The following obituary has been prepared by Associate Professor John Litt AM (with input from David and Mark Radford).
Professor Anthony Radford was the Foundation Professor of Primary Care and Community Medicine at Flinders University from 1974-1994. The department included units of nutrition, behavioural science as well as general practice and public health.
The position was funded from a grant made by the Whitlam Government to enable every medical school to address the perceived deficiencies in undergraduate education in matters related to General Practice and Public Health. An Adelaide graduate, Anthony came to Flinders with 15 years of experience in primary health care, general practice and medical education in Papua New Guinea and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
Early career
In Papua New Guinea, Anthony participated and taught in the development of its first medical school. Together with teaching a range of health professionals including doctors, nurses, and hospital assistants, particularly in the health needs of rural and remote settings, he practised as the rural medical officer for a population of up to 50,000 people.
As a student at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1965 he was awarded their gold medal for tropical medicine. Anthony later gained a Master of Science degree in epidemiology at Harvard University. He returned to Liverpool in 1973 to design and conduct the first multi-disciplinary Master in Public Health course in Europe. Even as an undergraduate, his dream was to raise general practice and community medicine as an academic discipline.
Flinders University
During Anthony’s twenty-year tenure he developed some of the most innovative and widespread curricula in the areas of general practice, behavioural science and public health.
These included were components of electives, nursing care, aged care, death, dying and bereavement, allied health and community health activities quite new to medical education. He was the first to appoint a series of GPs from varied backgrounds to academic posts at Flinders involving them in every year of the five years course and with clinical appointments at FMC. Six general practitioners with varying backgrounds divided an additional half time post as tutors. Each had at least one ‘special interest’. They included Owen Bowering (senior general practitioner, sports medicine), Peggy Dubberley (counselling), Andris Darzins OAM (migrant health, paediatrics and care of the elderly), Bruce Alcorn (rural general practice), Peter Mudge AM (rural practice and epidemiology of infectious diseases, later Professor of General Practice in Tasmania and Queensland), and Bruce Martin (care of the elderly). Jill Benson AM and Rob Wight OAM, both GPs, were external lecturers.
In addition he implemented an innovative community registrar program that gave young clinicians an opportunity to sample academic life experiences. Most of these went on to illustrious careers as Professors of General Practice (n=5); Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine (n=1) and Professor of Epidemiology (n=1)
Anthony was also actively involved in Aboriginal health, aged care, palliative care, and spiritual health and ethics. The Primary Care and Community Medicine unit developed public education programmes in various areas such as health in retirement, entered public debate on Aboriginal health, euthanasia and abortion. Anthony sought to facilitate access to services in areas of need such as rural health services, the needs of youth and men’s health, and remote southern and Western Australian communities serviced by The Tea and Sugar Train.
With Dr Lu Mykyta, Anthony developed the platform from which grew the first Department of Geriatrics at Flinders Medical Centre and was involved in the development of the Accident and Emergency unit which was opened in 1976. Anthony was the first chairman of the Southern Palliative Care Committee which under Professor Ian Maddocks AM grew into the International Institute of Palliative Care. Anthony also helped to initiate training programmes for volunteers and chaplains. In addition to his academic position, Anthony held clinical roles at various hospitals in Adelaide.
Anthony was visiting professor to several universities and contributed numerous publications, including chapters for several editions of the Oxford Text Book of Medicine.
Professor Emeritus
In 1994, after twenty years as a university academic Anthony retired, and the Council of Flinders University conferred on him the title of Professor Emeritus. He was also a Consultant in International and Public Health and an FRACGP Life member.
Anthony continued his work as a visiting professor, examiner and consultant to a wide variety of institutions within Australia and around the world – including WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, World Vision International, Save the Children and several other NGOs. The projects ranged from disaster relief, developing and implementing medical education programs, to direct engagement with clinical issues from village to hospital level.
Anthony was the founder and Director of ‘Intermed SA’. an NGO dedicated to the provision of excellence in education for health care professionals in, or going to, less resourced areas.
Instead of slowing down for the last 20 years of his career, Anthony also decided to work as a locum in rural and remote SA!
Anthony published some 250 articles, chapters, submissions and reports. In addition, he wrote two autobiographical books a. Singsings, Sutures and Sorcery. Documenting his Experiences in PNG over 50 years in a book Have Stethoscope Will Travel Experiences in rural locum practice in 2017. He was a PhD supervisor for fifteen higher degree students.
Anthony has been on numerous committees, chairing several of them, related to his work at community, university, state and national levels as well as for the World Health Organization. He has held the posts of Vice-President of the Australian Faculty of Public Health, and Deputy Chairman of SAVE THE CHILDREN AUSTRALIA and the Program Advisory Committee for Save The Children and for TEAR Australia (a Christian agency working for a just and compassionate world).
Anthony continued his contact with primary care across the globe where he had over 40 years experience in 46 countries in the training for, and provision and evaluation of, Primary Health Care services, including General Practice, Hospital and Emergency Care as well as Public Health. In addition he has undertaken numerous consultancies with WHO, UNICEF, World Bank, the Australian and US governments (relating to In Health Services: policy, delivery and evaluation), as well as for World Vision, Save The Children, and a number of Christian Aid organisations (including Baptist World Aid-Philippines; Youth With A Mission (YWAM) – India, Thailand; Solomon Islands, Cambodia, Philippines and the United Missions of Nepal, in the areas of development training, conduct, and evaluation of district, provincial and national and refugee health programmes. Emphasis has been on Primary Health Care, Immunization, Women’s and Child Health, and family Planning, as well as in medical education and post-graduate teaching in epidemiology. In 2014, the Annual Anthony Radford Oration was established in recognition of his work.
In 2019 Anthony was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday 2019 Honours List with an AM for significant service to medicine, to medical education, and to global health. Anthony has left an indelible legacy.
Anthony as a kind, generous and visionary man who committed to a life of service
From a young boy moved by the words of the “Jungle Doctor,” Anthony felt a calling — one that led him from the quiet classrooms of his youth to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, where he became a real jungle doctor, serving thousands with skill, humility, and kindness.
Education and service defined his life. He built medical schools, trained generations of doctors, and helped shape public health across continents — from the highlands of New Guinea to the lecture halls of Liverpool and Adelaide.
But more than his many achievements, he was a man of deep faith, quiet strength, enormous generosity and great love.
In the end, Anthony’s life was a great tapestry — woven from the many places he walked, the countless lives he touched, the many people he mentored and the steadfast love he gave, and to the many who became part of his family from around the world.
Vale Anthony Radford.
QUALIFICATIONS
MB BS (Adelaide) 1960 (Credit)
MRCP (London) 1965
SM (Epid) (Harvard) 1970
MRACP 1966; FRACP 1972
FRCP (Edin) 1973
FRACGP 1980
MFCM 1973; FFCM 1981
FAFPHM (Foundation Fellow) 1990
DTM & H (Liverpool) 1965 (Gold Medal)
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
International Epidemiological Association
Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (Life Member), Regional Secretary
Public Health Assoc of Australia (Foundation Member)
Australasian Epidemiological Association (Foundation Member)
Australian Association of Academic General Practitioners (formerly)
Australian Society of Microbiology (formerly)
Anthropological Society of South Australia (formerly)