Dr. Hal Marryatt and John Alchin make generous gift to the Dr. Alan K. Laws Travel Award

The department is pleased to share that Dr. Hal Marryatt and his husband, John Alchin, have made a new $250,000 donation to the endowed Dr. Alan K. Laws Travel Award. This remarkable gift will allow us to increase the annual grant amount while also supporting more trainees each year.

Dr. Hal Marryatt is an alum of our Anesthesia Residency Program and a former faculty member in our department. John is also a UofT alum, having completed his undergrad and MBA (’79) at the University of Toronto. Hal was a mentee of the late Dr. Alan Laws, and this new donation is made to further honour his memory and legacy.

Dr. Alan Laws was born in Warwick, Australia and graduated as the gold medalist from the University of Queensland in 1961. He undertook anesthesia training in England and moved to Toronto in 1966 as a Research Fellow, working with Dr. Barrie Fairley, a clinical anesthetist at the Toronto General Hospital. As a clinician-scientist, he studied the effects of anesthesia on respiratory mechanics.

Alan was deeply committed to teaching, particularly at the postgraduate level. His morning trouble rounds became a model for other hospitals, and he played a pivotal role in advancing anesthesia education across Canada. He served as Chair of the Royal College Written Test Committee from 1977-1988 and as Chief Examiner in Anesthesia from 1980-1987. Under his leadership, the examinations became more clinically oriented, a process that has continued to this day.

Following Alan's untimely death in January 1995, over 120 friends, family and colleagues – including Hal Marryatt – contributed to a Memorial Trust Fund in his honour. This ultimately became the Dr. Alan K. Laws Travel Award, which continues to support the professional development of our trainees and maintain Alan's lasting impact on our department.