Dr Robert Ian Waverley Ballantine

Personal Details

Dr Robert Ian Waverley Ballantine FFARCS MRCS LRCP DA 

Known as: 'Bob'

15/05/1922 to 28/10/1999

Place of birth: Walkern, Hertfordshire

Nationality: UK

CRN: 492667

Education and qualifications

General education

1929-35 Gadebridge Preparatory School.
1935-39 Wellington College.
1940-45 St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College.
1940-42 Queen’s College Cambridge. 

Primary medical qualification(s)

1946 MRCS LRCP, Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons.

Initial Fellowship and type

FFARCS by Election

Year of Fellowship

1953

Other qualification(s)

1948 DA, Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons.

 

Professional life and career

Postgraduate career

1946 Surgical House Officer, Orthopaedics, St Bartholomew’s Hospital.
1946  Resident Anaesthetist, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.
1946-47 Resident Anaesthetist Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge.
1947-52 Resident Anaesthetist and then Chief Assistant at Hillingdon and Harefield Hospitals, Uxbridge Middlesex.
1952-86 Consultant Anaesthetist, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.
November 1956-December 1956 Assistant Professor of Anesthetics, Johnson-Willis Hospital, Richmond, Virginia, USA.

Professional interests and activities

Member of AAGBI from 1953.
Particular interests in Thoracic, Neurosurgical and ENT anaesthesia.
Performed anaesthesia for separation of craniopagus Siamese twins in 1959, 1961 and 1964.
Wrote first major textbook of neuroanaesthesia in 1960 with Ian Jackson.
1970 Gave the 18th Annual A Murat Willis Lecture entitled 'Yesterday and today' in Richmond, Virginia.
1970 Awarded the Most Distinguished Order of Paduka Seri Laila Jasa by Sultan of Brunei.
Head of Department at Barts 1978-81.
Outstanding clinical anaesthetist with great charm and a special interest in every person he met.  

Other biographical information

Married Jill Helm in 1946: two sons and one daughter.
Good sportsman playing tennis and cricket and then golf, sadly limited by developing Parkinson’s Disease.
Enthusiastic gardener particularly of roses.
Skilled jazz drummer playing since school days, played with Footlights Review in Cambridge and then formed a jazz band in 1970’s called The Veterans. A career in full time music was a serious consideration at one time.

Author and sources

Author: 

David Wilkinson

Sources and comments: 

Boulton questionnaire
Ballantine G. Obituary Robert Ballantine. British Medical Journal 2000; 1: 60.
Anon. Obituary Robert Ballantine. The Times 15 November 1999