Mahmood Ahmadi was a surgeon at the Veterans’ Affairs (VA) Hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA. He was born into a privileged family in the small agricultural village of Vastan in Iran not far from Tehran. As an infant, he survived an earthquake to which many of his siblings succumbed. Growing

Francis Sandor was born in Budapest on 13 July 1905. His father, Ignac, was a businessman in Budapest and his mother, Jenni Cipszer, was a teacher. He left Hungary with the advent of Communism and went back to medical school in Edinburgh and re-qualified as LRFPS (Glasgow) in 1952. He originally tra

Adam Golebiowski was born in March 1914 to a Polish family which had been associated with the struggle for independence since Napoleonic times. He studied medicine at Lwow in the 1930s. He was mobilised at the outbreak of the second world war and taken prisoner by the Russians, undergoing very harsh

Andrew Logan was a pioneer of cardiothoracic surgery in Edinburgh. He was born in Dairsie, Fife on 6 November 1906. His family were farmers. He left school at 16 and went to St Andrews University, gaining an MA in 1926. He then turned to medicine, qualifying in 1929. He went on to train in Newcastle

Robin Pilcher was born on 22 June 1902 in Northwood, Middlesex, into a family without medical connections, although his younger brother Michael was to follow him into surgery. His father was Thorold Sturtevant Pilcher and his mother Helena, née Neilson. He was a scholar at St Paul's School and a pri

Charles Marks was professor of surgery at Louisiana State University, New Orleans. He was born in Kremenchug, Ukraine, the son of Abe Marks, a businessman, and Sonia Marks née Beck, a housewife. He migrated to South Africa, where he matriculated from Wynberg Boys’ High School in Cape Town in Decembe

John Stuart Bailey (or 'JCB') was a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon in Leicester. He was born in Jerusalem, Palestine, and spent his early years in Cairo, before being evacuated in 1940 to Durban and on to England. He was educated at Sherborne School, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and St

Born in Rotterdam on 25 February 1897, the son of a teacher who moved to the Dutch East Indies in 1905, Eerland spent part of his childhood in what is now Indonesia, a land for which he retained a life-long affection. He received his professional education at the faculty of medicine in Utrecht from

The following obitiuary was published in volume eight of Plarr's Lives of the Fellows: Theodore Schrire, nicknamed 'Toddy', was born on 6 November 1906 in Cape Town. He matriculated at the age of sixteen, afterwards attaining his MA from the University of Cape Town, where he received the medal