In fact, he has had a distinguished career in emergency medicine and trauma — both at the front line and in academia — in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
He has also advised the BBC on medical matters and has been the doctor for the Chelsea Football Club.
After emigrating from the UK to New Zealand with wife Caroline in 1997, he served as director of Wellington Hospital’s emergency department for seven years before spending the final decade of his medical career as executive medical director at The Royal Adelaide Hospital. He remains the executive editor of an international medical journal.
After moving to Queenstown a year ago, he set his sights on a conservation role, something he had long been interested in as a lover of the outdoors and an "itinerant tourist" to many parts of the world.
The trust’s creation of an executive officer role a few months after his arrival in the resort was "pure serendipity", he said.
"I never thought something like this would happen, but it’s just what I was hoping for."
