Dr William (Bill) Taylor passed away on 5 September 2021 at the age of 83 after suffering from ill-health for a few years.
He was born in Whanganui and attended St Patrick’s College in Silverstream, Upper Hutt, before attending Otago Medical School. In 1965 he was appointed as the first eye registrar at Auckland Hospital at the behest of Dr Calvin Ring who was departmental head and pre-eminent ophthalmologist of the day. The following year, an obviously impressed Dr Ring wrote in his departmental report, “Our registrar Dr Taylor provided great help in arranging and taking part in the teaching activities. Appreciation of his generous help with all clinical matters must also be recorded.” Clearly Bill’s merits were recognised.
In 1967, Bill travelled to London to join the registrar programme at Moorfields Eye Hospital, after which he undertook further training in medical retina with Professor Alan Bird, and surgical retina with Dr Lorimer Fison. He returned to Auckland in 1972 as the inaugural full-time ophthalmic tutor specialist, a post he held for two years. I first came across him as a second-year registrar and all the registrars at the time greatly benefitted from Bill’s enthusiastic ophthalmology teaching. His breadth of knowledge and surgical skills were legendary, especially given that all ophthalmologists were generalists at that time.
Bill revolutionised the department’s teaching programme, cajoling all the part-time visiting consultants to contribute. He instituted a weekly retinal fluorescein angiography meeting and further developed ophthalmic sub-specialties, a trend started by Dr Hylton Le Grice and in retina by Dr Harold Coop. Orbital surgery was Bill’s other sub-specialty.
In 1974 Bill accepted a part-time post as a visiting ophthalmic surgeon at Auckland Hospital, joined Dr George Fenwick in private practice in Mount Street and developed a peripheral practice in Henderson. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed head of the Auckland Hospital eye department replacing Dr Calvin Ring who was retiring.
