Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

ROLLAND James Alexander Brian MB BS FRACS DLO

1920 - 2002

James Alexander Brian Rolland was born in Millicent, SA, on 1st September 1920. He was the son of Dr James Alexander and Daisy Eleanor Rolland. His father was a general practitioner. The family moved to Adelaide from the south-east of SA, in 1926, where Rolland attended, initially the Thebarton Primary School, Christian Brothers College and later Adelaide High School where he excelled at tennis; he won the schoolboys singles in 1938. Subsequently, he studied medicine at the University of Adelaide graduating MB BS in 1943. He completed his resident year at the RAH in 1944. Rolland married Marjorie Cole Harper in the 1940s.

Rolland enlisted in the AAMC, while a medical student, on 9th January 1941, and served in the CMF. Immediately after completing his resident year, on the 17th March 1945, he enlisted as a captain in the 2/AIF. He was posted as area MO 7MD Darwin until 25th July 1946 and then to 105 AMH, Adelaide. Rolland was granted 90 days pre-discharge leave, from 13th January 1947, to update his medical skills at the RAH and the Queen Victoria Maternity Home (QVMH).  He was discharged 26th March 1947. At the time he and his wife were living at his parents’ home at 16 Henley Beach Road, Mile End in 1947.

Leaving the army, Rolland joined his father’s general practice,  in the Western Clinic until 1963. His general practice experience prompted an interest in diseases of the ear nose and throat (ENT), and he held clinical assistant appointments at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital (ACH). Rolland obtained the DLO in 1963, and received his FRACS, without examination, in 1974.  Rolland was appointed an honorary ENT surgeon at the ACH, from 1963 to 1965, and appointed an honorary ENT surgeon at TQEH from 1958 to 1970.  He became a senior visiting ENT surgeon until his retirement from the public hospital system in 1980.  Rolland became involved as an advisor in medico-legal cases from 1979.  He developed the surgical management of post-traumatic tinnitus, deafness and dizziness as a consequence of trauma by round window repair. Some have debated the efficacy of this interventional strategy, but many of his patients attested to the marked symptomatic relief achieved. After public hospital retirement, he continued in private practice until 1994. There is no further information on James Alexander Brian Rolland who died in 2002.

Source

Blood, Sweat and Fears III: Medical Practitioners South Australia, who Served in World War 2. 

Swain, Jelly, Verco, Summers. Open Books Howden, Adelaide 2019. 

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD