Thumbnail for E000450.jpg
Resource Name:
E000450.jpg
File Size:
102.70 KB
Resource Type:
JPEG Image
Metadata
Asset Name:
E000450 - Fisk, Geoffrey Raymond (1916 - 2007)
Title:
Fisk, Geoffrey Raymond (1916 - 2007)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E000450
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2008-02-21

2009-02-10
Description:
Obituary for Fisk, Geoffrey Raymond (1916 - 2007), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Fisk, Geoffrey Raymond
Date of Birth:
26 May 1916
Place of Birth:
Goodmayes, Essex, UK
Date of Death:
10 November 2007
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MRCS 1939

FRCS 1949

MB BS London 1939

MPhil Cambridge 1991

LRCP 1939

FRCS Edinburgh 1943
Details:
Geoffrey Fisk was a senior orthopaedic surgeon at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow. He was born in Goodmayes, Essex, on 26 May 1916. His father, Harry Marcus Fisk, company director of Meredith and Drew, the biscuit manufacturers, was a descendent of an ancient Suffolk family. One of his ancestors, Nicholas Ffyske (1602-1680), was a physician and a prominent Parliamentarian. Geoffrey’s mother was Jane Gerdes. He was a scholar at Ilford County High School, from which he went on to study medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. After qualifying in 1939, he was house surgeon to Harold Wilson, and then casualty officer and senior orthopaedic house surgeon to Sidney Higgs. In 1941 he went to the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, as a junior surgeon, registrar and chief assistant, before joining the RAF medical branch in 1945. He was in charge of the orthopaedic division at Northallerton, then went to Wroughton Hospital, before becoming senior orthopaedic specialist at the Central Medical Establishment in London. Leaving the RAF as a wing commander in 1948, he returned to Bart’s as an orthopaedic registrar, was senior registrar at Black Notley and the Seamen’s Hospital, Greenwich, and was appointed as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Albert Dock Orthopaedic and Accident Hospital, Bishop’s Stortford Hospital and St Margaret’s Hospital, Epping, in 1950. In 1965 he moved to the new Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, remaining there until he retired in 1981. Geoffrey Fisk was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 1952 and spent a year in St Louis, Missouri. Geoffrey was an active member of the management committee of the West Essex Group of Hospitals for 12 years and secretary, then chairman, of the North East Thames Orthopaedic Advisory Committee from 1975 to 1981. He was a Hunterian Professor in our College three times, in 1951, 1968 and 1978, presenting different aspects of his wide experience in hand surgery, on which he published extensively. He was a founder member and later president of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand and received the ‘Pioneer’ award of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand in 1998. Inevitably, he was a fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. When the Bart’s Orthopaedic Rotational Training Programme was devised in 1969 it included segments at Harlow, where the trainees greatly benefited from his excellent teaching and he regularly attended their meetings until the year of his death. His many interests outside surgery included gardening and classical music. He was a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of two Livery Companies, the Makers of Playing Cards and the Apothecaries, and he was a member of the Royal Institution. Following his retirement, he became a student at Darwin College, the postgraduate Cambridge college, which had been founded in 1964. There he took an MPhil in anthropology, and in 1995 bequeathed first editions of Andreas Vesalius’ *Fabrica* (1543) and Adrian Spigelius’ *Opera* (1645), which includes an early reprint of Harvey’s description of the circulation of the blood. He died on 10 November 2007 at the age of 91 and was survived by his wife of 63 years, Susan Airey (MB ChB Leeds) and by a daughter (Susan Clare) and two sons (Simon James and Jonathan, who is a consultant psychiatrist).
Rights:
Copyright (c) The Royal College of Surgeons of England

Image Copyright (c) Image provided for use with kind permission of the family
Collection:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format:
Obituary
Format:
Asset
Asset Path:
Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
Media Type:
JPEG Image
File Size:
102.70 KB