypeptides of influenza virus. Between 1975 and 1995, the major focus of his group, that included postdoctoral fellows Margot Anders, David Jackson and Lorena Brown, turned to defining the nature and diversity of major histocompatibility complex, class II restricted T cell epitopes of the influenza virus hemagglutinin utilising a range of technologies including T cell cloning and synthetic peptides and monoclonal antibodies. In addition, studies were undertaken using anti-idiotypic antibodies. There were also papers published on herpes simplex virus, papilloma virus, paramyxoviruses and Kunjim Flavivirus. Antiviral chemotherapy was a major interest and the subject of a number of original and review publications.<ref>Robins-Browne R and Studdert M 2005, ‘Obituary: In Memoriam David Ogilvie White (1931-2004)’, Virology Division News, iss. 150, pp1045–46.</ref></blockquote>

David collaborated with students and colleagues to publish more than 100 original research papers and was the author of six major books on virology, including Medical Virology with Frank Fenner, a text translated into five languages and used in medical schools across the globe.<ref>Robins-Browne R and Studdert M 2005, ‘Obituary: David Ogilivie White’, Medical Journal, of Australia, vol 182, no. 6, issued 21 March 2005.</ref> He was an editor of the international journal, Archives of Virology, and served on the editorial boards of a number of other journals.

In 1992, David was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “service to education, particularly in the field of microbiology”.<ref>www.itsanhonour.gov.au, accessed 21 December 2005.
</ref>
His dedication to undergraduate teaching has been recognised by the University of Melbourne and the Australian Society of Microbiology, both of which have established an annual Excellence in Teaching Award in his honour.

==References==
<references/>

White, David Ogilvie

Admin — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:00:07 GMT

Admin: New page: category:Infectious diseases category:virology category:male category:1960 to 1980 [[category:Biographies] MB BS 1954 MSc 1965 MD 1971 PhD (ANU) David Ogilvie White pionee...

[[category:Infectious diseases]]
[[category:virology]]
[[category:male]]
[[category:1960 to 1980]]
[[category:Biographies]
MB BS 1954
MSc 1965
MD 1971
PhD (ANU)

David Ogilvie White pioneered the field of Virology to the University of Melbourne.

David was born in Canberra in 1931 and studied at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1954. He completed his PhD at the Australian National University in 1958 on the influenza virus, which was to become the focus of his research throughout his career.

He became a Lecturer in Microbiology at the University of Melbourne, introducing the field of virology to that Department.<ref>Bright Sparcs Biographical Entry, available http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/biogs/P000888b.htm, accessed 21 December 2005.</ref> David remained at the University of Melbourne being appointed Professor of Microbiology in 1967; Assistant Dean to the Faculty of Medicine in 1971; Dean of the Research and Graduate Studies in 1974; and Pro Vice-Chancellor and Councillor of the University from 1975 to 1978. He was Chairman of the Professorial Board from 1977 to 1978, and Chairman of the Academic Board in 1978 and 1979.

David developed a strong international reputation and was offered fellowships at the US National Institute of Health, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, the University of Cambridge, and the University of London. He received an MD from the University of Sydney in 1971.

David was involved in many national and international committees, including as Foundation President of the Cell Biology Society of Australia and as a Foundation Member of the Commonwealth AIDS Research Grants Committee.<ref>Robins-Browne R and Studdert M 2005, ‘Vale David Ogilvie White’, Uni News, The University of Melbourne, vol 14, no. 2, 21 February–7 March 2005.</ref> He was President of the Australian Society for Microbiology for two years from 1988, overseeing the establishment of the Society’s National Office during this time. In 1989, he was made a Fellow of the Australian Society of Microbiology and Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in Australia.

His colleagues Roy Robins Browne and Michael Studdert discuss the contributions to virology he made throughout his career:

<blockquote>White made major contributions toward elucidating the molecular biology and immunology of influenza virus. In one of several overseas appointments, he was Damon Runyon Fellow in Cancer Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York in 1965 and 1966, where with MD Scharff and JV Maizel, he published a series of papers characterizing the polypeptides of human adenovirus using the then novel method of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. With his students in Melbourne between 1969 and 1973 he published a series of papers characterizing the polypeptides of influenza virus. Between 1975 and 1995, the major focus of his group, that included postdoctoral fellows Margot Anders, David Jackson and Lorena Brown, turned to defining the nature and diversity of major histocompatibility complex, class II restricted T cell epitopes of the influenza virus hemagglutinin utilising a range of technologies including T cell cloning and synthetic peptides and monoclonal antibodies. In addition, studies were undertaken using anti-idiotypic antibodies. There were also papers published on herpes simplex virus, papilloma virus, paramyxoviruses and Kunjim Flavivirus. Antiviral chemotherapy was a major interest and the subject of a number of original and review publications.<ref>Robins-Browne R and Studdert M 2005, ‘Obituary: In Memoriam David Ogilvie White (1931-2004)’, Virology Division News, iss. 150, pp1045–46.</ref></blockquote>

David collaborated with students and colleagues to publish more than 100 original research papers and was the author of six major books on virology, including Medical Virology with Frank Fenner, a text translated into five languages and used in medical schools across the globe.<ref>Robins-Browne R and Studdert M 2005, ‘Obituary: David Ogilivie White’, Medical Journal, of Australia, vol 182, no. 6, issued 21 March 2005.</ref> He was an editor of the international journal, Archives of Virology, and served on the editorial boards of a number of other journals.

In 1992, David was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “service to education, particularly in the field of microbiology”.<ref>www.itsanhonour.gov.au, accessed 21 December 2005.
</ref>
His dedication to undergraduate teaching has been recognised by the University of Melbourne and the Australian Society of Microbiology, both of which have established an annual Excellence in Teaching Award in his honour.

==References==
<references/>