GRAEME SHIRTLEY ORATION – COLONEL DARRYL TONG

Colonel Darryl Tong ED, RNZAMC is the Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Otago and a specialist surgeon for the Southern District Health Board based in Dunedin.

He qualified in dentistry and medicine at Otago and completed his specialist training in oral and maxillofacial surgery in Seattle, Washington, spending most of his seven years there at one of the busiest trauma hospitals in the USA – Harborview Medical Center, as well as the Seattle Veterans Administration Medical Centre. He returned to Dunedin to take up an academic position at the University of Otago in 1999.

Hemaintains a busy workload as a clinician, teacher and researcher, fulfilling many roles within the university and is involved with the Order of St John and other community groups.

He is a Colonel in the RNZAMC, Honorary Surgeon to the Governor General of NZ and the Health Reserve Advisor to the NZDF. Darryl remains active in the NZ army reserves and has been operationally deployed in the Pacific and Afghanistan over the past 17 years of service. He was heavily involved during the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake from both a primary medical response perspective as well as Disaster Victim Identification,as a forensic odontologist.

His research interests includes military surgery and history, sports-related concussionand the development of an anatomical simulant head model for forensic studies.

He is happily married with four children and counts this as his greatest blessing.