Acclaim for pain control advances

LIFE on a RAAF base in the Northern Territory in the years post-Cyclone Tracy would prepare most people for many things.

For Dr George Merridew, they were the formative years of a specialist medical career that led to him introducing an invaluable cancer pain management technique to Tasmania and revolutionising the way inter-hospital transfers for the critically ill took place in the state.

Devonport-born Dr Merridew has been made a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to surgical and obstetric anaesthesia.

He became a member of the permanent air force in 1970, finished his medicine and surgery degree at the University of Tasmania two years later, and embarked on a career in anaesthesia that would see him work in the UK, Hong Kong and the US, before the pull of home became too much to resist.

Dr Merridew put in for jobs at the Launceston General and Royal Hobart hospitals, being “saved from what would have been a difficult decision by someone else getting the Hobart one”.

Early in his time at the LGH, he became the first Tasmanian to demonstrate the usefulness of administering local anaesthesia under the skin in cancer treatment, a technique that was becoming increasingly used for pain management in the UK and at some major hospitals at the time.

“In selected cases, it’s really helpful because all the easier things to do have failed by then,” he said.

Practising a branch of medicine Dr Merridew said was not well understood even by other medical professionals has its challenges, not least the risks of what is effectively “controlled poisoning” of a patient.

“There’s no such thing as safety in anaesthesia until after the event,” he said.

Dr Merridew also served as a long-term board member of the Tasmanian Royal Flying Doctor Service.