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Dr Anwar Riad Girgis
1927-2015
Anwar Girgis was born in Assiout, Egypt in 1927 of an Orthodox Coptic Christian family and
migrated to Australia in 1969. He had been through many tribulations in his native Egypt and
settled well into the peace of Whyalla in country South Australia while working extraordinarily
hard as an orthopaedic surgeon.
The second oldest son of a large family – his parents had nine children - Anwar grew up in Cairo
and excelled at school, winning two scholarships, one for coming 20th in his matriculation year
(nationally) and the second for taking on the extra subject of organic chemistry and excelling in it,
coming second in the country that year. His memoirs describe a typical boy’s childhood at the time,
spent in his neighbourhood in Cairo, at the church with his family, and studying at school. He did
especially well in maths and science, and in high school was awarded a prize from King Farouk.
His memoirs are peppered with his boyhood experiences of Egypt before independence.
While I was in secondary school the 2nd World War started. At that time Egypt was an English colony
and I remember there were British soldiers everywhere. We were living in Cairo, in Shoubra which
was not far from the main central Railway Station. We were always threatened with air raids from
the Italians who were in Libya. At that time they were occupying Libya. The Egyptian government
were under instructions from the British army to build us air raid shelters. They built one in front of
our house. At first it was merely a trench dug in the round in a zigzag manner. It was a great place
for us to play in. Then the threat became serious in 1942 when Rommel advanced to Alexandria.
The allied army, the Australians, the Indians, and soldiers from other countries in the Empire, with
some British soldiers stopped them at El Alamin. The trenches were not efficient as air raid shelters
so they build underground concrete long shelters. They were the best places for boys to play until
someone spread the rumour that a ghost was hiding there.
He chose to study medicine at Cairo University, one of two medical schools in Egypt at the time,
and graduated in 1951. After an internship at Cairo University Teaching Hospital he spent the next
two years working in rural Egypt close to the border with Sudan.
This was a turbulent period in Egypt, with the monarchy and King Farouk being overthrown in
1952 in the revolution led by Abdel Gamal Nasser
In July 1952 I was getting ready to go to work in my room in the morning when I heard on the radio
(it was a large heavy radio which worked using valves which needed warming before you can hear
anything) the news that the military officers started the revolution and overthrew King Farouk. The
news that I heard that morning had a huge effect on my future.
The next eight years saw Anwar studying surgery in Egypt, obtaining his Diploma of Surgery and
practising general surgery in several regional centres. Female circumcision and abortion were
illegal in Egypt, but very poorly performed abortions and circumcisions were commonly undertaken
by traditional “midwives” and others without skills or training. This was always of deep concern to
Anwar, and after caring for many women with severe complications from these procedures, he
provided assistance where he could. From early in his career Anwar focussed on those most
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vulnerable and ensured the people under his care were protected and cared for professionally and
with compassion. This became one his most respected traits – his compassion, gentle nature and
care.
Those formative surgical years in Anwar’s life saw further social upheaval in Egypt: Nasser’s
nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 led to a brief war with Britain and France, and in 1962 the
nationalisation of much private property saw Anwar’s family stripped of most of their assets.
In 1962 Anwar travelled to Edinburgh where he worked and studied and in 1964 obtained his
FRCS(Edin), by this time specialising in orthopaedics. He subsequently worked at King’s College,
St Giles, Dorking and East Surrey Hospitals. In London he met Myrtha Maetzler, a Swiss au pair
working for a young family in London, and they fell in love.
He returned to Egypt without Myrtha to work in the Ahmed Mahar Teaching Hospital in Cairo as
an orthopaedic surgeon with a special interest in bone and joint tuberculosis in particular the spine
and Potts’ Paraplegia. As this hospital was a referral centre for the Middle East, Anwar gained
considerable experience and was published on the subject. During this time, he continued a long
distance romance with Myrtha. They married in May 1965.
Arrangements were made to have the church wedding at the Coptic Cathedral in Klut Bey in the
centre of Cairo. Myrtha’s family could not come and asked Lotti, her best friend, to represent them.
Lotti was the reason I met Myrtha in London in the first place. … Myrtha looked beautiful … There
was a hitch however, before the wedding the priest in charge who knew me and my family since I
was a teenager insisted Myrtha should get baptised as Coptic Orthodox, which meant complete
immersion in the baptising water. Myrtha got hysterical about it so the priest tried to compromise
and asked her to put on a night gown, she got more unhappy and asked him if he had seen a lady in
a wet flimsy nighty! Eventually the priest decided she could be baptised by pouring holy water on
her while dressed.
After the seven-day Arab-Israeli War of October 1967, Anwar returned to UK in 1968 at the
invitation of a lifelong friend Dr Peter Ring of Surrey (known for the Ring total hip prosthesis).
At that time President Nasser decreed that nobody with higher degrees were allowed to leave
Egypt. That was his way to stop the drainage of highly qualified graduates and indicated how living
conditions in Egypt were uncomfortable. So I could not go to England unless I had a very good
reason to go and I was not allowed to take my family with me. I explained all of this to Peter Ring
and he agreed to invite me to England. I applied for a one month trip to England, it took many
months to get approval and I indicated my wife will stay in Helwan. I was sure Myrtha would be
able to follow me because she had Swiss nationality and passport. … I flew on a Sunday to England.
I was allowed only 20 English Pounds as pocket money, and could not take any Egyptian money as
the currency had no value at that time outside of Egypt. On the way to England the plane stopped in
Zurich. I walked around in the airport and found a tobacco shop with a nice pipe in the display
window which I fanced as I used to spoke as I used to smoke the pipe as alternative to cigarettes.
The pipe cost 20 pounds!
From the UK he responded to an advertisement in the BMJ for a resident orthopaedic surgeon in
Whyalla some 400km north of Adelaide, and in 1969 accepted only the second such regional
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position in South Australia. The move was a challenge - Whyalla was promoted to Myrtha and
Anwar as a beautiful resort town, like the French Riviera. Myrtha, having spent a lot of her
childhood in the beautiful region of Geneva, felt this was a place she could settle in. It was a
surprise, to say the least, when they arrived.
Arriving in Whyalla with his young Swiss wife Myrtha and small daughter Mona, Anwar was
immediately extremely busy, providing a comprehensive elective orthopaedic service in the days
before subspecialisation. He was permanently on emergency call for Whyalla and a huge area of the
north and the west coast of South Australia. He was much in demand for the management of
industrial injuries from the steelworks and mines, and their subsequent assessment for
compensation. In acknowledgement of their home countries of Egypt and Switzerland, the practice
that he worked in and she managed was named Karnak House, after one of Egypt’s most famous
Pharaonic temples on the Nile.
He and Myrtha, both sociable, adapted well to their new life in Whyalla, involving themselves in
the social and artistic life of a steel town and quickly making long term friends through their open
manner and generous hospitality. Myrtha was active in the Arts Council of South Australia and
hosted many regional arts tours to the region. Anwar developed contacts with orthopaedic
colleagues in Adelaide, especially Brian Cornish, for advice and referral where appropriate. He
became an Associate Fellow of the Australian Orthopaedic Association in 1970 and the following
year a Fellow.
In Whyalla, with lawyer Terry Reilly, Anwar established the first medico-legal conference in
Australia. At the time Whyalla as home to ship building as well as the BHP steel works, and
workplace injury was common. Recognising that medico-legal work was an important subspecialty, Terry and Anwar hosted several important meetings over the following years. Anwar
maintained throughout his career concern for the patient affected by workplace injury and their
rehabilitation and return to work.
In Whyalla, and before that in Egypt, Anwar was active in teaching the nursing staff that he worked
with, and general practitioners who came to his weekly GP clinics in Whyalla,
Through this period Anwar gained the great respect of his Adelaide orthopaedic colleagues, was
appointed an Honorary Assistant Surgeon to the Department of Orthopaedics and Trauma of Royal
Adelaide Hospital, and in 1981 was nominated and elected as a Fellow of Royal Australasian
College of Surgeons. Anwar moved to Adelaide in 1984, was appointed as a Senior Visiting
Orthopaedic Surgeon to Modbury Teaching Hospital and conducted a private practice in association
with Robert Bauze.
His patients and staff and referring doctors liked and respected him. He was courteous and
gentlemanly, never flustered, calmly handling the most complex of situations. He never raised his
voice, was never angry.
His orthopaedic colleagues liked and admired him and enjoyed his company and hospitality in
many encounters as he regularly attended continuing education meetings. In Whyalla hosted
visiting professors and a scientific meeting of the SA Branch of the AOA.
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He stopped clinical practice in 1997, continuing medicolegal consulting for the next 10 years, being
much in demand for his careful and fair minded assessments and reports.
He is a wonderful example of the brave, hardworking, intelligent and admirable migrants from
cultures vastly different to our own who contribute so much to Australia. The scholarship
established in his and Myrtha’s name aims to support other surgeons migrating to Australia who are
keen to contribute to their communities.