Everyone should be prepared to face a great test at least once in their lives, according to Perth cave-diving hero Craig Challen.

The former vet, who was at the centre of the perilous rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped in a flooded Thai cave in July, was last night awarded an honorary degree by Murdoch University.

Working up to 16-hour days, Dr Challen and his diving buddy, Adelaide anaesthetist Richard Harris, negotiated the dangerous, claustrophobic trip to the cave daily to get the boys out.

The advice he offered to graduates was that everyone had a big test coming, so they should ready themselves by learning as much as they could, accepting discomfort, staying healthy and training themselves to deal with adversity.

He said their test might be an illness, professional difficulties, being caught up in a natural disaster or a destruction of beliefs, and was likely to come without warning. “It almost certainly will not be helping to rescue 13 people from a muddy hole in Thailand,” he said.

Dr Challen, who has just returned from five weeks exploring caves in Canada, said he had not spent much of the past two months reflecting on the rescue. “It was all over in four days, and then it was done and we walked away,” he said.

He was still coming to terms with the media exposure and being recognised in public, though he said he understood why the rescue had attracted worldwide attention.

“It’s such an unusual story, there’s something good in this for everyone,” he said. “Maybe it counter-balances a bit of the other weird stuff that’s going on in the world at the moment. The real inspirational bit of it is that it was a multinational team ... all working as one towards a common end.”

Dr Challen, who graduated from Murdoch in 1987 and co-founded the Vetwest animal hospitals group before retiring last year, said he was surprised but pleased to receive the honour.

Murdoch Vice Chancellor Eeva Leinonen said Dr Challen was an inspiration to graduates. “In his brave public act of humanity, Dr Challen has made a remarkable contribution to the world community,” she said.