Emeritus Consultants Biographies

Thomas Brendan CULLITY Universities of Western Australia and Adelaide MB BS (Adelaide) 1947 MRACP 1950 MRCP (London) 1952 FRACP 1964 FRCP (London) 1975 Consultant Physician

Thomas (Tom) Cullity was born in 1925 in Port Adelaide, the son of Thomas Cullity, timber merchant and engineer, and Margaret nee Anglin.

He graduated MB BS from Adelaide University in 1947.  Tom Cullity has had a long association with the Royal Perth Hospital.  He was an RMO and Registrar in 1949 and was appointed Physician in 1953.  He retired in 1983. 

His major interest was in cardiology and his skill in this discipline was recognised by his appointment as Consulting Cardiologist to the Sir Charles Gairdner and Fremantle Hospitals as well as the Royal Perth Hospital. 

Interestingly Tom was an Assistant RMO at the National Heart Hospital in 1953-54 with Paul Wood and his team when the clinical diagnosis of heart disease first evolved from ignorance, to the precision obtained from cardiac catheterisation and angiocardiography. He passed the first cardiac catheter (on a Fallot's Tetrology) at the Royal Perth Hospital in 1953.

Tom married in 1956 and he and Veronica have four daughters. He married Eve Shannon in 1998.

He has many interests outside of medicine. He has played cricket and football for Adelaide University and has a half blue for football from UWA. He is still a great cricket fan.

Tom planted the Vasse Felix vineyard and so pioneered the production of quality white wine in the Margaret River area of the South West. He has written about this in a paper entitled "History of Margaret River Wine", held in the National Library, Canberra.

He has also translated Freycinet's "Voyage au tour du monde" into English, illustrating yet another of his interests.