Citation for the Down Prize 2001

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British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (2001) 39, 331–332 © 2001 The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons doi: 10.1054/bjom.2001.0703, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Citation for the Down Prize 2001 John E. de B. Norman AO, FRCS(Ed), FRACS, FDSRCS, FRACDS Baden-Powell, and was a King’s Scout. He enrolled in the Faculty of Dentistry at Sydney University in 1954, and after a modest performance in first year was granted a Commonwealth Scholarship, graduated with honours and was invited by Professor A. J. Arnott CBE to join the University Hospital staff in the Department of Oral Surgery and Operative Dentistry. He was commissioned and joined the CMF (the Australian equivalent of the TA) and at year’s end entered full-time service with the Australian Army. He received his Master’s degree in oral surgery shortly after finishing his military service in 1959. It was during this time that he met the elder daughter of Dr Clarence Everingham, a prominent Sydney medical practitioner. He and Verity were married in 1959. The Everinghams are able to trace their ancestors back to the First Fleet that landed at Botany Bay with Captain Arthur Phillip on the afternoon of 26 January 1788. The trip to England shaped his career. His first position was as an assistant in Maidenhead, but within a short period he and Harold Hughes DDS, a former RAN officer, bought a traditional north of England practice in Hull. One legacy of this period persists today. In his warfare with Eastbourne, John Norman and H. J. Hughes noticed that all correspondence was unsigned and anonymous. With steely resolve, he drove through administrative obstruction to reach a senior administrator. He reported the problem and to this day all letters issuing instructions are now signed. In his association with Hull Royal Infirmary, he came into increasing contact with an ENT surgeon (R. G. Williams TD, FRCS). They began to operate together and as a result he took the momentous decision to enrol as a medical student. As an Australian citizen, he received no financial help and by now Verity and he had three small children. Mr John Coates, a general surgeon at Hull and a Leeds graduate, wrote three lines to the Dean, Mr A. B. Pain, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and, on the basis of the MDS and FDSRCS, he was admitted to the preclinicals and completed the second MB. He qualified with honours in 1968 and distinctions in five subjects, as well as McGill Prize in clinical surgery. He subsequently worked in the Departments of General (Professor J. C. Goligher) and Plastic Surgery at Leeds General Infirmary, and General Medicine and Neurology at Chapel Allerton. He was appointed senior registrar in oral, plastic and jaw surgery, and clinical tutor in plastic and jaw surgery to the University of Sheffield. This two and a half year period with Paul Bramley, Bernard Crawford and others

John Norman was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1935 and was the only child of Edgar de Burgh and Catherine Mary Norman. His early life was spent in Broome where his grandfather and father were master pearlers, owning their own fleet of luggers and schooners to fish for pearl shell and pearl. Life was exciting, but conditions would have been hard and if my own colonial experience is anything to go by life would have been seen in ‘primary colours’. In this pioneering world, there were ever-present risks to be faced. His father and other pearlers had a rule always to employ a crew of mixed races to minimize the real risk of mutiny with the loss of boat and life. In retrospect this environment has had an important influence on his character. It brought resilience in adversity and a nature that was both resolute and resourceful in its approach to problems. His early education was in a bush school which consisted of a single room, one master and five rows of desks, and each row of desks represented another class. Broome was bombed on 3 March 1942 and northern Australia was at risk of invasion. John and his mother moved first to Kalamunda near Perth and then to Sydney in 1950. His father remained in Broome to beach and burn his boats before returning to the army. He always reflected on a happy childhood, and living in the country gave opportunities that those who grow up in the city would never experience. The joys of operating a combine harvester in a temperature of 105⬚F, duties as a roustabout in a busy shearing shed, the Kurtz wool press, and earning pocket money shooting foxes were adequate preparation for life. His progress through school was at a modest level, and his activities were directed to the athletic track and the school rifle club. He represented the State in the RAAF (ATC) shooting team, joined the Boy Scouts at the insistence of Lady Olave 331

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also left its mark. During the period that he was in Leeds, he returned to Hull on a regular basis and during the holidays to assist Dick Williams, and shortly after commencing in Sheffield Paul Bramley arranged for day release from Sheffield to Hull.1 This required some logistic planning, and he would travel on the train on Wednesday and attend the head and neck clinic at the Hull Royal, and then Dick and Maire Williams very graciously put him up for the night at their wonderful old home in Hedon. Here was laid the foundation of his subsequent career as a European-style maxillofacial surgeon. His great interest in parotid and TMJ surgery stems from this time. Professor Sir Paul Bramley handled him well and they formed an effective team. In the early 1970s he and Verity and the three children born in England returned to Australia. On arrival he was appointed to the staff of the Mater Misericordiae General Hospital, and with a single half day operating list and one dedicated bed, but with the assistance of the Reverend Sisters of Mercy and far-sighted administrators, Drs John Westphalan and Geoffrey Diethelm, he was given additional operating time and the encouragement of the consultants in general, orthopaedic and ophthalmic surgery. Within 18 months he had five additional hospital appointments. Work also flowed in from rural New South Wales, and within 2 years the bed numbers had increased dramatically, and a day and a half of operating was the norm, with upwards of 400 cases per year. He also had the good fortune to be appointed to the St George and Royal North Shore Hospitals, and in the capacity of honorary consultant surgeon to the United Dental Hospital. He has maintained his European links and perspective by returning to the UK and Europe annually to visit a surgical unit, and was a friend of many of our modern pioneering surgeons. However, trailblazing comes with its problems and as in the UK these were overcome. Head and neck oncology was his particular interest, and thanks to the training that he received in England, it was not long before he built up a sound practice. He and two energetic neurosurgeons combined in the management of craniofacial trauma and oncology, and both men (Mr Gaston Arthurs and Professor N. G. Dan) saw the future possibilities of skull base surgery in the 1970s. In 1973 he formed a working relationship with Dr Trevor Williamsz, and they became close friends, and operated together on a regular basis. This union of otolaryngology, maxillofacial surgery – and for several years with the late Dr Wallace Pullen (general surgeon) – proved most fruitful, and there seemed to be no limit to the surgical repertoire. In the 1980s they encouraged two very gifted, British-trained plastic and reconstructive surgeons, Drs John Briedis and John Vandervord, to join the team. He enjoyed an excellent working relationship

1

The preferment was well established by Paul Bramley and John Townend, Christopher Blackburn and Mark McGurk were to follow, and the specialty has a debt to R. G. Williams.

with other surgeons in allied disciplines, and actively involved himself in lecturing and teaching. In 1981 he became a Hunterian Professor and in 1992 was appointed Visiting Professor to the University of Sydney. He was appointed clinical professor at the invitation of Professor Iven Klineberg AM, RFD, and the University. In this period he published a book on temporomandibular joint surgery with Professor Sir Paul Bramley, which has subsequently been translated into Spanish. This was followed in 1995 by a book on salivary gland disease with Mark McGurk. He has also contributed chapters to other books, notably the Rowe and Williams series and textbooks on cancer and medicolegal reporting. Despite not having an academic post initially, his zeal was such that, as well as forging a clinical base, he was also the first author of 34 publications. He has acted as a postgraduate examiner to the Universities of Sydney, Papua New Guinea and more recently Geneva, and was examiner and later Chairman for the higher diploma in OS and OMFS of the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons. In recent years he has had a formidable presence in the medicolegal field and a number of cases in which he has contributed have had reverberating consequences within the British system. Throughout this industrious career he has been supported by Verity and now in the later stage of his career he has about him his three children and six grandchildren. His restless nature has been quick to find other interests. His next project is a history of the northwest of Western Australia, begun originally by his father. This has generated an interest in Aboriginal rock art, which he has pursued with his characteristic zeal by swooping through isolated terrain in a helicopter to study the ancient drawings and paintings. Added adventure on these trips has been provided by intermittent mechanical failure in transport. Professionally, he had been guided and influenced very greatly in England by R. G. Williams, J. C. Goligher, Myles Gibson, Paul Bramley and the late Norman Rowe. In retrospect, he said that so many men and women had influenced his life in a significant manner, and in particular his mother and father and his wife Verity, and the various members of his family who had answered the call to the colours. Taking a cathedral view of his career, it could be said that he has continued in the vein of his pioneering father and both grandfathers, on this occasion pioneering the ideas of modern maxillofacial surgery in Australia. This has led him to cover hard and rocky ground at times, but now he is able to look over a fulfilling and triumphant career. His ‘services to dentistry and medicine as a maxillofacial surgeon and to education’ have been recognized this year when he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia. It is just and fitting for a man who throughout his career has championed oral and maxillofacial surgery to receive in the first year of this century the Down Surgical Prize from the British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. MARK MCGURK MD, FRCS, DLO, FDSRCS