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Dr George Tippett.
Dr George Tippett, medical practitioner and anaesthetist, was awarded Membership of the Order of Australia for service to international relations in the field of medicine.
He was also a winner of the 1996 Weary Dunlop Asia Medal for distinguished achievement in enhancing Australia’s relations with Asia as well as the Rotary International Medal. He has been President of the Victorian Division of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and of the Medical Benevolent Association. His work in Asia began in 1984 when he visited Nepal to study anaesthesia techniques for cataracts surgery. Since then, he has worked in India with Tibetan refugees, Lebanon, England, North and South Vietnam, Thailand, Borneo, Ambon and the Northern Territory. In an account in
Ad Astra in 1991, he acknowledged the influence of Sir Francis Rolland in planting the seeds of service and adventure.
George Tippett was born in Melbourne to first generation English and Cornish parents and was first educated at Caulfield North State School. With the assistance of a scholarship, he became a boarder at the Geelong College from 1937 to 1944, where he excelled at rowing, participating in the 1944 Head of the River. He first studied metallurgical engineering at Melbourne University transferring to medicine when he won a Queen’s College scholarship. After graduation, he became a resident medical officer in Darwin but a year later was appointed medical officer in charge of the new Commonwealth Department of Health Aerial Medical Service in Central Australia, based at Alice Springs. The wide demands of service led to an interest in anaesthetics and the welfare of disadvantaged communities, so after four years of general practice in the suburb of Leichardt, Sydney he pursued further study in London before being awarded a clinical fellowship in anaesthesiology at the American University in Beirut.
On his return to Australia he founded the Dandenong Anaesthetic Group and developed Australia’s first accredited Free Standing Ambulatory Surgical Facility, firstly for the NSW State Government, and then for the private sector. In 1990, he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal.
In 2005, Dr Tippett created an endowment fund for the School to provide bursary assistance to families where help is required to enable students to remain at the School. He established this fund in recognition of the bursary assistance he received when studying.
George passed away 20 March 2021, aged 93 years.
Sources: Ad Astra No. 108 June 2005 p23; Ad Astra June 1990 p9; The Age 22 March 2021