Ray Lowenthal

Brief bio – Ray Lowenthal
After leaving NSBHS I went straight into Medicine at USyd and the Royal North Shore Hospital. After graduation I did 2 years internship at RNSH. In 1967 I married Dianne Price, a nurse from RNSH; we immediately left Sydney and spent 12 months travelling overland across 29 countries to England, with various adventures en route. We lived in the UK for 7 years where I worked in hospitals and postgraduate institutions in London and Reading, and produced 2 children. We returned to Australia in 1975, where I took up a post in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tasmania in Hobart; we have been here ever since and produced 2 more children. The children in turn have produced their own and we now have 3 lovely grandchildren with another on the way!
We have remained in Tasmania which has been a wonderful place to live and bring up children. I am still working full time (for how much longer I’m not sure) as Director of Medical Oncology at the Royal Hobart Hospital and Clinical Professor at the University of Tasmania. I have been fortunate to be able to spend sabbaticals working in various countries including the USA, France, Germany and Israel, as well as having two trips to Antarctica as ship’s doctor! I have also been able to indulge research interests which have been mainly in leukaemia, bone marrow transplantation and clinical trials of new cancer treatments. Along the way I have been lucky enough to pick up a few gongs including an AO in 2006.
Outside medicine my avocations have included bushwalking (for which Tasmania is a paradise), cooking, and the arcane sport of Real Tennis of which Hobart boasts the oldest court in Australia. (and although you might think otherwise, this is the real reason I took my French sabbatical in Bordeaux).
NSBHS seems to have prepared me well for what has turned out to be a ‘fortunate life’. Even Latin has come in handy from time to time (though not my experience in the Cadets). As the offspring of refugees, I count myself as privileged to have lived in a country that presents everyone with opportunities.
9/10/08