Professor Provan Murray

Ian Provan Cathcart Murray was born in Glasgow and educated at Glasgow Academy and Loretto School. He followed in the footsteps of his father, Ian Murray of the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow, and graduated in medicine from Glasgow University in 1952. He had considered, and would have preferred, a career in journalism and was editor of the Glasgow University Magazine and, as an

ardent Scottish Nationalist, he was involved with the retrieval of the Stone of Destiny.

After completing his training as an endocrinologist with a special interest in thyroid endocrinology

at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship and took up the position of clinical and research

fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a research fellowship in medicine at Harvard. In 1963, Murray accepted a position at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney where he founded the country's first department of nuclear medicine.

When he retired from the hospital in June 1994 he was still director and associate professor of medicine at the University of New South Wales. He continued working in private practice until 1999.

Professor Murray was a foundation committee member of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nuclear Medicine (ANZSNM) and the foundation president of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Physicians in Nuclear Medicine (ANZAPNM).

Initially, his main research interest was in thyroid endocrinology. In early 1970, he became involved in developing the first technetium-based bone-scanning agents with colleagues from the Australian Atomic Energy Commission.

Bone-scanning became his main research interest and he developed an international reputation in this field of nuclear medicine. This was recognised by his election to the International Skeletal Society and an honorary fellowship with the American College of Radiologists.

Professor Murray was the author of more than 150 scientific papers, 11 invited chapters, and two textbooks. His quest for new and

bigger challenges resulted in his co-editorship, with Peter Bill, of University College London, of a leading international text book of nuclear medicine. Professor Murray was pivotal in setting up the first training course for nuclear

medicine technologists at Sydney Technical College and continued to maintain an active interest in it, having been on the Cumberland College external advisory committee for the School of Medical Radiation Technology.

He was also responsible for the initiation of the ANZSNM's Mallinckrodt award for technologists. He was actively involved for many years with the NSW Radiation Advisory Council and made a major contribution in this area. He also served on the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's biomedicine and health programme review, and its nuclear medicine liaison committee.

Professor Murray had many international interests. He was a foundation member of the paediatric imaging council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and made a significant contribution to paediatric nuclear medicine knowledge.

He was president of the Asia and Oceania Federation of Nuclear Medicine (1976-1978) and was secretary-general of the federation's first congress in Sydney in 1976. He represented the ANZSNM as the Australian delegate to the World Federation of Nuclear Medicine and Biology from 1975.

Professor Murray was president of the world federation and hosted the world congress in Sydney in 1994. He was also the head and principal investigator of the World Health Organisation's Collaborating Centre for Nuclear Medicine in the Western Pacific region. Professor Murray was fascinated by China and was a guest speaker there on several occasions from as early as 1976. He held an honorary professorship at the Military Postgraduate Medical School and the People's Liberation Army General Hospital in Beijing.

In 1994, Professor Murray was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to nuclear medicine. He was granted honorary life membership of the ANZSNM in 1993 and of the ANZAPNM in 1994.

Outside nuclear medicine, Murray had a great love and knowledge of opera and was also a keen follower of cricket and rugby union. He also enjoyed sketching and

pastels. While academic endeavour was important to Murray, of equal importance was the enjoyment of life. He loved a good party and organised some great ones.

The highlight of the world congress dinner that he hosted as president was his dramatic entrance dressed as a Roman emperor in a chariot. At the dinner, he addressed the audience with the salutation: ''Friends, Englishmen, and physicists, lend me your ears.'' He had a great sense of humour and capa-city for fun.

Provan had a deep love for his adopted country and a great capacity for friendship, and, though he thought of himself as a ''dinkum Aussie'', he never lost his love of and his interest in

Scotland. He was chairman of the council of the Uniting Church in Double Bay and Woollahara. His wide circle of friends was spread around the world.

Professor Murray treasured his family life with his wife, Margaret, his children, Gail, Colin, and Kym, and later his grandchildren, Jordan, Rachel, Adam, and James. With his sister, Elizabeth, in Scotland, they were a close family unit.