In memoriam
Emeritus Professor Ronald Cape (1921 - 2007)

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Professor Ronald Cape passed away last November, as a result of pneumonia following a shoulder infection. Professor Cape had been serving as a World Health Organisation consultant at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica.

Educated at Daniel Stewart’s College and Edinburgh University, Professor Cape served as house surgeon at Stirling Hospital, followed by a stint in the RAF before going to Canada as a research fellow. On return from Canada in 1952, he worked as a senior medical registrar at Selly Oak Hospital, and as a consultant at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. In 1972, he helped establish the West Midlands Institute of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, and was appointed its first director, where he and a small cadre of committed physicians began to educate the medical profession about the scope of the emerging field of geriatric medicine.

In 1975, he was appointed professor and chief of geriatric medicine at the school of medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. His centre of excellence attracted trainee specialists from North America, New Zealand, Australia and the UK. During his 11 year term in Canada, Professor Cape was seen as a pioneer in this field.

In 1997, he was presented with the BGS’s 50th Anniversary Medal for outstanding services to geriatric medicine. He is remembered by generations of students, nurses and colleagues as a skilled clinician, administrator, teacher, researcher, author and advocate for older people.

Extracted from an obituary written by Dr Philip Henschke, Director of Aged Care, Repatriation General Hospital, Daw Park, South Australia, and published in the Australian Newspaper “The Age”.

BGS Newsletter, March 2008
Issue 15 ISSN 1748-6343 15