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2 December 1940-19 July 2009; Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM)
Dr Les Ding was diagnosed with carcinoma of the stomach in January of this year and died at Christchurch Hospital on 19 July 2009.
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The first New Zealand medical graduate of Chinese descent to qualify in psychiatry, Les valued his family and cultural heritage.
His grandfather had come to Otago from Canton, now Guangzhou, to mine for gold in the Nokomai Valley, living and working there for 8 years without leaving, before returning to his family in China.
For Les' father, a market gardener on the Taieri Plains, hard work and traditional Chinese scholarship were central values. The sixth of eight children, and the first to be born in New Zealand, Les spoke only Cantonese until starting primary school.
Along with several of his siblings, Les was to go on to a distinguished career.
After attending Otago Boys High School, Les began his medical education in 1958, fulfilling a boyhood aspiration. He graduated MB ChB from the University of Otago in 1963, the year he also married Kim Ng, a nurse, from another prominent pioneering Chinese family. They then moved to Christchurch for Les' house surgeon and registrar years, and later to Sydney, with two young children, where Les completed training in psychiatry and then held a consultant post.
In 1968...