Overview
The Douglas Robb Lectures
The Robb lectures are named in honour of Sir Douglas Robb, surgeon, medical reformer, writer, a member of the Council of the University of Auckland from 1938 until 1971 and Chancellor from 1962 until 1968. Born in Auckland in 1899, Robb went studied medicine at the University of Otago. He spent most of his twenties in the UK, training in surgery and undertaking research for an MD, returning to Auckland to take up surgical practice and a clinical position.
He was never a conformist doctor. His criticisms of the hospital and health systems, his vision for a reformed health service made him for some years an outsider in medical circles. When he returned to the fold with an appointment to the thoracic surgery unit at the Green Lane Hospital, he turned to the cause of medical education and was largely responsible for first medical postgraduate teaching in Auckland and then the establishment of the University’s Medical School.
Robb was regarded by many members of the Auckland medical establishment as a persistent dissenter, but he saw himself as in the forefront of those helping to make New Zealand an enlightened country. Auckland University has run this annual series of public lectures in his name as a memorial to his work and life.
Professor John Kenneth Galbraith delivered the first Robb Lectures in 1968. Eminent Robb Lecturers have included Dr Bill Pickering, Richard Leakey, E.P. Thompson, Professor Paul Krugman, Marina Warner, Jared Diamond and Lord Nicholas Stern.