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Bob Wright is considered a pioneer in paramedic training in Australia.
The grandfather-of-three, 74, who will continue teaching medical students and ship captains in retirement, considers his greatest achievement to be groundbreaking changes he introduced to the ambulance service. Dr Wright was at the forefront in the 1970s of a new concept - training ambulance paramedics to treat patients on the spot rather than being stretcher bearers whose job was to ''scoop and run''. At the time, one paramedic would stretcher the patient while the other received instructions from a doctor via radio.
Dr Wright developed a set of protocols for paramedics to use in the crucial first minutes after an incident. The protocols were copied across the world.
He taught the first ever paramedic course, held at St Vincent's Hospital in 1976, and the 16 graduates included retired intensive care paramedic Paul Featherstone, who was pivotal in rescue operations after the Thredbo landslide, Bali bombings and Beaconsfield mine collapse.
''One of the first jobs I did [following the course] was the near-drowning of a baby in a bathtub,'' Mr Featherstone said.
''I had all the knowledge but little of the equipment, and I ended up intubating this young baby with a penlight torch and a spoon. When I hit St Vincent's, Bob was there to receive the child and I expressed my unhappiness at not having the gear to work with. The next day, we had a knock on the door down at The Rocks station; there was Bob with a pillowslip full of paediatric intubation instruments.''
St Vincent's Hospital chief executive Anthony Schembri said Dr Wright shaped modern intensive care in Australia.''What is unique about Bob Wright … is the breadth of his contribution as a clinician and a teacher across our hospital campus and beyond,'' he said.
