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
Latham, Leslie Scott
Share
Qualifications
BA Melb (1900) MB BS Melb (1904) MD Melb (1907) MA Melb (1921) FRACP (1938) (Foundation) PRACP (1948-50)
Born
13/06/1879
Died
21/01/1950
Dr Leslie Scott Latham, son of Thomas Latham, was born on 13 June 1879 at Fitzroy, an inner suburb of Melbourne. He was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, and at the University of Melbourne. He first did an arts course, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1900, and then embarked on a medical course which he completed in 1904. After a term of residency at the Melbourne Hospital he went into general practice at Ivanhoe. He then proceeded to the Doctorate of Medicine in 1907.
In 1908 at the age of twenty-nine he was appointed honorary physician to inpatients, St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, and in 1912 began private practice as a consulting physician. He continued his studies in the humanities and in spite of the exigencies of his practice became a Master of Arts in 1921. During World War I he served as a major in the Australian Army Medical Corps in 14 Australian General Hospital in Egypt.
He remained on the consulting staff at St Vincent’s Hospital until 1936 when, on retirement, he was appointed honorary consulting physician to the Hospital. During his time at the Hospital he held positions of dean of St Vincent’s Hospital clinical school and chairman of the honorary medical staff. Dr Latham was interested in the teaching of medicine and in 1921 he was appointed chairman of the board of Stewart Lecturers in Medicine in the University of Melbourne. In this capacity he was for fifteen years responsible for the instruction and examination of medical students. For many years, like his distinguished brother, Sir John Latham, he served the University on the administration side. He was a member of standing committee of convocation, University of Melbourne, from 1923 to 1934 and warden of convocation from 1934 to 1944. He served as a member of the University council from 1944, was deputy chancellor from 1947 to 1949 and remained a councillor until his death in 1950.
Dr Latham rendered service in a quiet and unostentatious way. He served on the council of Scotch College and for several years was president of the Old Scotch Collegians’ Association. He was a member of the branch council of the British Medical Association, Victoria, from 1915 until 1938 and its president in 1923. During his presidential year the Australian Medical Congress was held in Melbourne and he was its vice-president.
He took an active part in the formation of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, becoming a councillor in 1938, a member of the state committee from 1938 to 1950 and its chairman from 1947 to 1950. He was vice-president of the College from 1946 to 1948 and president from 1948 until his death in 1950.
He was a director of British Medical Insurance Company, Victoria, and he was appointed chief medical officer for Victoria of the Australian Mutual Provident Society in 1932, retiring from this position in 1949. He was a member of the Medical Board from 1929 to 1932 and served on the council of the Medical Defence Association from 1929 onwards and was president from 1940 to 1949. As president of the Medico-Legal Society for four years Dr Latham did much to foster close relations between the medical and legal fraternities in Melbourne. He was admitted to Melbourne Rotary in 1928 and the club journal records that he was ‘possessed of a cultured and well-informed mind, lucidity of expression, a modest and attractive personality’. In 1929 he was president of the University of Melbourne Association.
Apart from his professional activities Dr Latham was highly regarded as a classical scholar. He had a love for languages, both ancient and modern, which he cultivated throughout his life and was for many years an active member of the Classical Association. The high regard and esteem in which he was held was demonstrated by its members who elected him their president some years before his death.
Latham had two other abiding interests - bush-walking and tennis. He was a member for many years of the Wallaby Club of Melbourne. Its members would take long weekend walks which were enriched by lively discussions. He was president of the Club in 1926-27. Tennis, his other form of exercise, was played regularly over the years and actually it was while he was playing tennis that he died. Dr Latham was a spare figure, tall and was affectionately referred to by generations of students as ‘Lofty’. During his clinics he would on occasions refer to rules of medical etiquette and try to instil into them an appreciation of long-cherished medical traditions. For his colleagues he was an excellent consultant and for his patients he had the ability to make clear the medical aspects of their illness. He was humorous and had a dry wit. Words came easily to him and it was a pleasure to listen to his assessment and summing up of a case. His clinics were seldom without a classical allusion. One of his students remembers how once when demonstrating a case he took the slender hand of an anaemic female patient and with his head held characteristically to one side and with his wry smile said, as he looked at the back of the hand, '
In qua non exstant venae
, if I might use Quintilian’s dainty Latin phrase’.
He was as interested in the lives of his patients as in their medical complaints. Halfway through a clinic one day the patient he was examining happened to mention that he had worked in the Yukon. Dr Latham immediately drew up a chair and, sitting beside the bed, discussed life in the frozen north for the remainder of the clinic.
His pen was that of a ready writer. The words he chose were at times unusual but always apposite. For instance, on one occasion after examining a patient Dr Latham wrote a certificate
ex tempore
concerning the patient who was anxious to give evidence in court. He regarded him as fit to do so but pointed out that he might have fits of weeping and that this would prevent the examination being satisfactorily carried to a conclusion. Public occurrence of such crying would be a source of much distress to the patient and would, in his opinion, prolong his illness and prejudice his recovery. ‘Should the examination be conducted at the hospital and the fits occur these consequences need not be apprehended’.
Dr Latham married Miss Ida Wilson, MA, daughter of Dr JP Wilson who was headmaster of the Presbyterian Ladies’ College. Their one son died in early adult life. Their only daughter had five sons, of whom three chose to follow the same calling as their grandfather, two becoming Fellows of the College.
Author
JP HORAN
References
Med J Aust
, 1950,
1
, 608-10
Last Updated
May 30, 2018, 17:36 PM
Close overlay