Basil Hetzel, 1922-2017

Basil Hetzel was a few years ahead of me at St Peter's College in Adelaide where we first met, and at the Adelaide medical school.  I worked with him briefly when I was a medical student and he was -- in the local terminology -- a senior registrar, a position roughly equivalent to senior resident in Canadian or US terminology. I first got to know him moderately well when I was in general practice at the Western Clinic, about 7 years after I qualified. At that time he was, I think, an associate professor in the professorial medical unit at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital. The Western Clinic was in the catchment area of the QEIIH, although we didn't identify or recognize catchment areas as such in those years. I found him helpful as a consultant, but less so than several of his peers and near contemporaries. In 1967 or 1968 when I was senior lecturer at the Usher Institute of Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, Basil was head or deputy head of the department of medicine at Monash University in Melbourne. Monash University established a department called (I think) Community Medicine and Epidemiology. I applied for the chair, was interviewed in London by several people I knew who knew me well.  I, and several of those who interviewed me, seemed confident that I was the best qualified and should be offered the position. At the time I was shattered when I was passed over and Basil Hetzel, who totally lacked training and experience in epidemiology, was appointed. Looking back on it ten years later I could see that this was among the best things that ever happened to me. I got much further in North America than I ever would have if I'd gone back to Australia! I saw Basil occasionally in Ottawa.  He had other friends besides me in Ottawa and dropped in occasionally to see us. On one of those visits he described me as  "A towering figure." He was the first but not the only one to describe me thus. While he was at Monash I visited and stayed with him and his first wife, at their weekend retreat outside Melbourne. Not long after then, I got to know him better when I was on the council of the International Epidemiological Association and editor of the IEA's Dictionary of Epidemiology.  Basil was parachuted in as president of the IEA when we met in Sydney in 1993. I gave the opening keynote address at that meeting and commented on some emerging challenges,  notably rapid changes in global life-supporting ecosystems that threatened population health, and new ethical challenges.  Basil thanked me after this talk, and confessed that until he heard me speak that morning, he hadn't thought much about either of these challenges. Soon he left epidemiology and other population sciences and moved into university administration. He was appointed governor of South Australia, and other honours and distinctions came his way.

His obituary described him as gentle, courteous and kindly. I fully endorse and agree with these descriptions.