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Obituary: Dr Andrew Truscott (1946–2009)

Article  in  Official journal of the South African Academy of Family Practice/Primary Care · August 2014
DOI: 10.1080/20786204.2010.10873962

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Obituary: Dr Andrew Truscott (1946–2009)

a
Ian Couper
a
Department of Family Medicine Faculty of Health Sciences University of the
Witwatersrand
Published online: 15 Aug 2014.

To cite this article: Ian Couper (2010) Obituary: Dr Andrew Truscott (1946–2009), South African Family Practice, 52:2,
163-163, DOI: 10.1080/20786204.2010.10873962

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20786204.2010.10873962

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 Correspondence

Obituary: Dr Andrew Truscott (1946 – 2009)

Andrew Garside Truscott passed away suddenly but
peacefully on Tuesday 1st December 2009 while on leave in
Mpumalanga. He was in the company of his family.

A Wits medical graduate, Dr Truscott had a real heart for the

poor and powerless in society. After a stint at St Barnabas
Hospital, Libode, he began working in the Soweto clinics.
When doctors were withdrawn from Soweto after the 1976
uprising, the late Professor Lucy Wagstaff began training
nurses in clinical skills to manage paediatric patients at the
clinics. This was soon followed by training in adult clinical
care, which Dr Truscott became involved in. This developed
into a one year postgraduate diploma, the “Diploma in Clinical
Nursing Science, Health Assessment, Treatment and Care”.
His Christian faith was central in all he did. He played a
Downloaded by [178.248.41.254] at 15:36 10 July 2015

Dr Truscott developed excellent clinical and teaching skills

during his 30 years of experience in training and working
alongside primary health care nurses in Soweto. He was
one of the authors of the widely-used Primary Clinical Care
Manual, commonly known as the Soweto manual, now in its
4th edition. He played a leading role nationally in supporting
the training of primary health care nurses.
He was initially sceptical of the clinical associates
programme, because of his concern that this new cadre may
be a threat to PHC nurses, but once he realised the important
and unique role they could play in a district hospital, filling a
need in a similar way to PHC nurses in clinics, he became
an enthusiastic supporter and contributed to the national
formulation of the programme. He joined the Division of Rural
Health at Wits in May 2006 to assist with the development of
the BCMP degree (Clinical Associates programme).
In June 2007 he was formally appointed by the national
Department of Health as the Clinical Associates Programme
Coordinator at Wits, and brought enormous enthusiasm and
energy into developing the curriculum, which was launched in
January this year with the first group of 25 students. He was
also involved in teaching and assessing GEMP 4 students
doing the IPC block, as well as supporting the students’
outreach work such as Paballo and Trinity clinics.
The art of family medicine came naturally to him, in that he
always saw his patients as whole people and treated them
holistically. He combined this with a thirst for knowledge (he
was known to include physiology textbooks in his bedside
reading!) and a commitment to excellent care. For this reason,
he was very pleased to become part of and be recognised by
an academic department of family medicine.
leading role in the Christian Medical Fellowship in Gauteng,
and served as a mentor medically, emotionally and spiritually
to many students and young doctors.
He took delight in assisting people, and was interested
in everyone, taking time to find out about people and their
families, no matter who they were, from cleaners to nurses,
secretaries to professors. Everyone was important to him.
He was single-minded in pursuing what he believed was
the right course of action, yet this was always tempered by
care for others and a wonderful sense of humour. He saw
difficulties and challenges in a positive outlook. He gave
unfailing encouragement to those around him, yet was self-
deprecating. He seldom said anything negative about others.
He was passionately interested in nature, particularly trees
and birds. A trip with him would usually be punctuated by
comments about interesting trees he observed, and he
would sometimes disrupt divisional meetings on the 10th floor
to point out birds in flight. It is fitting that he spent the day
before he died walking and enjoying the flora and fauna near
Lydenburg.
His dedication, passion, humility and professionalism were an
example to all.
He is survived by his wife Patricia and son Mathew.
Ian Couper
Department of Family Medicine
Faculty of Health Sciences
University of the Witwatersrand
* An Approach to Clinical Problem Solving for Primary
Health Care Student Nurses by Truscott, et al. was recently
published in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of SA Family Practice.
We herewith wish to acknowledge Dr Truscott’s contribution
to SA Family Practice and wish to convey our sincerest
condolences to Dr Truscott’s family.

SA Fam Pract 2010 163 Vol 52 No 2

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