Trevor Norman CUTTER

CUTTER, TREVOR NORMAN (b. Camberwell, Vic, 13 June 1945; d. Hawthorn, Vic, 9 May 1990). Doctor to Australian Aborigines.

Influenced by a godly mother, Cutter was converted in his mid-teens, and became active among the youth at the Mentone Baptist Church. He graduated MB, BS at Monash University 1969 at the top of his year. He m. Patricia Jean Lee whom he met at the Mentone Church. The Cutters had six children.

Interested in tropical medicine, Cutter contemplated missionary service. He served as medical registrar at hospitals in Papua New Guinea 1970-1. Returning to Melbourne, he was a registrar at the Alfred Hospital 1972-37 and gained his FRACP. He was in Ethiopia with the Sudan Interior Mission Feb-April 1974 then began doctoral studies, first in immunology, later in social and preventative medicine. However, his time in Africa determined the future direction of his medical work.

Cutter went to Alice Springs in Feb 1975 for six months to conduct medical surveys in fringe camps tor the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. His report attracted media attention, for he insisted that some conditions were worse than those he had found in Ethiopian refugee camps. In Oct 1975 he accepted appointment as CAAC's first medico, later becoming director. Henceforth, the Aboriginal people were to be the sphere of his ministry, and in this demanding service his wife fully shared. He travelled widely in Central and North West Australia and, instituted medical services for Aborigines at Broome and Katherine. He was in New Zealand in 1983, gaining the Diploma of Community Medicine from Otago University, after which he returned to Central Australia.

From 1985 to 1989 he was director of the Aboriginal Health Service in Fitzroy (Melbourne), was medical adviser to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal deaths in custody, and on Aboriginal AIDS. By 1989 he was also serving part-time at the West Hawthorn Baptist Health Service and as a consultant physician at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne. He was appointed senior lecturer in community medicine at Monash University.

When Tear Fund Australia was set up in the late 1970s, Cutter was active in its work, and visited refugee camps in India, Bangladesh and Thailand. He went to Ethiopia for the World Heath Organisation in 1986, and addressed the International Congress of Christian Physicians at Mexico City in that same year. Over the years, he contributed articles to medical journals, and wrote A Clinician's Diabetic Manual (1988).

Cutter was motivated by a deep sense of Christian compassion, considering himself Christ's servant to others. The Aboriginal people held him in high regard for his readiness to understand their culture and law. Consequently he was able to encourage them to determine for themselves the character of their own health service.

In 1989 cancer of the kidney was diagnosed. Surgery provided only temporary relief. His courage and patience in the face of death was a powerful witness to the Saviour he loved.

BASIL S BROWN