Sir Arnold Elton was born on 14 February 1920. He trained at University College Hospital and qualified MB, BS in 1943. After house jobs at Charing Cross Hospital (where he was Gosse research scholar), St Peter’s Hospital for Stone and University College Hospital, he passed the fellowship of the coll

Colin Teasdale was a consultant general surgeon at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth. He was born in Leeds on 26 June 1945 to Alan Wainwright Teasdale and Eva Teasdale née Rowley He had an older sister, Jean, who trained as a dietitian, and a younger brother, Eric, became an occupational medicine consul

Ron Sellwood was professor of surgery at the University Hospital of South Manchester (UHSM). He undertook his initial surgical training in Bristol, where he held house officer appointments at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. After military service with the RAMC in Hong Kong, he continued his surgical tr

Roger Blamey was professor of surgical science at Nottingham and a pioneering breast surgeon who developed the world-famous Nottingham prognostic index (NPI). He was born in London on 16 March 1935, the son of John and Cara Blamey. From Highgate School he went to Downing College, Cambridge, where he

Phyllis George was a consultant general surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital, London and the first woman to be elected as vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons. She was born in Sedgley, Staffordshire on 18 February 1925, but, though she later travelled widely, she remained at heart a Londone

Martin Cooper was medical director of the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, and a consultant general surgeon. He was born in 1947. At 14, having had his appendix removed, he decided he wanted to become a surgeon. Three years later, at Forest Grammar School in Winnersh, Berkshire, his biology teacher

Alan Rhodes was a consultant in general and paediatric surgery in Coventry. He was born in Wolverhampton on 1 April 1936 to Florence Rhodes née Levers, a secretary, and Wilfred Rhodes, a clerk. After a stellar performance at Wolverhampton Grammar School, he entered Birmingham Medical School in 1953.

Robert Mitchell qualified in Medicine at the University of Otago gaining the Gold Medal in Anatomy and the Senior Scholarship in Medicine. He undertook the BMedSci and his degree thesis, postnatal development in the rat adrenal, was published in 1948 and attracted interest. This demonstrated his ear

Maxwell James Coleman was director of surgery at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk

Michael John Knight Hudson (always known as Mike) was a consultant general, vascular and breast surgeon in north Cambridgeshire and King's Lynn. He was born in Southgate, London, on 21 March 1936, the son of Kenneth Alfred Knight Hudson, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, and Eucharia Aloysius Marie

Cyril Cooling was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Marsden Hospital and then medical superintendent of Benenden Hospital in Kent. The second son of Frank Cooling, a newsagent, and Lilian M Cooling née Waygood, he won the coveted Bucknill scholarship to enter University College Hospital in 1941, the

Michael McBrien was a general surgeon with an interest in urology at the West Suffolk and Newmarket hospitals. He was born on 4 July 1935 in Maidstone, Kent to Leo Patrick McBrien, a general practitioner, and Elizabeth Rosemary McBrien née Phillips, the daughter of a farmer, and had three sisters.