WILLIAM COOPER

Occupational health consultant

11-11-1916 10-11-2014

William Francis Cooper was born 10 months before his father, Lieutenant William Stanley Cooper, 107th Howitzer Battery, 7th Australian Field Artillery Brigade, died of multiple wounds at the 2nd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station, Belgium. Bill felt that loss all his life.

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Always interested in new knowledge, Bill was the first of many Cooper generations to go to university. He enrolled in science in 1936 then transferred to medicine in 1937.

He was an honours student of Professor of Physiology "Pansy" Wright and graduated from the University of Melbourne with the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. He did the six-year degree in five years as well as winning a university middleweight boxing title in 1941.

Bill served his residency years at the Royal Melbourne and Prince Henry's Hospital. Later he talked about the hopeless patients with infections resistant to sulfa drugs, the early antibiotics, who died in "septic" wards.

Bill was in a hurry. In 1942 he began working with general practitioner Dr O'Grady in St Kilda, graduated MB BS, and married Peggy Maxted.

He developed more skills working with the famed psychiatrist Dr Henry Maudsley and surgeon Mr Ted Prendergast, and bought into Dr O'Grady's practice.

Originally posted here:

Pioneer of occupational medicine promoted work for the disabled