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Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E006060 - Reid, Ronald William (1906 - 1968)
Title:
Reid, Ronald William (1906 - 1968)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E006060
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2014-10-02
Description:
Obituary for Reid, Ronald William (1906 - 1968), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Reid, Ronald William
Date of Birth:
4 January 1906
Place of Birth:
Salisbury
Date of Death:
14 June 1968
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MRCS 1928

FRCS 1931

MB BS London 1928

MS 1929

LRCP 1928
Details:
Born on 4 January 1906 at Salisbury of Scottish parents, he entered St Thomas's Medical School in 1923 from Brighton College, and distinguished himself consistently throughout his student career, being awarded the Beaney Scholarship and Sutton Sams Prize in 1927. He had an exceptional climax in the years 1928 to 1929: qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma and the degrees of London University and winning the Bristowe Medal in 1928, and passing the examinations for the Final Fellowship and for the MS degree at the age of 23 in 1929; he was also proxime accessit for the coveted Cheselden Medal in surgery, as runner-up to H Hamilton Stewart. All this he achieved without any obvious effort, while he lived an extremely extrovert life among the student community. After qualification he obtained resident appointments at St Thomas's, first as a casualty officer for six months and then for six months as house surgeon to Sir Charles Max Page and to "Joey" (R H O B) Robinson. On consulting the latter as to his future he was advised to get out of the rut of London and to carve out a name and a career in an area crying out for first-class original skill. As a result Colchester was to benefit and to become a recognised surgical centre. When he first went to Colchester in 1930 he had to start as a general-practitioner-surgeon but within two years he became solely a consultant, the first in what had always been a general-practitioner hospital; and before long he was coping with the surgery of a wide are of East Anglia. He spear-headed the development of the Essex County Hospital and was responsible for the creation of further consultant posts. His early years in general practice he always regarded as a valuable experience which enabled him to appreciate better the needs of the practitioners who called him in consultation. In addition to the Essex County Hospital, he did a great deal of valuable work on the surgery of tuberculosis at Black Notley Hospital, near Braintree, in association with M C Wilkinson. From the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948 he became a valuable member of the North East Metropolitan Regional Board on which he served until 1963, and he was a member of the Hospital Management Committee from 1948 to 1954. When the Research Committee of the Regional Board was inaugurated in 1956 Reid became its chairman, continuing until his premature death. He founded a surgical association for the region. He was a member of the editorial board of the *British journal of surgery* and introduced monthly Saturday clinical meetings of the Colchester Surgical Club, which attracted surgeons from all over the world, and he also found time to travel extensively, making surgical contacts in Europe and the United States of America. A stocky, fair-haired, robust Scot usually with a twinkle in his eye, he was able to accomplish a vast amount of work. As a surgeon he was supremely competent, ingenious and in the van of progress, as instance his early mastery of the problems of fluid balance and of transurethral prostatectomy. As a man he was a true friend, without jealousy or malice, possessed of great powers of persuasion and administration, and ever ready to help his younger colleagues. In his leisure he was a golfer and enjoyed fishing in his ancestral Scotland. He was also a talented artist, and enjoyed the good things of a cultivated life to the full. Latterly his health began to fail as he was emphysematous and liable to attacks of pulmonary infection. His passing left a gap difficult to fill. He married twice. By his first marriage, which was dissolved in 1960, he had four daughters and a son; one of his daughters, Alison Mary Deirdre, married Lord Primrose, heir of the Earl of Rosebery, in 1955. In 1961 he married Mrs Olive Gates of Boxford, who survived him. He died on 14 June 1968 in the Essex County Hospital, aged 62. He had lived for some years at Stoke-by-Nayland, but latterly at Dedham.
Sources:
*Brit med J* 1968, 2, 832 with portrait and appreciation by S A Propert, RNJ and JNF

*The Times* 22 June 1968, p.10H by JNF

*East Anglian Daily Times* 15 June 1968

*Brit J Surg* 1968, 55, 882
Rights:
Copyright (c) The Royal College of Surgeons of England
Collection:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format:
Obituary
Format:
Asset
Asset Path:
Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
Media Type:
Unknown