Emeritus Professor John Murtagh AO, whose eponymous textbook is considered the gold standard for GPs around the world, was once described in the pages of Australian Doctor as the JK Rowling of medical publishing.

Born in the town of Coleraine, a rich sheep-farming area in regional Victoria, he took an interest in medicine after surviving polio at the age of eight.

His diagnosis had come via the local GP, Dr Bill Tonkin, a rural doctor of the old school known for his fireside chats and sense of vocation, who would come to have a profound influence on the young Murtagh’s future life.

After toying with the idea of being a maths teacher, Professor Murtagh decided to join the first cohort of 130 medical students at Melbourne’s Monash University in 1961.