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Asset Name:
E009435 - Shaheen, Omar Hassan (1931 - 2016)
Title:
Shaheen, Omar Hassan (1931 - 2016)
Author:
Michael Gleeson
Identifier:
RCS: E009435
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2018-03-27

2020-01-17
Description:
Obituary for Shaheen, Omar Hassan (1931 - 2016), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Shaheen, Omar Hassan
Date of Birth:
24 September 1931
Place of Birth:
Cairo, Egypt
Date of Death:
28 September 2016
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MB BS London 1954

FRCS 1958

MS 1967

Hon FRCS Edinburgh 1988
Details:
Omar Shaheen was recognised as one of the foremost head and neck cancer surgeons of his era in the UK. His reputation established the ENT department at Guy’s as a centre of excellence for head and neck cancer that attracted both British trainees and fellows from the USA and Australia. He influenced a generation of young surgeons to follow in his footsteps and emulate his elegant surgical techniques. His contribution to head and neck oncology, particularly in relation to thyroid, oral and laryngopharyngeal cancers was immense. Omar was born in Cairo on 24 September 1931 to Hassan Shaheen and Samira Shaheen née Rifaat. Hassan was also a doctor who had trained at Guy’s Hospital from 1903 to 1910, both as an undergraduate and subsequently as an ENT surgeon. Hassan returned to Cairo in 1912 and established the ENT department at the Kasr El Ainy University Hospital and became its first professor of ENT surgery, a position he held until just after the Second World War. Kasr El Ainy was and still is part of the medical faculty of Cairo University. Hassan trained many generations of ENT surgeons in Cairo and was the first to send postgraduates to Britain to obtain higher qualifications, a tradition that exists to this day. No doubt Omar acquired his enthusiasm and encouragement for ENT from his father, as well as guidance on how to obtain and achieve the very best training. At the age of eight, Omar was sent with his elder brother, Medhat, and his elder sister, Mona, to the English School in Cairo. It was a school that had been established for the children of expatriates only. The Sheehan children were the first Egyptians to be admitted as a courtesy to their father, who had treated large numbers of British troops stationed in Cairo during the First World War. Omar excelled at school, winning many prizes. He was fluent in French, which was spoken by many members of his family as it was his mother’s native tongue. While clearly academically talented, he was also a good sportsman, playing first XI cricket, football and water polo. Later on, he developed a love for rugby and was a keen sailor. Omar went to London in 1950 to study medicine at Guy’s Hospital. He was awarded the Michael Harris prize for anatomy as a pre-clinical student and qualified in 1954. After junior house doctor appointments at Guy’s and Putney hospitals, he undertook his specialist training in ENT at Guy’s under the mentorship of Bobby Cann, Philip Reading and Leslie Salmon. In 1960, he was appointed as an assistant professor to the department of otolaryngology and maxillofacial surgery at the State University of Iowa, spending two years there developing skills and a reputation for major head and neck cancer surgery. During this time, he undertook pioneering experimental research using myocutaneous flaps to repair oesophageal defects in dogs. In that respect, he was decades ahead of his time. On his return to the UK in 1964, Omar was appointed as a senior lecturer and deputy director of the professorial unit at the Institute of Laryngology and Otology in the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. It was there that he carried out clinical and experimental research on the nasal vasculature in vervet monkeys and guinea pigs. A Medical Research Council funded investigation followed into the relationship of hypertension to epistaxis that culminated in his master of surgery thesis in 1967. By that time, he had been appointed as a consultant surgeon at Guy’s. Omar was a very elegant surgeon who used sharp dissection with a scalpel rather than scissors and forceps. He knew exactly where he was for every second of every operation and he was able to cut without causing bleeding. It was a technique that all his registrars tried to copy, some more successfully than others. It defined them as Guy’s trainees. During his career, Omar was awarded several honours, including an Arris and Gale lectureship at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1968, the W J Harrison prize of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1987 and presidency of the section of laryngology from 1987 to 1988, the Walter Jobson Horne prize of the University of London in 1992, and the Semon lectureship of the University of London in 1996. He was constantly in demand to visit departments abroad, most notably Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus in Quebec to demonstrate a supraglottic laryngectomy, and the Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. But, of course, he never forgot his home country and went frequently to Cairo to operate at the military hospital on patients they were unable to handle. He was an avid and accomplished writer, publishing numerous papers and contributing seminal chapters to postgraduate texts. Omar gained a lot of credit for writing a book on the complications of head and neck surgery, having experienced most of them and devised ways to avoid and manage them (*Problems in head and neck surgery* London, Baillière Tindall, c.1984). No one else has had the courage to do that since. Later, he signalled the addition of thyroid disease management to ENT surgeons in training by publishing a book on thyroid surgery in 2003 (*Thyroid surgery* Boca Raton, Fla, London, Parthenon Publishing Group, c.2003). As an epitaph to a stellar career, he analysed his own patients’ outcome data, something most surgeons think of doing, but few ever do. Omar broadened the spectrum of surgery undertaken by ENT surgeons of his era. On Omar’s appointment as an examiner for the final examination in London, he was introduced to the council of the Royal College of Surgeons. The president at the time said to him ‘Shaheen, I’ve heard about you. I understand you go into the thorax!’ He was immensely proud to discover that his reputation had gone before him. Those he trained also recognised that he deliberately went where no other ENT surgeon had gone before. In 1956, he married Audrey (née Gregson), who was a staff nurse at Guy’s. They had three children: Seif, professor of respiratory epidemiology at Barts and the London, Jenanne, a general practitioner in Brighton, and Hassan, the creative director of his own animation company in Canada. Both Seif and Jenanne were, of course, born and trained at Guy’s. Sadly, Audrey predeceased Omar in 2012. They were both immensely proud of their children’s achievements. In his spare time, Omar was never happier than on his yacht sailing single-handedly in the Solent or across to France. After a protracted illness that took some months to diagnose, but borne with great courage and characteristic good humour, Omar Shaheen died peacefully at home on 28 September 2016 at the age of 85 in the presence of his family. He remained a very private man to the end. His registrars loved him dearly and admired him greatly.
Sources:
*ENT UK* Newsletter Vol.26 No.4 Winter 2016 p.6 www.entuk.org/sites/default/files/files/ENT%20UK%20Newsletter%20Winter%202016%20v3.pdf – accessed 10 January 2020
Rights:
Copyright (c) The Royal College of Surgeons of England

Image Copyright (c) Image provided with kind permission of the family
Collection:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format:
Obituary
Format:
Asset
Asset Path:
Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
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JPEG Image
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