Skip to main content
About
About the RACP
What is a physician or paediatrician?
Membership
College structure
Board and governance
College Council
Committees
Accreditation
Indigenous equity and cultural safety
Ethics
Consumer Advisory Group
Special Interest Groups
Log in Help and Multi-factor authentication
Our heritage
Get involved
Careers at RACP
Medical positions
RACP Investment Plan
News and Events
News
The President's Message
RACP 2025 Elections
Media releases
Expressions of Interest
Events
Advanced Training Forum
COVID-19
RACP in the media
Quick facts
Wellbeing
Emergency help
RACP Support Program
Resources
Our services
I want to offer support
Members' stories
Member Health and Wellbeing Strategic Plan 2023-2026
RACP Foundation
Donate to Foundation
About us
Research Awards and Career Grants
College and Congress prizes
Division, Faculty and Chapter Awards & Prizes
Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Awards & Prizes
Indigenous Scholarships & Prizes
International Grants
Student Scholarships & Prizes
Terms and Conditions
Our recipients
Overseas Trained Physicians
Contact us
Toggle mobile menu
Search
Home
Become a Physician
Trainees
Fellows
About
About the RACP
What is a physician or paediatrician?
Membership
College structure
Board and governance
College Council
Committees
Accreditation
Indigenous equity and cultural safety
Ethics
Consumer Advisory Group
Special Interest Groups
Log in Help and Multi-factor authentication
Our heritage
College Roll
College timeline
History of Medicine Library
Past office bearers
Get involved
Careers at RACP
Medical positions
RACP Investment Plan
Overseas Trained Physicians
News and Events
Expressions of Interest
Policy and Advocacy
RACP Foundation
Wellbeing
Contact us
Pomegranate Health
Close menu
▲
Search
✖
Register for Basic Training
PREP
For basic trainees who started in 2024 or earlier to re-register each year.
›
New Curriculum
For basic trainees starting from 2025.
›
✖
MyRACP
Log in to pay fees, manage your account and access registrations.
›
RACP Online Learning
Explore resources for CPD, training and exam preparation, view the College Learning Series and access curricula and handbooks.
›
PREP training portals
Log in to manage requirements, training rotations and submit assessments.
›
Training Management Platform
Log in to TMP to manage requirements and submit assessments.
For basic trainees who started in 2025 onwards and advanced trainees who started in 2024 in Cardiology, Paediatric Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Geriatric Medicine, Nephrology and Adult Rehabilitation Medicine.
›
MyCPD
Log in to plan, track and manage your professional development activities.
›
Log out
›
Open section menu
▼
About
About the RACP
What is a physician or paediatrician?
Membership
College structure
Board and governance
College Council
Committees
Accreditation
Indigenous equity and cultural safety
Ethics
Consumer Advisory Group
Special Interest Groups
Log in Help and Multi-factor authentication
Our heritage
College Roll
College timeline
History of Medicine Library
Past office bearers
Get involved
Careers at RACP
Medical positions
RACP Investment Plan
Open section menu
▼
College Roll Bio
Landreth, John Faulks
Share
Qualifications
CBE (1964) MB ChB NZ (1924) MRCP (1926) FRACP (1938) (Foundation) FRCP (1955)
Born
16/02/1902
Died
07/11/1989
John Landreth was born in Dunedin, New Zealand. His father, Robert Landreth, was a schoolmaster and his mother, Elizabeth Faulks, came from a farming family. Educated at the Otago Boys' High School, he capped a distinguished academic performance by winning a New Zealand Junior National Scholarship one year before he was old enough to matriculate. He graduated MB ChM from the University of Otago Medical School in 1924 and then took up a resident appointment in the Christchurch Hospital thus commencing an association with that institution which was to last for sixty-five years because at the time of his death he retained the title of honorary consultant physician.
In 1926 he travelled to England and in that same year was admitted to the membership of the Royal College of Physicians of London at the age of twenty-four. Subsequently he was elected to the Fellowship of that College in 1954. In England he worked at the London Chest Hospital and at the Harefield Hospital where he became the deputy medical director. On his return to New Zealand in 1929 he was appointed assistant medical superintendent of the Christchurch Hospital and in the following year he established a private consulting practice while retaining his hospital responsibilities as an honorary visiting physician. This combination of private practice and hospital consultancy then remained the base from which he made so many contributions to New Zealand Medicine. Over the next thirty-two years he not only carried a heavy clinical load but was elected or appointed to many responsible posts and committees within the North Canterbury Hospital Board's administration. In 1958 he became the director of medicine.
While his work as a physician ranged over the whole field of internal medicine, he developed a particular interest in his younger patients and came to assume increasing responsibility for the children admitted with medical conditions. He was appointed physician and medical superintendent at the Karitane Babies Hospital in 1934 and an increasing proportion of his work in private practice was with infants and young children. While he always wished to be known as a general physician, there is no doubt that John Landreth laid the foundations of paediatrics in Christchurch and did much to establish the discipline in New Zealand as a whole. Formal recognition of his contribution to child health came with his appointment in 1958 as the Montgomery Spencer lecturer, his topic being "Primary tuberculosis in childhood".
John Landreth was an erudite man - he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the medical literature but also read widely in other fields and had an extraordinary memory for detail. This, together with his shrewd clinical judgement and great courtesy to his patients both young and old, made him an excellent bedside teacher. He was actively involved in the administration of medical education at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. He was for many years an external examiner in medicine to the University of Otago and generations of students were grateful to him for the kindly and understanding manner in which he carried out this role. In 1958 he became sub-dean of the Christchurch branch faculty of medicine and it was during his tenure of this post that the first full-time research and teaching position was established in Christchurch and he thus played his part in sowing the first seed of a now flourishing school of medicine. He was much interested in the welfare of the profession as a whole and played an active part in the affairs of what was then the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association. He served on various local and national committees and in 1959 became the New Zealand president at thus the acknowledged leader of the profession in New Zealand.
Close to his professional heart was his association with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. Following his involvement with the discussion that led to the establishment of the College he became a Foundation Fellow in 1938 and from that time devoted a great deal of his energy and talents to its nurture and development. He was a member of the board of censors from 1948 to 1965, becoming the senior censor for New Zealand in 1959. He was a member of the Dominion committee from 1958 to 1962, being the honorary treasurer in 1956. He was New Zealand vice president from 1964 to 1966 and his distinguished service was acknowledged by the award of the College Medal in Hobart in 1986.
In 1964 his services to medicine and medical education were recognised by the award of the CBE. While his latter years were made difficult for him by rapidly deteriorating vision, he was bale, with the assistance of his son John, to attend the Golden Jubilee Meeting of the College in Sydney in 1988 where he was honoured as one of the small group of surviving Foundation Fellows. In the year of his death he attended the meeting of the College in Christchurch when, in spite of his disability, it was obvious to all that his sense of humour, his charm and remarkable memory for younger colleagues had not diminished with the passing of the years.
John Landreth had many qualities which contributed to making him the excellent doctor he was. His academic ability was undoubted but more importantly he was a realist in that he spurned clinical arrogance and medical cant while always being kindly and patient to those under his care and showing unswerving support and loyalty to his staff. His kindness was not simply a professional veneer, it was widely known that he was never too interested in the business side of medicine and many Canterbury folk received the best available medical opinion without ever receiving a matching account. He spent a good deal of his time attending to the medical needs of his colleagues and to their families - the ultimate accolade of being a doctor's doctor.
It is unlikely that even a man of John Landreth's stature could have done so much for his patients and for his profession without the blessings of a secure home base and this he certainly had with his wife, Marie, who sadly predeceased him by some years. With Marie he shared a great love of gardening and considerable pride in their three children, Jane, Catherine and John, who also became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. There would be few who have contributed so much to medicine in New Zealand while at the same time so well fitted the ideal of "the kindly physician".
Author
FT SHANNON
References
NZ Med J
, 1990,
103
, 29
Last Updated
May 30, 2018, 17:34 PM
Close overlay