Dr John Stuchbery can lay claim to being Albury’s citizen of the year. 

Perhaps it lacks the same glitz as an Australia Day honour. But the regional town’s top gong was bestowed upon a surgeon who, for many, had been sacked from the local hospital for the crime of swearing in a meeting.

As was widely reported last year, his termination ended a 27-year career at the public hospital on the NSW/Victoria border where Dr Stuchbery had been much-loved and respected.

As he told 6minutes: “There were no complaints from patients, no complaints from nurses, no complaints from junior doctors, no complaints from senior doctors.