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Emeritus Consultants Biographies
Eric Saint was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England in 1918, the son of Thomas Gallon and Dora Agnes Saint. He received his education at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne and King's College at the University of Durham. His undergraduate career was distinguished with honours and distinctions in medicine but he somehow found time to be involved with the Choral Society, edit the students magazine and row in the Junior College crew. From 1942 to 1946 he served in the Royal Air Force in India, Burma and Thailand. After the war he became a research assistant in the Department of Industrial Health in Newcastle for a couple of years. In 1948 he joined the Royal Flying Doctor Service based in Port Hedland ,where he was to spend next three years. In 1951 he moved to Melbourne to become a research assistant at the prestigious Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Following this appointment, he returned to Western Australia in 1953 as Director of the new Medical Research Unit at the Royal Perth Hospital. His obvious talents were soon recognised and when the University Medical School was opened in 1956 he became the Foundation Professor of Medicine based at the Royal Perth Hospital. Eric was a brilliant speaker with a remarkable command of the English language, a quick thinker and a very discerning physician. He gave a great deal of his time during his years in the chair not only to students and patients but also to the planning of the Perth Medical Centre. For a time he was also the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. A whole generation of medical students are indebted to his clear and lucid teaching and will remember his tall figure with a slight stoop and ready smile. In 1968 he sought new fields to conquer and became Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Queensland and its Deputy Vice Chancellor in 1977. He eventually returned to Perth as a physician at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital with an appointment to the WA Alcohol and Drug Authority. He had a strong social conscience which is illustrated by his presidency of the WA Council of Social Services from 1960-68 and of being a WHO Consultant in South Korea in 1972. Eric married Catherine O'Grady in 1941 and they have two sons and a daughter. His publications and writings are numerous and range from commentaries on the poetry of T.S. Eliot to learned articles in prestigious medical journals. It is typical of the man that he never retired and died suddenly of a heart attack in 1988. |
