Cover image for
Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E000089 - King, Philip Austin (1918 - 2004)
Title:
King, Philip Austin (1918 - 2004)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E000089
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2005-10-12
Description:
Obituary for King, Philip Austin (1918 - 2004), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
King, Philip Austin
Date of Birth:
1918
Date of Death:
7 June 2004
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MRCS and FRCS 1953

MB ChB Sheffield 1948
Details:
Philip King was a consultant surgeon at St Stephen’s Hospital, Chelsea, and honorary consultant surgeon at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth. He was born in 1918, the son of an obstetrician and gynaecologist. He was educated at Stonyhurst, and went on to read medicine at Sheffield, but the loss of some of his friends in the second world war made him interrupt his studies and join the RAF, where he served as a pilot. After the war, he completed his medical degree and then did house jobs at Sheffield and became resident surgical tutor. He then came to London as senior registrar to Sir Clement Price Thomas, Charles Drew and Frank d’Abreu at the Westminster Hospital, where he was one of the team that introduced the artificial kidney and cardiac bypass machines. He was then appointed general surgeon to St Stephen’s Hospital in Chelsea, part of the Westminster group. At this time he began his long association with the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, where Sister Pauline of the Sisters of Mercy, remembered him as a “faultless charismatic performer who cared deeply for his patients”. There he served as chairman of the medical staff committee and continued to serve the hospital long after he retired. He was admitted to the Order of Malta, first as a Knight of Grace and Devotion and later as a Knight of Obedience, and served the order with distinction, acting regularly as chief medical officer to their annual pilgrimage to Lourdes. Ironically, he developed a carcinoma of the oesophagus, a condition he had studied and written about. He underwent oesophagectomy and made a remarkable recovery. A keen sailor, for a time he owned a small island in the Menai Straits. He died of cardiovascular disease in the Hospice of St John and St Elizabeth, which he had helped established, on 7 June 2004, leaving his wife Gabrielle and three children, one of whom qualified at Westminster and became a consultant radiologist.
Sources:
Information from Gabrielle King

*Stonyhurst College Gazette*
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/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
Media Type:
Unknown