He’s the forgotten hero of modern medicine, but the boy from Bendigo who solved the riddle of a killer disease more than 50 years ago has finally been recognised by his country. John Gorman, who pioneered the treatment of Rh disease in the 1960s, has been given Australia’s highest honour, an AC, for eminent service to humanity. It caps a life of extraordinary achievement; a man of medical marvel who turned a poison against itself to beat an insidious, lethal condition that was killing babies by the tens of thousands.
“It’s one of the great advances of modern medicine,” says Dr Danny Challis, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Sydney’s Royal Hospital for Women. “It took a terrible, horrible condition and basically eliminated it.” It involved a vial of precious human serum, an ice box and a clandestine flight.
If John Gorman had had his way, he would never have studied medicine. “If I had my druthers, it would have been engineering”, the 93-year-old says. But both his parents were GPs and they were very eager for him to follow suit, so he chose the path of least resistance.
After graduating from the University of Melbourne and a year’s stint at St Vincent’s Hospital, opportunity beckoned. Three of his good mates – fellow doctors John Hamilton, Hubert de Castella and Sam Breen – had decided to head overseas, first to Europe and then to New York. Gorman did not need much encouragement to join them.
“I was always fascinated by America. I thought .