Dr Gilbert Reynolds Troup

Personal Details

Dr Gilbert Reynolds Troup 

04/02/1896 to 11/08/1962

Place of birth: Christchurch, New Zealand

Nationality: Australian

CRN: 715527

 

Education and qualifications

Professional life and career

Postgraduate career

After leaving school Troup tried accountancy and tea planting (in Ceylon) before deciding on medicine as a career. Having qualified he served as resident medical officer at Perth (now Royal) Hospital for two years before setting up in general practice (when his interest in anaesthesia began), but continuing the hospital connection as junior honorary physician. He maintained his involvement in the two specialties for the rest of his career. Having decided to specialise, he travelled to London in 1929 to take the MRCP, but also made contact with Magill to increase his anaesthetic knowledge and skills. Returning to Perth, Troup was soon busy as a consultant physician and anaesthetist, but undertook an extensive tour of anaesthesia centres, including Waters at Madison and Guedel in California, in the USA in 1935. During WW2, as a Lieutenant-Colonel, he first commanded the Australian General Hospital in Ceylon, and then the 110th Military Hospital in Australia. After the war he resumed his roles as honorary physician to Perth Hospital, and senior anaesthetist to the Repatriation Hospital and the tuberculosis branch of the Public Health Department. Later (1948) he was appointed Honorary Director of Anaesthetics in Perth, aiming to establish a department on the model of those he had seen elsewhere, but soon had to relinquish this appointment because of the many calls on his time. On retirement from the , by then, Royal Perth he was appointed Emeritus Consultant, but continued his work with thoracic surgery almost until his death.

Professional interests and activities

Like many of his peers Troup was self-taught and had to produce much of his own equipment, but was additionally constrained by the problems of working in Australia’s most isolated city, accessible then only by ship (see his own paper for an account of these issues – Anesth Analg 1935; 14: 249-52). However, he made good use of his visits to the UK and USA to import the latest drugs, equipment and techniques, notably endotracheal intubation which was then little used in Australia, and he pioneered thoracic anaesthesia in Western Australia. He also did much work on the development of portable anaesthetic equipment (Ball CM. Anesthesiology 2013; 119: 1023-30), and was an early advocate of artificial ventilation in curarized patients. Reflecting his practice of both medicine and anaesthesia, Troup was elected FRACP in 1938 and foundation FFARACS in 1953. He was one of the seven founder (1934) members, and second President (1939-46), of the Australian Society, and gave the Embley Memorial Lecture in 1954. Two prizes commemorate his work: one for a final year medical student at the University of Western Australia; the other for the best oral presentation at the ASA’s National Scientific Congress.

Other biographical information

Troup married Ethel Winifred May, a daughter of (Sir) Charles Powers, an Australian High Court Judge in 1924, and they had two daughters. A quiet, modest man his hobbies were fishing and carpentry although rheumatoid arthritis limited such activities in later life.

Author and Sources

Author: Prof Tony Wildsmith

Sources and any other comments: [1] Clark FJ. Gilbert Reynolds Troup. Med J Aus 1963; 121: 485-6 [2] Emeritus Consultant biography on the website of the Royal Perth Hospital (www.rph.gov.au accessed on 31/12/2015). I thank Drs Toby Nichols (Troup’s grandson) & Christine Ball for additional material, and Toby for the photo.