Ron Easthope

RONALD NEWMAN EASTHOPE

MB CHB (NZ) 1960, MRACP 1966, FRACP 1972

Ron's interest in cardiology was sparked by reading Paul Wood's textbook during quiet times as a Casualty House Surgeon on night duty.  Another house surgeon attachment was with Ponty Hallwright which provided further interest in the field.
Ron was Cardiology Registrar in 1965, before travelling to London where he was (eventually) successful in getting a Registrar post at the National Heart Hospital.  This position was held from 1966-1968, and in the last year, there was a half-time Registrar attachment at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond St.   In 1968-1969 he was Fellow in Cardiology at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto.

He was appointed whole-time Cardiologist at Wellington Hospital in 1969, a position he held until retiring in 2000.
Special interests included paediatric cardiology, pacing and electrophysiology, and echocardiography.   For some years he provided acute echocardiography services for the Neonatal Unit and he also pioneered foetal echocardiography at Wellington Hospital.

He introduced programmed electrical stimulation studies using equipment built to his specifications by Don McCallum and his team.

An additional interest was in the area of clinical computing and Ron was behind the provision of the hospital's first clinical local area network, whereby each cardiologist had a desktop PC and access to cardiac catheterisation, cardiac surgery and pacing databases.