Edgeworth David McIntyre
Edgeworth David McIntyre MBBS RCS(Ed) FRACS
Orthopaedic Surgeon
20 April 1925 - 12 December 2015
David was born and educated in Launceston, completed his Medical degree (MBBS) at Melbourne University in 1948. After 2 years as a Resident Medical Officer at Launceston General Hospital, he furthered his studies at Edinburgh University, and working for a further three years at Haymeads Hospital & Royal East Sussex Hospital, obtained his initial Fellowship (FRCS Edinburgh), in Orthopaedic Surgery. Subsequently, David also obtained Fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England and Australasia.
In 1954 David was invited to return to Northern Tasmania to assume the post of Registrar in General Surgery at Launceston General Hospital, and subsequently Surgeon Superintendent at Mersey Hospital, Latrobe (1955-56) where his principal role was the provision of consultative and operative orthopaedic services to Northern Tasmania.
In 1956 David returned to Launceston to establish a private practice specialising in Orthopaedic Surgery. Concurrently, he was invited to be the 'outpatient' Honorary Orthopaedic and General Surgeon (1956-60) and Orthopaedic Surgeon (1960-70) at the Launceston General Hospital. In the period 1956-70, David provided orthopaedic surgical services to the hospital and the community in an exclusively honorary capacity.
In 1971, David was invited to head the evolving Orthopaedic Unit at the Launceston General Hospital as Senior Sessional Surgeon, continuing in this role until his retirement from the public hospital in 1986. In 1990 he retired from private practice, remaining in part-time orthopaedic medico legal practice until 2000.
David contributed ground breaking innovation in orthopaedic practice. His particular interest in paediatric orthopaedics enabled the care of musculoskeletal problems to be managed locally, where previously children requiring orthopaedic intervention often required surgery to be performed interstate. David's expertise extended into the adult field, performing the first total hip replacements in Launceston.
David's outstanding contribution to medicine and community is truly his enduring commitment to the highest levels of professionalism in practice, being recognised as an exemplary role model for aspiring orthopaedic surgeons with his unstinting engagement in teaching, training and mentoring.
Together with Peter Williams, he helped establish the now nationally acclaimed Orthopaedic Training Program. In 1973 David secured the first accredited training post for orthopaedic registrars in Tasmania, guaranteeing a challenging training opportunity that fostered sustained recruitment in the longer term of a collegiate group of specialist surgeons to continue his work. To this day, all current consultant orthopaedic surgeons practising in Launceston have benefited from this "Tasmanian" training experience.
David was a keenly intelligent but quiet, gentle and reserved man with a strong sense of duty and a passionate commitment to environment. He never sought recognition for his professional contributions to the Launceston General Hospital and to the Tasmanian community. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that his integrity and commitment to excellence in his medical work, his mentoring of numerous young (and old) orthopaedic surgeons, and his rigour in ensuring that the highest quality 'benchmark' standards were established in the orthopaedic unit that he set up at the Launceston General Hospital, have combined to demonstrate to both his medical peers and the local citizenry that it was, and is, possible to consistently perform the latest and most appropriate orthopaedic procedures in a hospital in a regional city.
As a consequence, quality orthopaedic surgeons who desire a rural or regional lifestyle are now more readily attracted to Northern Tasmania, and Northern Tasmanians now rarely seek or need to travel outside their own locales in order to obtain top-class orthopaedic services.
David represented his professional association (the Australian Orthopaedic Association) as their Vice-President in 1984, and was granted life membership by his peers in 1994. The quality and quantity of David's contributions to Orthopaedic Surgery was again recognised by his peers in 2008 when he was awarded the L O Betts Memorial Medal, - the Association's highest Award - granted only to those who have made an outstanding contribution to the science and practice of Orthopaedics in Australia. In 2013 he was awarded an Order of Australia for significant service to Orthopaedics as a surgeon and educator.
David is from a family with a strong civic service tradition. His grandfather, Professor Edgeworth David, was an Antarctic explorer with Shackleton and Mawson, and was decorated in WW1. His mother, Margaret McIntyre, was the first woman elected to the Tasmanian Legislative Council; she was tragically killed in a plane crash in 1948. His father, Dr Keveral McIntyre was a renowned Northern Tasmania gynaecologist.
David enjoyed the environment, was a regular bush walker, and continued to walk regularly with colleagues into his 90th year, and as he would have desired, died suddenly "over coffee", after a short bush walk with his long term walking companion.
John Batten FRACS
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