R. Mackenzie; Key Expert on Sports Medicine

Dr. Ronald Boyce Mackenzie, epidemiologist and sports medicine expert who was former director of the National Athletic Health Institute at Centinela Hospital, has died. He was 71.

Mackenzie died Monday of prostate cancer at his Palm Desert home.

Working with athletes in the 1970s, Mackenzie served as a physician to individual professional golfers and to several Southern California professional sports teams including the Dodgers, Kings, Lakers and Rams.

Mackenzie was frequently consulted by legislators and news media about fitness and public health practices and wrote a regular column for Shape magazine.

A native of Cumberland, Wis., Mackenzie graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y., and served in the Navy during World War II.

Educated at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, UC Berkeley and Yale School of Public Health, he practiced medicine initially in Sausalito, Calif. In the 1960s, he went to South America as an epidemiologist. While working with the U.S. Middle America Research Unit, he isolated the Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever virus, which he contracted. Bolivia awarded him its highest civilian honor, the Condor of the Andes.

Mackenzie is survived by his wife, Rose; two children, Nicol and Mary Jo; three stepchildren, Carolyn, Kathy and Christina, and seven grandchildren.