Gastroenterologist Professor David Russell has been recognised for significant service to general medicine, to clinical education and as a mentor in the 2024 King’s Birthday Honours.
He is among more than a dozen specialists included in the 2024 honours list, having been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).
A consultant physician and Professor of Medicine at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and University of Melbourne, Professor Russell says he was inspired to become a gastroenterologist during his advanced training in internal medicine.
“When I went to Wangaratta, I worked with one of the early gastroenterologists in rural Victoria, (the late) Dr Bruce King, and he taught me how to endoscope. When I came back, I decided gastroenterology was for me,” he tells the limbic.
“I love physiology and there’s a lot of physiology in gastroenterology unlike some other disciplines in medicine, particularly in the area of my expertise, which is in absorption, short bowel, malnutrition and intestinal problems.”
Professor Russell’s career has extended beyond the consulting room to education, research, professional societies and various committees.
He was instrumental in the formation of the Australian Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, of which he is a past president and former long-term committee member.
Clinical nutrition, the focus of his PhD, is of particular interest to Professor Russell. He is a former member of the Victorian Department of Health’s Eating Disorders Taskforce and wrote a chapter on clinical nutrition for the book Intestinal Failure, edited by Dr Jeremy Nightingale and published by Springer.
Professor Russell has sat on several college committees, including for overseas-trained physicians and physicians in general medicine, and has been heavily involved in undergraduate teaching of medical students and postgraduate teaching in basic physician training and advanced training in internal medicine and gastroenterology.
His interest in education stems back to his childhood when he wanted to become a teacher until his older brother started studying medicine. His brother would come home and tell him about his physiology and anatomy lectures, encouraging him to do medicine and become ‘a teacher and a doctor’.
He has since been involved in the training of more than 700 physicians over his 40-year career, which he describes as his biggest professional highlight.
Professor Russell has also won several awards, including the Gastroenterological Society of Australia’s Outstanding Mentor Award in 2007 and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians’ John Sands Medal in 2010.
Meanwhile, Professor John Furness has been appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to medical research in the field of autonomic neuroscience and neurogastroenterology”.
A Senior Principal Research Fellow at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health since 1990, Professor Furness has become a leading authority on digestive physiology, especially neural control of the digestive tract.
He is best known for his work in unravelling the circuitry of the enteric nervous system and for developing the neural chemical coding hypothesis.
One of Australia’s most highly cited scientists, Professor Furness has also been involved in the evaluation of therapeutic drugs and run clinical trials of candidate drugs, as well as in research in England, Japan, France and the US.
Professor Furness is currently Professor of Anatomy and Neuroscience and Professor of Agriculture and Food at the University of Melbourne.
He has held numerous international appointments including Honorary Vice-President of the International Society for Autonomic Neuroscience since 2000 and member of the International Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of the Association of Gastrointestinal Motility Disorders in the 2000s.
He was also a member of both the International Steering Committee for Gastrointestinal Hormones (1986-1994) and the nominating panel for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988.
Gastroenterologist and hepatologist Dr Richard Johnson received the Medal of the Order (OAM) “for service to medicine, and to hospital administration”.
A senior visiting gastroenterologist at Royal Adelaide Hospital for more than three decades, Dr Johnson has held various roles with the North Eastern Community Hospital – a not-for-profit, community-owned, private hospital and nursing home facility in Adelaide.
These roles include chair (2011-2015), deputy chair (2000-2011), board member (2000-2020) and chair of the medical executive committee (2000-2020).
Each year, the limbic scours the lists for specialists joining the Order of Australia honours. If you believe someone has been left off, please get in touch at [email protected].