Ronald Trubuhovich

Ronald Valentine Trubuhovich is a medical doctor and a major pioneer of critical care medicine in New Zealand.

Background

Trubuhovich, who is of Dalmatian parentage, was born in New Plymouth, but after age 7 spent his childhood in Auckland. He was educated at St Peter's College of which he was dux in 1946 and 1947.

He gained the degrees of Bachelor of Dental Surgery, Bachelor of Medical Science and Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery . He was awarded the J. Malcolm Prize in Physiology in 1956 and the Geigy Essay Prize in Psychiatry in 1962. He gained a Nuffield Dominion Scholarship to Oxford University and Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary in 1964 and completed a research MSc there. In 2019 he gained his doctorate, MD, from the University of Auckland with his thesis 'Resuscitation and the Origins of
Intensive Care/Critical Care Medicine'. His specialist qualifications include FFARCS, FANZCA and College of Intensive Care Medicine, Australia and New Zealand FCICMANZ.

He was Deputy Medical Officer-in-Charge, 1968-1983, then headed the intensive or critical care services in Auckland at Auckland Hospital being Chairman of the Department of Critical Care Medicine, Auckland Hospital until obligatory formal retirement in 1994, although he continued working there for 4 more years. He was President of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society, inaugural Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care, Australian & New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, President of the Auckland Medical History Society. He is a published author on medical history.

In the 1997 Queen's Birthday Honours, Trubuhovich was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to medicine. In 2012, he was honoured by being named an "old boy of distinction" of his old school, St Peter's College. 2024 Trubuhovich was invited to reopen the revamped St Peters College Science Laboratories.