His union with Cecilie Fitzsimons, the daughter of a general surgeon, was more medically aligned, with him bent on bones and her focused on physiotherapy.
They married in 1957, the same year Victor joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force. His move into the military was part of a well-thought-out career path - and one that nearly led him to outer space.
The plan was to train as a pilot and earn enough money to study orthopaedic surgery in England. Victor graduated top of his flying course, an achievement he's still proud of. Other highlights include visiting an aviation medicine unit in England, flying around the world in Hastings aircraft and soaring the skies in a variety of planes, from Sunderlands through to Vampires.
High-flier on the ground
Despite his prowess in the air, Victor was never required to use his skills in combat.
"I was kept in New Zealand to teach people about the dangers of high-altitude flying. In those days, of course, we had jet aircraft, fighter aircraft, Venoms, Canberras and high altitude things (planes), and I used to run a decompression chamber, put people in and simulate them flying up to 40,000 feet (12,192 metres)."
Teaching the effects of high-altitude flying.
Image: Victor Hadlow collection.
Victor could've gone even higher.
During his three-year stint in the air force, the fit, young doctor was located in Christchurch. That was also the base of Operation Deep Freeze (1957-68), which involved the United States Navy deploying destroyer-type ships in support of a multi-nation exploration of Antarctica. There were other US military men involved in the mission.
"I used to spend a lot of time talking to doctors involved in the American Air Force," Victor says.
Out-of-this-world opportunity
"I nearly didn't become an orthopedic surgeon because in those days nobody had been put on the moon and the Americans were desperate to get hold of people who could fly and who could do medicine," he says.
"So the American Air Force tried to get hold of me and I really contemplated becoming an American and joining their (space) programme."
And if he had, Victor would've been the envy of millions of children with outer-space dreams.
"I would've definitely been an astronaut," he says. "I don't know if I'd have been selected (to go into space), but I'd have been in the programme."
The deciding factor was the need to retain his roots. "Yes, I did think about it, and then I didn't take it up because I wanted to stay as a New Zealander."
Shooting from the hip
In mid-1960, Victor went to England to do a fellowship in orthopaedic surgery.
This is where Victor turned hip.
He spent part of his time at the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital (RNOH), where he worked for a surgeon called David Trevor.
"They (the RNOH) accumulated all the cases of dislocation of the hip in children in virtually one ward," he says.
For six month he worked on these children - mostly young girls - and despaired at their pain and disability.
The rest of his four years, he worked at King Edward Memorial Hospital with George Braddock, a protégé of Trevor.
One day, Victor went to a lecture given by a Danish surgeon called Julius van Rosen and learnt that those suffering from congenital hip dysplasia (CHD) could be completely cured if the problem was picked up within seven days of being born and the child was put in a splint for six to eight weeks.
Armed with that knowledge, Victor moved from London to New Plymouth in 1964. Soon after his arrival in 1964, he set up an extensive, meticulously recorded hip-check programme.
This is still in place today.
Man of metal
While most famous for his hip-check evangelism, Victor's quest to fix bone-based disabilities has led him to other breakthroughs and Taranaki firsts.
For the first three years, he was the sole orthopaedic surgeon at the hospital. "And, I guess you pioneered a lot of things."
Victor was the first surgeon to operate on broken bones, adding steel rods and pieces of metal to keep fractures in place.
"But I was very lucky in those days," he says of the backing he got from the Taranaki Hospital Board. "There was a chap called Percy Stainton, who was chairman, and Miss (Jean) Sandel, who was the general surgeon. They were both hugely supportive and I was given all sorts of equipment, which people didn't have in Auckland (at that time)."
That included an image intensifier X-ray machine, which Taranaki got in 1964. "Auckland didn't get theirs until '74."
In his own way, Victor has been able to thank Jean Mary Sandel (1916-1974). The late doctor's life story appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. The author is Victor Hadlow.
Replacing joints, removing discs
"I think one of the highlights was doing the first hip replacement in Taranaki," he says. That took place in 1970, with the help of good friend and fellow bone surgeon, David Ludbrook. The highly regarded doctor died in a car crash on the Auckland motorway in mid-1984.
Partial knee replacements in 1974 were another Hadlow first, as was the removal of prolapsed spinal discs using local anaesthetic. The latter was a technique from the United States and first used by Victor about 1970.
With the patient fully awake, Victor could attain a high degree of accuracy.
"Because in those days we didn't have things like MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and CT (computed tomography) - those are highlights getting those things."
On his arrival in Taranaki, he found that disc surgery had fallen into disrepute because of bad results.
Spinal tap
Victor sought to rectify this by enlisting patients' help during operations. "I would tap the nerve that I'd exposed and say to the patient, through the nurse at the head of the table, 'Is that your pain?' And if the patient said 'yes' we would go ahead and take the pressure off it. If the patient said 'no', then the opposite."
These procedures were highly successful. "People got more confidence then, in having spinal surgery. And now once we got into CT and better techniques of course, we went back to using general anaesthetic, which is less stressful for the patient."
The Hadlow surgeons are all men of spines.
Although Victor wasn't born into medicine, it appears that bones have become a family fixation.
Doctors in the house
Eldest son, Alastair, is a spinal surgeon in Auckland, daughter Sarah is married to orthopaedic surgeon Michael Caughey and son Simon is a bone man in New Plymouth. The youngest of the Hadlow orthopaedic surgeons is also a spine specialist.
Only son James has gone out on a limb, turning to horticulture not medicine. And Victor is just as proud of the son he calls Jimmy. "He's got a good degree from Massey University."
In New Plymouth, Simon continues his father's hip-checks alongside Tim Lynskey, now head of Taranaki Health's orthopaedic team.
Tim has great respect for the elder statesman.
"Victor's got a lot of good qualities," Tim says. "He's certainly had a passion for orthopaedics. He was well read and he was well organised. He was an effective politician and administrator and, therefore, managed to set up an effective department.
"There's no doubt that Victor trained in a different hospital structure. He trained under the old system and in England, which was a very hierarchical system. Once you understood that and understood the rules, I didn't find him very hard to work with at all."
Standing tests of time
Alastair Grant, who has moved to Wellington, was also in Victor's team.
"He was an extremely good colleague," Alastair says. "He was congenial, extremely ethical, fun and challenging to work with."
Simon too has high praise for his father.
"His practices have stood the test of time. At the end of the day, we are a relatively conservative population in Taranaki and we are innovative, but not to the cost of the patient."
The father and son have great respect for each other and have worked in tandem.
"We have operated together," says Victor, proud of this unusual situation.
In 1994, Hadlow the elder bones retired from surgery at Taranaki Base Hospital and in 2000 he finished at Southern Cross Hospital, hanging up his scalpel and saw for good. "I sort of tapered off doing surgery," he says.
But Victor's expertise continues to be in high demand.
"I still do medico-legal consultative work … You assess people's injuries affecting their musculo-skeletal system and it's usually involving insurance companies."
This includes doing assessments for ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) in Taranaki and Tauranga.
Making people whole
Victor also helps out Simon. "I go down to his surgery for half a day to see the acute people, or the little children and change their plasters," says Hadlow senior.
"I don't operate, but I can reassure people that the cause of their pain is not cancer and they've got such and such and I get an appointment for them to have an operation. Or else I say: 'Well there's nothing - this will get better.' I'm more like an orthopaedic physician rather than a surgeon. I still prescribe medications and things."
Looking back on his life, Victor has found great joy in helping patients get back on their feet and knowing "you have made people's life worth living".
Victor and Cecile Hadlow, New Plymouth, 2004
Victor also trained in general surgery and has saved lives. "But I've had far more satisfaction in trying to make people whole again. Getting terrible fracture cases and then save their limbs, have them walk again."
He has operated on people with crippled backs and dislocated necks, "saving them from being paralysed".
For Victor every success has been a highlight.
Now he can sit back, content in the knowledge that other Hadlows are mending limbs, spines, hips and planting seeds for the future.
"I sit down here and just smile," Victor says. "I was very lucky, yes."