Professor William Burnett MB CHM
FRCS FRFPS FRACS
23 March 1921 to
30 August 1981
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1921
William Burnett
was born on 23 March 1921.
He was educated
at Ballater and Banchory Schools on Deeside, Aberdeenshire.
1938
He entered
Aberdeen University in 1938 and graduated in medicine with first class honours
in 1943.
William spent a
year as an assistant with Professor R D Lockhart in the University of Aberdeen
department of anatomy as he had decided on a career in surgery. During this
time he gained the Hallett Prize in the Primary Fellowship examination of the
Royal College of Surgeons.
1945
William spent
three years until 1948 serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in
Germany, Palestine, Egypt and Greece.
1948
Returning to
Aberdeen he began his surgical training with Professor W C Wilson in the Royal
Infirmary and gained the FRCS in 1949.
1949
Awarded Batchelor
of Medicine (MB) and Bachelor of Surgery (ChB) at Aberdeen.
1951
From 1951 to 1956
he held the post of lecturer in surgery in Aberdeen. The award of a Rockefeller
Foundation Fellowship in 1951 enabled him to spend a year at the University of
Minnesota and he carried out research in diseases of the liver and gall bladder,
in which he continued to have a special interest. For his thesis on the
differential diagnosis of jaundice he was granted the ChM with honours by
Aberdeen University.
1956
In 1956 Burnett
was appointed a consultant surgeon with Professor Sir Charles Illingworth in
the university unit of the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, and his interest was
stimulated in gastric surgery and he early realised the value of the fibreoptic
gastroscope. He became a member of the distinguished group of professors of
surgery who owed their chief inspiration to Sir Charles Illingworth.
1961
Awarded Fellowship
of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (FRFPSG).
1963
In 1963 William
Burnett was appointed Mayne Professor in the University of Queensland,
Brisbane, and he built up a large and progressive university department where
research was much emphasised. He did much to develop and expand the surgical
services there, attracting young surgeons of quality to work with him.
He established
Department of Surgery at Queensland University.
1964
Awarded Fellowship
of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRACS).
He was a skilful
writer too, with many publications and the Australasian College owed him much
for finally bringing to completion their Manual of basic sciences in
relation to surgery.
William Burnett
was essentially a man's man, somewhat diffident and shy in company, though a
splendid host. As a young man he was often climbing and hill-walking in the
Cairngorms, he loved the hills of Deeside. He had a great interest in music and
the arts, and he built up a personal collection of Australian paintings. For a
time he was director of the Arts Council of Queensland and President of the
Theatre Club in Brisbane. Although an accomplished teacher and researcher, he
was the perennial student taking various university courses including French
literature, world religions, Oriental languages and only a month before he died
he gained a credit in Semitics. He was a most interesting companion with his
incisive mind and objectivity apparent in his lively discourse on many and
varied subjects (Royal College of Surgeons Obituary).
He was unmarried
and survived by his sister, Mrs Helen Rimmer, in Brisbane.
1981
He died on 30
August 1981 at the age of 60.
