Sreeny received tremendous encouragement from the master of the college, Bob Lewis and his wife, Betty. He then entered the University of Adelaide in 1948, and was resident at St Mark's College for his clinical studies. In 1947 he sailed to Perth, where he completed the first year of a science degree at the University of Western Australia. Having decided to enter medicine as a career, and financed initially by his father, Sreeny turned to Australia, a country that was already developing undergraduate links with Asian countries, for his further education. He wrote: 'My schooldays were unimpressive except for participation in inter-school debating competitions and winning several prizes for my school.' Sreeny obtained his primary education at Batu Road School, Kuala Lumpur, and then went on to study at the Victoria Institution. Sreeny's father was awarded the MBE and OBE for his work. He was the son of Gopal Ayer Ramaswamy, an assistant commissioner for labour in the state of Selangor, and Mangalam Seetharama Ayer. Gopal Ayer Sreenevasan was born in what was then Malaya on 21 November 1922, of parents and forebears from southern India. He was responsible for training the first generation of pure urologists in the country and may therefore be regarded as Malaysia's 'father of urology'. It was largely due to his enthusiasm, hard work and expertise that the specialty of urology separated from general surgery in Malaysia, following the trend in more developed countries. Datuk Gopal Ayer Sreenevasan, or 'Sreeny' as he was affectionately known to his friends and colleagues, was a pioneering Malaysian surgeon and a powerful force in the development of the medical services in the country as a whole.
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