James O'Halloran Hyde
General Surgeon
1941-2014
James O'Halloran Hyde, my brother, was the first born of the union of James Patrick O'Halloran Hyde (Catholic) and Doreen Schneider (Methodist) and thus saw fit to later describe himself as Anglican!
His education commenced at Prospect Primary School thence the Adelaide High school, where by 1947 he had achieved the status of Prefect, member of the first X1 and first XV111 and was 880 runner in the athletics team. He also managed to play violin in the orchestra. Most importantly, he won a scholarship to study medicine at Adelaide University.
Whilst at university he worked seasonally on wheat and barley farms and spent holiday time in places like Coffin Bay - isolated and wild then, rowing, fishing and shooting. He became a superbly fit athlete winning a double blue at university.
He captained the state lacrosse team and represented the state at junior level cricket. His contemptuous challenge to a state selector to 'walk' when given not out off Jim's bowling, probably dealt his chances of senior representation a mortal blow. In a way he still had the last laugh-achieving a century playing later for Australia House in the UK, where his side met Princess Margaret at a charity match at Lords, and a hat trick later as Uni B Captain.
He then proceeded to put something back into the cricket club as its president 68 -73, replacing one of his surgical mentors, Mr. Leonard Pellew, whose father had delivered me in 1937. What a small place is Adelaide!
Whilst in the UK, he worked at Amersham and Stoke-Mandeville hospitals and acquired confidence and experience. On return to the fold at the RAH, he began a lifelong treasured association with Mr. Lehonde (Frosty) Hoare, and sat and passed the FRACS to complement FRCS Education. Ultimately as Honorary, his private practice began to grow and his marriage in 1963 to Jean Cusack, a children's hospital nurse, ushered in family life.
Nothing was too difficult for him surgically, and his good humour endeared him to students, residents and patient's as he began his service spanning 25 years or so to the areas of McLaren Vale, Gawler and Kangaroo Island. On one afternoon list at Gawler he performed 4 open cholecystectomies, one leg veins and a minor procedure. Alone, he seemed determined and capable of removing the strain from the big public hospitals lists!
He now embraced golf, achieving two hole-in-one awards at the Royal Adelaide Golf Club, where with his friend Gordon Ormandy, he played even during the last year of his life.
However, it was his pioneering surgery of groin injuries that saw his name become a sporting household legend. Athletes from all codes, both local and interstate, flocked to him in Adelaide for treatment. He shared his knowledge giving a lecture on the surgery at the Canberra Institute of Sports and was proud to do so.
One of my last memories was of him triumphantly holding aloft a gall bladder during a difficult procedure and crying HOWZAT??
This loyal, complex, slightly eccentric loving humourist died after a very severe stroke leaving me with the certitude that he had lived his life to the school motto - NON SCHOLAE SED VITAE - "not for school but for life" and that at 83, he had had a great innings.
Geoff Hyde (his brother)
Children: Sarah, Sam, Ben, Rachael + 10 grandchildren.
James O'Halloran Hyde
General Surgeon
1941-2014
I never personally met James Hyde who was the pioneer Surgeon in groin injuries. When he retired in 1995 he had performed about 2,500 cases and had operated on many of the top players from all codes of football performing an operation which he called a "conjoint tendon repair". When he was contacted by telephone before he retired in 1995 for details of his technique, he generously provided a six page handwritten account of his operation in great detail. Several Surgeons who are no longer with us actually visited his Adelaide Hospital to watch him work and spoke of his conviviality and welcoming attitude. The operation of conjoint tendon repair was subsequently incorporated into an operation today which is known as "groin reconstruction" which success has resuscitated the careers of innumerable elite football and other sporting elite, as well as injured workers.
Regrettably, Mr Hyde never published details of his operations or his series of patients and details of the paper that he gave in Canberra have probably disappeared but it is still talked about by some of the Senior Sports Physicians. Mr Hyde believed that the conjoint tendon repair would last for only five years but in my experience he under estimated his own operation and the repair can last for over 12 years allowing the patient performing at the same level of pre-injury sport.
James Hyde was an outstanding but humble Surgeon who exhibited all the desirable natural qualities one would like to see in young surgeons: initiative, persistence, original research, technical superiority and collegiality.
J F W Garvey