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Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E009438 - Abson, Edward Pennington (1918 - 2009)
Title:
Abson, Edward Pennington (1918 - 2009)
Author:
Jonathan Marrow
Identifier:
RCS: E009438
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2018-04-05

2018-04-27
Description:
Obituary for Abson, Edward Pennington (1918 - 2009), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Abson, Edward Pennington
Date of Birth:
6 March 1918
Date of Death:
13 March 2009
Titles/Qualifications:
MB ChB Manchester 1941

DRCOG 1948

FRCS 1956
Details:
Edward Abson was a major player in the movement to improve casualty services by the creation of specialist consultant posts. He became one of the first 30 such specialist consultants, being appointed to Kent and Canterbury Hospital, and was later the third president of the Casualty Surgeons' Association (CSA). He was born in Merthyr Tydfil on 6 March 1918, one of four children of James Abson and Lily Abson (née Hulme). His family were from the Stockport area, but were living in Wales when Edward and his twin sister were born. His father was secretary of a gas company. The family moved back to Cheshire when Edward was a young child. His first school was in Romiley and he went on to the King's School in Macclesfield. He later studied medicine at the Victoria University of Manchester, qualifying MB ChB in 1941. Soon after obtaining full registration, he volunteered for the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He was commissioned with the rank of temporary surgeon lieutenant, and between 1942 and 1945 served on HMS *Penn*, a destroyer on convoy duties. Among numerous active engagements at sea, HMS *Penn* was involved in bringing a tanker, loaded with inflammable fuel and crippled by enemy action, into Valetta harbour, a turning point in the siege of Malta. At the end of hostilities, Edward was stationed at an air/sea rescue base for a year, where he gained further experience in the management of trauma. His interest in the sea continued after demobilisation: he was a keen sailor and took part in several long-distance transfers of sailing boats. After the war, he held hospital positions in Stockport and Blackburn, and also carried out some locum work in general practice. He secured the diploma of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and then spent six months as a postgraduate student in the anatomy department in Manchester before passing the primary FRCS in 1949. Surgical training posts followed, mostly in the Manchester region. He gained orthopaedic as well as general surgical experience. In 1956, he was successful in the final FRCS exam in London. By then he had moved to Dudley, in the Midlands. In Dudley, Edward worked first as a surgical registrar and then as a senior clinical medical officer (SCMO). He also had a chance to see the work of the pioneering Birmingham Accident Hospital. SCMO was one of the sub-consultant grades given to experienced doctors in charge of casualty departments, which was most likely Edward's role for the latter part of his time in Dudley. In 1963 he moved again, first to Southampton and then to the Isle of Wight, holding senior casualty officer posts at each. In 1962, a report by Sir Harry Platt, a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon, was commissioned by the Department of Health. It recommended that casualty departments be renamed 'accident and emergency' and that they should be supervised by orthopaedic surgeons. Many of the other recommendations were very welcome, but the senior casualty officers pointed out that the work of their departments had many challenges outside the field of orthopaedics. A senior casualty officers' subcommittee was set up within the British Medical Association in 1963, with Edward Abson as secretary. Between 1963 and 1980, Edward was prominent among those campaigning for the establishment of consultant posts in casualty departments. In 1965, he co-wrote an article in *The Lancet*, 'The casualty consultant' (*Lancet*. 1965 May 29;1[7396]:1158-9), the first of a series of publications about casualty departments and their patients. In October 1967, he was one of nine doctors in charge of casualty departments who met at BMA House in London and resolved to set up the CSA, the precursor to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. In 1972, 30 consultants in accident and emergency were appointed, as an experiment, to improve care in accident and emergency departments. Edward was one of them, being appointed to Kent and Canterbury Hospital. Edward was elected president of the CSA, serving from 1975 to 1978. He was the third to hold this office. The writer first attended a meeting of the CSA in 1977, during Edward's presidency. The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) was formed in 1968. Cordial relations were quickly established between the ACEP and the CSA. In 1981 Edward Abson, was made an honorary member of the ACEP, together with David Caro and John Collins, CSA presidents before and after Edward. There has been exchange of equivalent honours between presidents of British and US emergency medicine bodies since then. Edward retired from clinical work in about 1983. He saw himself as a surgeon in the casualty department and vigorously opposed changing the name of the CSA. Casualty or accident and emergency? Surgery, medicine or both? Debate about the name of the Association and of the specialty continued for many years, but in 1990 an AGM of the CSA voted by a large majority to change the name of the Association to the British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine. Sadly, Edward was one of two senior members of the Association who felt so strongly that they resigned and walked out of the meeting to show their opposition to the change. Edward never married. He remained in Kent, living independently until 2007, when he moved to a care home in Folkestone. He died on 13 March 2009, seven days after his 91st birthday.
Sources:
Personal knowledge

Manchester Medical Collection, University of Manchester Library

Guly H R. *A history of accident and emergency medicine, 1948-2004* Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005
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/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
Media Type:
Unknown