Robert Andrew (Bob) Douglas was born in Townsville on 26 March 1915,the son of Robert Johnstone Douglas, Justice of the Supreme Court of North Queensland and Alice Mary Ball. His grandfather was the Hon. John Douglas, sometime Premier of Queensland and special Administrator of British New Guinea. Family associations precede the settlement of Townsville, for his maternal grandfather, Andrew Ball, was the leader of a three man expedition sent by Robert Towns to find a site suitable for the boiling down and export of tallow, hide and beef. The whole Douglas family is one steeped in legal and medical tradition.

He had two brothers and two sisters. Bob married Barbara Bulozich (née Shaw), a registered nurse, in 1949 and the union bore five children - Robert John , Manager, (Melbourne); Catriona, nursing sister; Selina Barbara , Disabilities Service Consultant; Sarah, Artist; Sholto James Shaw, Litigation Support. He died in 1998 of cancer of the colon, surrounded by his loving family. His wife, children, and their grandchildren survived him.

Bob was educated at St Joseph’s Primary School, Townsville, Nudgee College, Brisbane, and the University of Melbourne where he graduated MBBS with Honours in Surgery, Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1939. He was awarded the Jamieson Prize for first place in Clinical Medicine.

After war service he worked as a medical officer in the Repatriation Hospital, Heidelberg. 1947-50. In 1950 he gained membership of the RACP and completed the examination for the first part of the MD Further post graduate studies were undertaken and he was admitted MRCP in 1952, and on return to Australia became consultant physician to Townsville General Hospital, 1952-80 and the Cairns Base Hospital 1952-60. He was consulting physician to the Army, RAAF and the Repatriation Department. Bob was elected to Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (London 1979) and to the Royal Australasian College (1968). In 1984 the Membership of the Order of Australia was conferred upon him for his services to medicine and in 1990 he was admitted to the AMA Roll of Fellows.

Bob enlisted in AAMC in 1940 and was discharged in 1946. He attained the rank of Major and saw service in the Middle East, New Guinea and Borneo.

Bob was a physician in the broadest sense of the word. He had a brilliant mind and a voracious appetite to learn and to work. In spite of his heavy workload he contributed many original articles to our journals on medical and historical topics Historical interests were deep and he gave the Jackson Oration at the North Queensland Medical Conference entitled “Dr Anton Breinl and the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine”.

He was a brilliant diagnostician and more importantly had the great ability to impart his knowledge to his junior colleagues. He was a quiet, yet great, achiever beloved by all the staff – RMO’s, registrars, colleagues, nursing and paramedical staff and venerated by his patients. Bob was a man of great personal elegance, quietly spoken, unassuming, yet warm, dignified and thoughtful – a man who had a ready smile and a dry sense of humour.

In spite of a very heavy workload Bob maintained many other interests which he pursued with as much skill and enthusiasm as his medicine. Deep interests included history, anthropology, geology and photography. He was patron (and photographer) of the National Trust Townsville, Chairman of Convocation of James Cook University and Chairman of the Foundation of Australian Literary Studies, 1971-80.

Bob was an untiring worker with tremendous knowledge of, and dedication to, the arts, science and practice of medicine and with a wide knowledge of, and interest in, many fields. His brilliance, sagacity, dignity and humility was sadly missed and medicine in Australia much poorer for his demise while the College lost the loyalty and support of a unique man.