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In memoriam
In memoriam RACS publishes abridged obituaries in Surgical News. We reproduce the opening paragraphs of the obituary. Full versions can be found on the RACS website.
Our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the following Fellows whose deaths have been recently notified. Kenneth Brearley (VIC) Ronald Bruce Davey (SA) Barry Partridge (NZ)
Informing RACS If you wish to notify the College of the death of a Fellow, please contact the relevant office: ACT: college.act@surgeons.org NSW: college.nsw@surgeons.org NZ: college.nz@surgeons.org QLD: college.qld@surgeons.org SA: college.sa@surgeons.org TAS: college.tas@surgeons.org VIC: college.vic@surgeons.org WA: college.wa@surgeons.org NT: college.nt@surgeons.org
Ronald Bruce Davey OAM FRCSEd FRACS Paediatric surgeon 21 October 1931-22 June 2020 Bruce Davey, as he was known, died on Monday 22 June 2020 after a long period of illness. Despite this his faculties and determination remained to the very end. Bruce was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, on 22 October 1931. After secondary education at Newcastle High School (1944-48) he attended Sydney University, graduating MBBS in 1955. He then served as resident medical officer at Sydney Hospital in 1955, Royal Hobart Hospital in 1956 and Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Camperdown in 1957 under senior paediatric surgeon Douglas Cohen. On Cohen’s advice, Bruce travelled to the United Kingdom, achieving his Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in General Surgery in Edinburgh in 1960. After four years in general surgical positions, Bruce was appointed as registrar to Peter Paul Rickham at Alder Hay Children’s Hospital, Liverpool. 1963 saw Bruce back in Australia as deputy superintendent at the Royal Hobart Hospital. Towards the end of this appointment, Bruce ‘transported’ a patient to the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne, where he met the revered Douglas Stephens AO. As a result of that meeting Bruce was appointed senior surgical registrar at the RCH in 1964. In the first six months of that appointment Bruce worked with Murray Clark, Peter Jones and Alan Wakefield, which clearly fostered his future interest in Paediatric surgery and, in particular, in the treatment of burns. J.K. Freeman FRACS Kenneth Stewart Brearley FRACS FRCSEng FRCSEd General Surgeon 3 December 1928-16 July 2020 Ken Brearley started life in Hampton
(Melbourne) where he attended both Hampton Primary and Hampton High schools before winning a scholarship for Years 9-12 at Scotch College, which was quite some distance away. In 1948, having won a place into Medicine at the University of Melbourne in the highly competitive years immediately after World War II, Ken was sent to Mildura, in regional Victoria. In 1947 the University of Melbourne had established a campus outside of Melbourne to accommodate the huge influx of students enrolling as servicemen returned. The whole first year of Medical studies took place in the former Royal Australian Air Force station, the so-called ‘Mildura experiment’. Ken graduated in 1952 and was awarded the Proxime Accessit Jamieson Prize in Surgery. His residency years were spent at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and then, typical of the era, a year was spent in the University of Melbourne School of Anatomy in preparation for the Fellowship exams, which were duly successfully negotiated. In 1955 he set sail overseas to gain surgical experience in the United Kingdom. By this time he had married a nurse from the Royal Melbourne Hospital. His first appointment was at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in Hammersmith Hospital in London, where his first child was born, and then north to the Leeds General Infirmary, Yorkshire, where his second child was born. At Leeds he spent a rewarding time working with both Professor John Goligher, a pioneer in colorectal surgery, and Mr Henry Shucksmith, a general surgeon who became prominent in the newly emerging specialty of Vascular surgery. Hamish Ewing, David Butterfield, Boon Hong with assistance from his daughter, Amanda Woodard. For the full obituary please visit our website.