Founding Staff You are here:HomeAbout UsOur HeritageFounding Staff Staff in the early years of the hospital included George Adlington Syme, founder and first President of the (Royal) Australasian College of Surgeons; Thomas Peel Dunhill, later a surgeon to the royal family; Hugh Devine, another founder and future President of the (Royal) Australasian College of Surgeons; Douglas Shields, brigadier general in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War I and proprietor of a very successful London clinic; Julian Smith, surgeon and photographer and Herman Lawrence, a dermatologist and international authority on radium treatment.