Eoin O’Malley was a cardiac surgeon and a past president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was born on 5 April 1919 in Galway, where his father was professor of surgery. From Clongowes Wood College he went to medical school, at first in Galway and later at University College, Dublin, w

Saulat Jahan was professor of surgery at the Fatima Jinnah Medical College for Women and a consultant surgeon at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan, where she was known for her care of the sick, poor and destitute. She was born and raised in Delhi and gained her MB BS degree from Lady Hard

Wilfred Gordon ‘Bill’ Bigelow, who helped develop the first electronic pacemaker, was a professor of cardiac surgery at the University of Toronto and a pioneering heart surgeon. He was born in Brandon, Manitoba, in 1913. His father, Wilfred Bigelow, had founded the first medical clinic in Canada. Bi

Denis Melrose played a crucial role in designing and developing the first heart-lung machine. He was born in Cape Town on 20 June 1921, the son of Thomas Robert Gray Melrose, a surgeon, and Floray Collings. The family went to England before the Second World War, and Denis was educated at Sedbergh an

Hugh Bentall was professor of cardiac surgery at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London, and a pioneer in the development of surgery using the heart-lung machine. He was born in Worthing, Sussex, on 28 April 1920, the son of Henry Bentall and Lilian Alice Bentall née Greeno. He was educated a

James Keith Ross was a leading cardiac surgeon, and one of the team that performed the first cardiac transplant in Britain. He was born in London on 9 May 1927. His father, Sir James Paterson Ross, was later to become professor of surgery at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Surgeon to the Royal Household

James Lawrence 'Jim' Monro was a cardiac surgeon at Southampton General Hospital, where he successfully developed the service for infants and children. Jim's medical lineage could hardly have been stronger. He was born in Singapore on 17 November 1939, at the start of the Second World War, the son o

Born 30 July 1888, the second of the five sons of George Chalmers Cutler, lumber manufacturer and merchant, and Mary Carr Wilson, his wife. He was educated at Volkmann Preparatory School, at Brookline Public School, Massachusetts, and at Harvard, where he graduated in arts 1909, and in medicine 1913

Born in Belfast in 1940, Caves was educated at Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He entered medical school at Queen's University, Belfast, in 1958, graduated in 1964, and began a period of general surgical training in Belfast and Edinburgh. After taking the Edinburgh Fellowship in 1968 he began

Victor Chang was born in Sydney in 1936 and received his medical training at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney. After qualifying in 1960 he came to London to train in cardiothoracic surgery at the Brompton Hospital, spent a year at the Mayo Clinic, and returned to St Vincent's in 1972, where he won an i

Åke Senning was a pioneering heart surgeon. He was born in Raettvik, Sweden, on 14 September 1915. He studied medicine in Uppsala and Stockholm, qualifying in 1944. In 1948, he joined the innovative cardiovascular surgeon Clarence Crafoord at the Sabbatsberg Hospital, Stockholm, with whom he helped

Geoffrey Smith was professor of cardiac surgery at the University of Sheffield. He was born in Derby on 11 November 1937. His father, Stanley James Smith, was a greengrocer. His mother was Barbara née Perston and his maternal grandfather was a mechanic at Rolls-Royce in Derby. He was educated at Der