Vale Chris Del Mar

The admired and loved GP and advocate Professor Chris Del Mar has died at the age of 72.

---

Gold Coast GP Chris Del Mar AM, Professor of Public Health at Bond University, sadly passed away last weekend, three years after a tragic surfing accident.

Professor Del Mar was a vocal proponent of evidence-based medicine and battled against the threat of antibiotic resistance.

His wife Professor Tammy Hoffman announced her husband’s passing on Monday morning.

“It is with the heaviest of hearts that I share the devastating news that my beloved husband, Professor Chris Del Mar, passed away on the weekend,” Professor Hoffman, professor of clinical epidemiology at Bond University, wrote on Twitter. 

“Chris has helped and inspired countless patients, medical students, doctors and researchers. He was an original thinker and unafraid to challenge the evidence behind conventional beliefs and practices. His decades of research influenced practice and policy in Australia and around the world.”

Professor Del Mar had a special interest in antibiotic overprescribing in acute respiratory infections, and was the only Australian invited to participate in the World Health Organisation’s swine flu (H1N1) rapid guidelines development in Geneva. He was the coordinating editor of the Cochrane Collaboration.  

In late 2008, he was awarded the Rose-Hunt Award by the RACGP in recognition of his outstanding commitment to general practice research.

“Chris is renowned for his wisdom, compassion, wit, intelligence, integrity, entertaining stories and humour,” Professor Hoffman said. “He was kind, generous, always a gentleman and genuinely interested in those around him.”

“He had (so!) many interests and skills, was curious about nearly everything and had an insatiable desire to ‘do good’. In the last three years since his catastrophic injury, the courage and determination he showed is beyond compare.” 

The accident

In February 2019, Professor Del Mar suffered a major accident.

He went for a surf in the Gold Coast before work, but instead was pulled unconscious from the ocean and revived by lifesavers.

The freak accident broke his C1 and C2 vertebrae, leaving him recovering for three months in ICU at Brisbane Hospital.

While in the spinal rehabilitation centre in June 2019, a colleague launched a GoFundMe to raise money to help his transition back to the Gold Coast and to equip his house. 

“Chris was following one of his before-work passions when, in February 2019, during an early morning surf at Miami Beach on the Gold Coast, he sustained a very high level spinal cord injury,” the fundraising page said.

Professor Del Mar was not eligible for NDIS funding, as he was over the cut off age of 65.

“This means that he will not receive any funding for the considerable home modifications which are necessary for him to leave hospital,” it said.

“He will receive limited government assistance for only some of the equipment that he needs.

“Some of the priorities are to arrange home modifications and equipment, and make arrangements for the ongoing care that he’ll need, so that he can return home as soon as possible.

“Chris’s equipment needs range from the mundane (e.g. hospital bed), to those which will enable him to participate in life and the community (e.g. powered wheelchair, modified vehicle, and various specialised communication and IT devices).”

 The fundraiser raised $162,636.

“Chris leaves an amazing legacy,” Professor Hoffman said. “It has been a privilege and blessing to be a part of his life. He has filled our lives with immense joy and love and we are utterly heartbroken.”

Support and tributes have poured out from healthcare professionals here and abroad since the accident and his passing.

RACGP president Dr Karen Price mourned the loss of a colleague and a great contributor to the medical community.

“We’ve lost a giant of general practice,” she told TMR.

“Australian patients have lost someone who was going to champion for their right to the highest quality, primary care. It’s just so very sad.”

By 2019, the expert of antibiotic resistance had authored five books, 22 book chapters and more than 550 peer-reviewed journal articles.

He was also the chair of the RACGP’s National Research Committee, the president of the Australian Association for Academic General Practice and the editor of the research section of the Australian Family Physician.

“Chris was a larger-than-life character,” Dr Price said.

“Clearly, he was a friend of the college and a friend to all of general practice and a friend to research. So what I loved about Chris was his fearlessness, and his humour in being so fearless.”

“My thoughts go out to his family, to his children and to all those who worked with him. I know they’ll be mourning his loss for a long, long time. He’s an irreplaceable personality and an irreplaceable bundle of energy.”

On Monday morning, Bond University Vice Chancellor Professor Tim Brailsford sent a memo to staff at the university expressing his “great sadness” at the loss.

“Chris was a remarkable inspiration to his colleagues as a valued contributor to both research and teaching. His professionalism, attention to detail, mentoring of junior colleagues, and ever-inquisitive passion to search for answers to global health challenges are hallmarks, together with his sense of humour and infectious esprit de corps.”

“Professor Del Mar had an exceptional academic and clinical career, and his research had a global impact.”

Professor Del Mar finished his Bachelor of Science at Salford University in 1970, followed by a Medical Science Tripos and Bachelor of Medicine at Cambridge University in the UK.

He was awarded an RACGP fellowship in 1980, an RACP fellowship with the faculty public health in 1988 and completed his Doctor of Medicine (research) at the University of Queensland.

“In 2021 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to tertiary education, to health and medical research, and to professional bodies, which the Governor of Queensland Dr Jeanette Young presented at his home late last year,” said Professor Brailsford.

Professor Brailsford said the family requested “time and space to grieve while they say farewell at a private funeral”.

“There are plans for an opportunity to celebrate, acknowledge and honour Chris’s life, career and contribution at a memorial service in the coming weeks.”

More to come.