Bruce Maitland Carruthers

Carruthers served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in England, France, Salonika and India from 1914 until 1919 and held the rank of major. After active service he undertook a post-graduate course in medicine in London, becoming a Member and later a Fellow of the Royal Sanitary Institute.[2]

In 1940, he rejoined the Australian Army Medical Corps. He served until 1945 and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel and was assistant director of hygiene in the First Australian Army.[2] Carruthers was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the military division for distinguished service in the Middle East.[4]

Following World War I, Carruthers became a resident medical officer at the Coast Hospital. Until 1927 he worked mainly in mental diseases and undertook post-graduate studies in psychiatry at the University of Sydney. He worked at Callan Park and was in charge of five Red Cross nerve hospitals in Sydney tending ex-servicemen. He was also associated with Randwick Repatriation Hospital and worked in private practice.[2]

From 1927 until 1935 Carruthers was the senior house surgeon at the Royal Hobart Hospital and then for a year he was administrator of the Lachlan Park Hospital. He was appointed the Tasmanian Director of Public Health in 1936 and served in that capacity until rejoining the army in World War II. At war's end Carruthers was appointed Director of Hospitals and Medical Services in Tasmania. In 1951, upon the retirement of the Director of Public Health both that office and his own were combined in the position of Director General of Health and he held that position at the time of his death.[2]