Robert Andrews Leggatt
Robert Andrews Leggatt
18 July 1930 - 16 June 2016
Urological Surgeon
Mr Robert Leggatt was born in 1930. He was educated at the Geelong College where he was actively involved in everything. He represented the school in the first football and cricket teams and won the long jump in the combined public schools athletic competition. His school career culminated as "The Very Model of a Modern Major General" in the school production of the "Pirates of Penzance".
He commenced his medical course at the Mildura Branch of Melbourne University in 1949 before moving to Ormond College and graduated MBBS in 1954. He spent two years as a resident medical officer at Prince Henry's Hospital Melbourne, and in 1957 he proceeded to London with a letter of introduction to Sir Gordon Gordon Taylor.
He quickly passed the first part of the fellowship examination, gained further surgical experience in SHO and registrar positions at the Miller Hospital Greenwich, Epping, and Bedford gaining his Edinburgh fellowship in early 1960. He then worked as Registrar to the Urological unit at the Edgware District Hospital.
He returned to Australia to an appointment on the urological staff of Prince Henry's Hospital and also as an assistant in private practice. He obtained his fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1963 and in 1964 came to Geelong as the first urological surgeon to live and work in Geelong.
The Geelong Hospital had been founded as the Geelong infirmary and benevolent asylum in 1851 and in the early 1960s had started to evolve from a district hospital into a specialist orientated teaching hospital with the appointment of a number of new well-qualified members of different specialties. Mr Leggatt made a great contribution developing modern urological techniques in Geelong. He coped with an extremely large workload until joined by Mr Donald Murphy in 1977 and by the time of his retirement from active practice in 1998 the urological service had grown to five consultants plus trainees.
He is survived by his wife, Sue, and four sons.
This obituary was provided by Mr W.H. Huffam FRACS