NAME: Teik Ewe Oh, AM
ANZCA PRESIDENT 2000 – 2002
QUALIFICATIONS:
MB BS (Qld) 1969
MD (Qld) 1992
FFARCS, 1974 (FFARACS, 1981)
FANZCA, 1992 FRCA, 1992
FHKCA, 1992 FFICANZCA, 1993
FCA RCSI (Hon), 2001
FJFIC – ANZCA & RACP, 2002
FCA SA (Hon), 2003
FCICM, 2008 FRCPE, 1991
FRACP, 1992 FHKCP, 1992
FRCP, 1993
DATE OF BIRTH: 15 May 1945
Emeritus Professor Teik Oh served on the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) council from 1995 to 2002. He was elected president in 2000 and focused on education and continuing professional development (CPD). During this time, he penned ANZCA’s mission statement and drove education and CPD initiatives. Under his leadership, ANZCA continued on its path as a professional educational organisation.
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Teik Oh was born in Georgetown, Penang, and grew up in Brisbane where he completed his formal schooling at the Brisbane Boys’ College. He followed this by studying medicine at the University of Queensland (UQ), and was a resident of King’s College. As a student, he was active in student affairs, being on the Medical Society Executive, convener of the Medical Ball, Captain/Coach of the Medical XV, and the editor of The Magazine of King’s College. In sports, he represented UQ and King’s College in athletics, and received half blues in rugby union and hockey. He graduated MBBS in December 1969.
Teik spent his years as a resident medical officer in Brisbane and Canberra and his postgraduate training in anaesthesia and medicine was undertaken in London and Perth. In 1974 he was a Fellow in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Western Australia’s (UWA) Department of Pharmacology, which ignited his interest in research.
In 1975 he became the inaugural Director of ICU at the new Woden Valley Hospital, Canberra (now The Canberra Hospital). He returned to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth in 1977 as the inaugural Director of ICU and, over the next 11 years, developed that unit into one of the leading ICUs in Australia and New Zealand, as well as becoming the president of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society.
Teik’s contributions and abilities were also recognized overseas and, in 1988, he was invited to become Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anaesthesia & Intensive Care at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, one of the world’s top 100 universities. In his second year, the university appointed him Dean of Medicine, during which term he founded the faculties of nursing and pharmacy.
In addition, he was Chief of Service for Anaesthesia, Operating Theatres and ICU at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Shatin. He built the department up to establish an international reputation in clinical excellence, research and vocational training. The environment he created helped trainees to win a number of ANZCA examination prizes. Teik introduced ANZCA’s intensive care training program to Hong Kong, which saw many take the opportunity to becomes fellows of the then Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, now the College of Intensive Care Medicine.
In research, his department’s productivity resulted in over 50 publications annually, but he describes his greatest legacy as the number of anaesthetists and intensivists he mentored through their higher research degrees (MD, PhD, MPhil, MSc). Many of these former mentees now hold professorial positions in Hong Kong, South East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. He served on the Governor’s Preparatory Committees to found the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine and the Hospital Authority. He was also President of the Western Pacific Critical Care Association, Hong Kong Critical Care Society, and the Hong Kong College of Anaesthesiologists.
In 1998, Teik and his family returned to Perth where he became UWA’s inaugural Chair of Anaesthesia based at Royal Perth Hospital (RPH). He was also appointed RPH’s Director of Surgery and Board Chair of Clinical Training and Evaluation Centre, UWA’s State Simulation Centre. As in Hong Kong, he worked tirelessly to build up the academic department and clinical excellence of the operating theatres and surgical and anaesthesia departments. He was proud to recruit Professor Stephan Schug, specialist pain medicine physician, and Professor Michael Paech, obstetric anaesthetist, to join him.
Teik’s career reflects his achievements as a medical leader, clinician, teacher, and academic. He holds a Doctorate of Medicine by thesis examination, a research Higher Doctorate of UQ. He has been an invited examiner and Visiting Professor to universities in the UK, US, Canada and Asia, and has served on National Health and Medical Research Council and international research committees and boards of journals. He has published 200 indexed scientific papers, 90 book chapters, and the internationally acclaimed textbook Oh’s Intensive Care Manual now in its 7th edition.
Teik is a recipient of the Order of Australia, ANZCA’s Robert Orton Medal, the College Medal of CICM, the Dudley Buxton Medal of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, and Honorary Fellowships of the Irish, South African, and Hong Kong Colleges. In 2006 UWA conferred Teik a lifetime Emeritus Professorship.
As ANZCA President, he ensured procedural fairness with a right of appeal in every college process, such as in selecting trainees and assessing overseas specialists. He deliberated strategic directions of the college, undertook many document reviews, and championed collegiality in Asia Pacific; the college held its first overseas Annual Scientific Meeting in Hong Kong in 2001 with the Hong Kong College. Drawing from his academic background, he wrote a new model of Learning Modules under Basic Training and Advanced Training and a new CPD program for ANZCA. Under his leadership, ANZCA introduced new workshops and courses (e.g. Effective Management of Anaesthetic Crises) under a new education unit. His work on the training program, CPD, and assessments established ANZCA as one of the leaders in medical education. He felt privileged to preside over the opening of ANZCA House in 2001, and overall, to serve the college.
Outside of medicine, Teik has given his time to community causes such as Rotary and being a chair or advisor to boards of charitable trusts. He is devoted to, and proud of, his family; his wife Dianne, his daughter Kazia and son Stefan by his late wife Lala, and he is a doting grandfather to their children. While in Hong Kong he learnt to play the saxophone and sail a junk. Back in Perth, he renovates homes and boats.
OTHER AWARDS & HONOURS
2003 Honorary Fellowship of the College of Anaesthetists of South Africa
2007 ANZCA Robert Orton Medal
2009 Awarded 1st prize in British Medical Association Book Competition
2010 Member of the Order of Australia
2010 CICM College Medal (Inaugural)
2012 RCA Dudley Buxton Medal
Honorary Fellowship of the College of Anaesthetists of Ireland
Honorary Fellowship of the Hong Kong College of Anaesthetists
REFERENCES
The information in these biographies has been researched via the ANZCA Archives with the assistance of the individual Fellows.
IMAGE REFERENCES
- Teik Oh (photograph), c2000