 Between 1977 and 1979, he was also Associate Dean of the Monash University Faculty of Medicine and, throughout this period, he was a consultant surgeon and a member of the Board of Management at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne.A "man of big ideas and concepts" , Hughes founded the Ileostomy Association of Victoria in 1957, the first Australian association to cater for the needs of ostomates, and in 1977 he convened and chaired the inaugural meeting of the Australian Association of Stomal Therapists, now the Australian Association of Stomal Therapy Nurses.Hughes had a longstanding involvement with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.