Three more birthday honours
FOLLOWING last week’s AJN report, we have learnt that three more members of the community received Queen’s Birthday honours.
FOLLOWING last week’s AJN report, we have learnt that three more members of the community received Queen’s Birthday honours.
Dr Tim Bonyhady, of the ACT, was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) along with Melbourne’s Professor Derek Prinsley, while Professor Ian Wronski of Townsville became an Officer of the Order of Australia.
Wronski was recognised for distinguished service to tertiary education – particularly through leadership and research roles in Indigenous, rural and remote health – and to medicine in the field of tropical health.
Through a career spanning four decades, Wronski has championed better health outcomes for some of Australia’s most marginalised corners, including Indigenous and rural communities.
He told The AJN the honour would help him continue to attract the country’s best and brightest to tackle the sizeable challenge.
“We’ve been successful in bringing large numbers of very good people to address important issues,” Wronski said.
“None of these things can ever be done by an individual person, and while I was the person that got the pat, the reality is there are a lot of people focusing attention on this and that’s been the success.”
The vice-chancellor and executive dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Molecular Sciences at James Cook University since 1997, Wronski said his Jewish upbringing informed his desire to help those less fortunate.
“The ethical frameworks that underpin and are integrated with lots of Jewish thought have an impact on how you’re brought up and how you see the world, which is why I think you have so many Jews involved in those sorts of things.”
At 95, Prinsley was shocked to receive his honour. A trailblazer in the field of geriatrics, who has established world-leading programs in three countries including Australia, he was sought out to bring Australia up to speed in the field of gerontology.
He arrived in Australia in 1976 and became the first professor in geriatrics in this country.
“I was brought into Australia as someone who knew what do in geriatrics. I came as a professor in something nobody had ever heard of and I spent some time turning around the philosophy of warehousing old people in nursing homes to actually setting about finding out what was the matter with them and treating them and perhaps returning them to the community.”
After his stint in Australia, Prinsley was called on to establish geriatric medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Back in Australia he provided pro-bono expert advice to Montefiore Homes for the Aged in Melbourne on the development of aged-care services, and has been actively involved with the Australian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Bonyhady received his AM for significant service to education in the field of climate and environmental law, as an academic and researcher, and to the visual arts.
He has been the director of the Australian Centre for Environmental Law at the Australian National University’s College of Law since 2004, and has been the director of the Centre for Climate Law and Policy since 2008. Bonyhady could not be contacted for comment.
ADAM KAMIEN
Professor Ian Wronski became an Officer of the Order of Australia.
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