1939-2025

Professor Ronald (Ron) Jones died in Te Toka Tumai, Auckland on 31 March 2025 aged 85; two nights earlier he had been out at an orchestral performance. Two years ago, he gave me his CV in order to get the facts right in his obituary.

Ron will be remembered as a man who changed the course of women’s health and put Aotearoa New Zealand on the map in the world of cervical and vulval disease. Born in Christchurch, he entered the University of Otago to study medicine in 1960 and played both cricket and rugby. Following resident positions in Canterbury, he travelled by boat to the UK to complete his training initially in surgery, and then obstetrics and gynaecology at The Hammersmith, Poole and Southampton, obtaining FRCS in 1969 and FRCOG in 1970.

Ron turned to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1973 as a tutor specialist at National Women’s Hospital and established a private obstetrics and gynaecology practice.

He was appointed Professor of Gynaecological Oncology in 2002, after establishing the first multidisciplinary vulval clinic in Aotearoa New Zealand and training New Zealand’s first nurse colposcopist 25 years ago. Ron championed the introduction of gender-neutral HPV vaccination and continued his passionate advocacy for women’s health until his retirement in 2010, by which stage he had accumulated over 7kg of “letters to the hospital administrators”.

In 1984, he co-authored the publication that would spark the 1987 Cartwright Inquiry and change the path of medicine in New Zealand. These events led to the establishment of the National Cervical Screening Programme, the Health and Disability Commission and robust ethical processes for research. He was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009 for services to women’s health and subsequently in 2022 became the only New Zealander to be awarded the Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 2017, he published Doctors in Denial: The Forgotten Women in the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’, a book about the events that had a profound impact on his career and ultimately fulfilled his long-held wish, to receive an apology from the District Health Board and RANZCOG to the wāhine involved. Ron never stopped learning and authored 80 peer reviewed publications, along with many letters to the editor. He completed his research MD in 2010 as he retired.

In retirement Ron continued to teach and was an honorary lecturer in ethics at the University of Auckland and sat on ethics committees and the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. In 2015, he gave the Doris Gordon Memorial Lecture for RANZCOG and was trustee for her Memorial Trust. His book about Doris Gordon was sent to the editor the week before his death.

An internationally regarded expert in vulval disease, Ron was President of the International Society of the Study of Vulval Disease (ISSVD) from 2003-2006 and brought their World Congress to Queenstown, where he took the international faculty jet boating and sheep shearing. He also brought the International Federation for Cancer Prevention and Colposcopy (IFCPC) Triennial Meeting to Auckland in 2008 whilst serving as Chair of their Scientific Committee, and he was President of the Australia and New Zealand Vulvovaginal Society (ANZVS) and was on the faculty of EUROGIN for 10 years.

Ron was a mentor to many, with professional “children” around the world who had spent time working with him in Auckland. He regarded them as part of his extended whānau. Family and colleagues were essential sources of support for him, and he fostered this community by establishing “Gynae Club” (now the New Zealand Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology), an annual scientific meeting where participants are encouraged to bring their partners and children. This tradition has helped build strong collegial support across the motu. In 1999, he also convened the inaugural meeting of New Zealand Gynae Oncologists, which later evolved into the multidisciplinary New Zealand Gynae Cancer Group, bringing together scientists and clinicians dedicated to treating gynaecological cancers across Aotearoa.

Ron is survived by his partner, his four children, his grandchildren and many grateful colleagues, trainees and patients who were touched by his life and in whom his legacy will continue.

Kua hinga te tōtara o Te Waionui a Tāne.  A mighty tōtara has fallen.

By Dr Lois Eva