Surgeon-scientist Downunder

Abstract

IN THE FALL OF 1968, FRANCIS D. MOORE was a visiting Professor of Surgery to the University of Otago in New Zealand. He gave many lectures and presided over several presentations. One of these presentations was given by a surgical trainee who described the successful nutritional treatment of a pediatric patient with a chylothorax resulting from complications of thoracic surgery. That trainee was Graham L. Hill and the encounter with the ‘‘great bridge-tender from Boston’’ unimaginably influenced his life to the benefit of countless patients and surgical science. Although Boston is now only 2 flights from New Zealand, in the 1960s it seemed much farther away. Thus, the ‘‘heroes’’ of surgery were as far away as the moon to New Zealand surgeons. A visit by a doyen of surgery such as Dr Moore was therefore a huge moment to the surgeons of the country and an awe inspiring experience for the surgery residents of the day (including Dr Murray Brennan, who went to work with Moore after this visit). A similar visit by Franklin Martin and Will Mayo in 1924 had lead to the founding of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. The paper presented to Dr Moore was Graham Hill’s first research project and was published in The Lancet. He began his academic career while working as a missionary in rural Indonesia and he went on to work alongside luminaries such as Stanley Dudrick in Houston and John C. Goligher in Leeds before returning to New Zealand as the Professor and Head of Surgery at Auckland Hospital and the University of Auckland. His stated