Colin Laverty

Dr Colin Robert Andrew Laverty (26 May 1937 — 9 February 2013) was an Australian medical practitioner and was the first to confirm (using electronmicroscopy) that the human papillomavirus was much more common in the cervix than previously thought and in 1978 he suggested that this virus be considered as possibly involved in the causation of cervical cancer. He was also a prolific art collector.

Laverty was born in Sydney, New South Wales, the son of medical practitioners Dr. Colin (Tas) Laverty and Dr. Beryl Laverty. He attended Newington College (1949-1953) and then the University of Sydney. He had the qualifications MB,BS; BSc(Med); DCP(Syd); FRCPA; Dip.Cytopath (FRCPA). He graduated BSc(Med) with honours in 1959, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 1962 and Diploma in Clinical Pathology in 1969 and subsequently obtained by examination Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia and a Diploma in Cytology from the same college. While at Sydney University he was awarded a Blue for Rowing.

Dr Laverty graduated in medicine from Sydney University and then trained in pathology at Royal Prince Alfred and King George V Hospitals in Sydney, as well at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester, in the United Kingdom. He specialised early in gynaecological cytology and histopathology and became a Staff Specialist Pathologist at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne and later at King George V Hospital for Mothers and Babies in Sydney.

He co-authored more than 50 scientific articles and was a frequent and often invited speaker at medical conferences in Australia and internationally. During his career Dr Laverty was for many years a member of the Advisory Committee to the Australian National Cervical Screening Program, multiple New South Wales Cancer Council Committees, the Committee of the Australian Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology and the Continuing Education, Quality Assurance and Evolving Technologies Committees of the International Academy of Cytology.

In the mid-1970s, while working as a Specialist Gynaecological Pathologist at King George V Hospital in Sydney, Dr Laverty developed a special interest in the recognition in the Papanicolaou smear of various female genital tract infections, in particular those due to agents difficult or impossible to culture. In the early 1970s it was thought that genital tract warts or condylomas were quite uncommon, usually vulval and merely sometimes cosmetically distressing lesions.

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