Sir Peter Gluckman on the year that changed the rest of his life

Sir Peter Gluckman, Chief Science Adviser to the Prime Minister. Photo / Dean Purcell.

Sir Peter Gluckman, health researcher and the Prime Minister's Chief Science adviser, tells Paul Little about a significant year in his life.

In 1972, I spent the first three months of my first year as a doctor in paediatrics with Bob Elliott, and finished that time convinced I'd be a paediatrician. Back then, paediatrics was seen as a minor branch of medicine. When I told my professor my plans, he was against it. He said: "You'll throw your career away. You'll never do anything good." I think I did all right in my career.

Then in April, my wife Judy was in a major accident just down the road from the hospital. We'd only been married about a year and she ended up in traction for three months.

When she was out of hospital I got summoned by Kaye Ibbotson, who was professor of endo-crinology, and asked if I would I like to go to the Himalayas.

"Ed Hillary came to me two or three years ago and said we need to do something about these people with cretinism and goitre," he said. "Perhaps you would like to do some research."

So I abandoned my time as a junior doctor to spend nearly three months in the Himalayas. Between her time in hospital and my time in the Himalayas, it meant my wife and I spent six months apart that year.

Everyone else from my class got registration and I was months behind them when I got back, but that time in the Himalayas was very formative.

One, it was very interesting to be in such a remote place. This was before tourists had discovered the area. I got to know Kaye Ibbotson very well and became convinced research was the career I wanted, rather than clinical practice.

It was a slow journey, not an epiphany. I was a good doctor. I had good diagnostic and bedside skills, but I was intrigued by intellectual discovery and wanting to know more.

And it was nice to be with Ed Hillary for a few weeks and see this great man at work with his schools and hospital.

One day he looked at me and said: "Did you do maths?"

"Yes."

"Right. That makes you an engineer." And he sent me off with a Sherpa for a day and a half to inspect a monastery he had built.

It seemed all right. So, I had my rancid, salted yak butter and wandered back with the Sherpa. Halfway back there was an absolute white-out and we couldn't see anything. I started talking to him and discovered he had probably been to the top of Everest more times than any other human. I asked why he wanted to climb mountains. He said it was a job.

For me it was a very valuable time. I met a bright scientist and in the discussions we were having over campfires - it sounds romantic, but it wasn't - I came to learn about what was then called the sulfation factor, which later became the hormone that I spent 10 years of my life working on and did my thesis on. I came back convinced I'd do one year as a house surgeon then go into a research career. Without that time, I'm not sure how my career would have developed.