Sir John Scott, New Zealand medical researcher, Died at 84

  Dead Famous

Sir Philip John Scott was born on June 26, 1931, and passed away on October 20, 2015.

Sir John was a New Zealand medical researcher and administrator.

He was born in the Auckland suburb of Mount Eden in 1931, to Doris Annie (née Ruddock) and Horace McDonald Scott, but grew up in Palmerston North.

Sir John studied at Auckland University College for one year before spending five years at the University of Otago, from where he graduated BMedSc in 1953 and MB ChB in 1955.

After a period of hospital work in Auckland, as well as six months in general practice, Scott travelled to the United Kingdom.

Sir John spent nine months at the Postgraduate Medical School of London at Hammersmith Hospital, where he was awarded Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP).

He then undertook research in the Department of Experimental Pathology at the University of Birmingham, and graduated MD in 1962.

His thesis was titled Studies on serum β lipoproteins in health and disease.

Sir John returned to New Zealand and was appointed as a research fellow and then senior lecturer in the University of Otago’s Auckland medical unit, but transferred to the University of Auckland medical school when the latter was established, and was head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Auckland from 1979 to 1987.

He subsequently spent 10 years as head of the academic group at Middlemore Hospital.

Sir John research between 1959 and the late 1970s focused on the metabolism of low-density lipoproteins and cholesterol, and arterial pathophysiology.

More recently Sir John was interested in diabetes and its complications.

Sir John was a founding member of the Auckland Medical History Society and served as its president in 1976.

He also served as president of the Royal Society of New Zealand from 1997 to 2000.

Sir John Scott died in Auckland on October 20, 2015 at the age of 84.