A Well Deserved Award

Martinborough is home to many people whose backgrounds and working lives are little known but immensely interesting. Dr Steuart Henderson is one of them, with a long and illustrious career in anaesthesia that was recently recognised with the award of the ANZCA Medal.

Steuart describes the anaesthetist as “the invisible person in the surgical team”, and says with a smile that “it’s a happily anonymous role”. The surgeon traditionally takes on the role of captain of the ship, but the anaesthetist sees their position as one of a team. Yet their education and training is as extensive as the surgeon, beginning with a full medical degree followed by a minimum of seven postgraduate years of specialisation.

After completing his medical degree in 1970, Steuart found himself working for three months in anaesthesia and, as he says with some feeling, “I fell in love with it”. It was the combination of physiology and pharmacology working together that drew him into a world where ensuring that patients were maintained at optimal levels throughout a surgical procedure and afterwards was paramount.

There is still an element of mystery about anaesthesia, since the difference between unconsciousness and sleep is very real but not completely understood. “There is a fascination about what is happening”, Steuart explains, and without good anaesthesia the skills of the surgeon are seriously compromised.

A significant part of Steuart’s career was 20 years as Director of Anaesthesia at Wellington Hospital. Throughout these years and afterwards Steuart worked in voluntary and part time roles for the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA), for twelve years as a Councillor, and as an examiner. For the last eight years he served as Director of Professional Affairs.

In the world of medicine, different specialties appeal to and attract different personalities. Anaesthesia is one to which the quieter and more reserved are drawn, and also those for whom detail and precision are important qualities. Steuart’s wife Honor says that when a group of anaesthetists get together “they start straightening the pictures and sorting the magazines”. So it is unsurprising that Steuart worked out on his final trip to Australia in 2015 that in the countless times he had crossed the Tasman over 22 years he had “ clocked up over 1000 nights in one hotel, which is three years of my life”!

The culmination of his medical career was to receive the ANZCA Medal at the recent Annual Scientific Meeting of ANZCA in Auckland. This medal has been awarded only 26 times in 36 years, and only six times to New Zealanders. Steuart’s main focus and contribution, for which he was justly recognised, was in education and continuing education.
Over the years he served in numerous roles, achieving significant change in the education and training of anaesthetists. Under the old system if you fulfilled the requirements and passed the exams you were admitted as a Fellow of the College, and no more was required in terms of professional development and continuing education. This has changed significantly over the past few decades and Steuart has been constantly involved as new standards have been established.

One example of Steuart’s influence was the acquisition of the first human patient simulator in the Southern Hemisphere, at Wellington Hospital in 1996. Known affectionately as Stan (short for Standard Man), this was a major innovation that is now a compulsory component of specialist anaesthesia training, and is also used by a number of other medical specialties such as intensive care medicine and emergency medicine. This has been a quiet but immensely satisfying achievement for Steuart.

As the citation accompanying the medal expressed it, Steuart often provided “a voice of significant reason” and “his contribution has been huge over a long period of time”.

Rachel McCahon