Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Accident and emergency surgeon - Military surgeon

First Title value, for Searching Garraway, John Windsor (1915 - 1992)

2024-05-18T11:17:01Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007900-E007999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380130380130
Occupation Casualty surgeon Accident and emergency surgeon General surgeon Military surgeon
Details John Garraway was educated at Eastbourne College and the Middlesex Hospital. On graduating he joined the RAF, in which he served in North Africa and in the RAF hospital in Vereeniging, South Africa, where he married Margaret Lapping in June 1944. After the war he returned to England to serve in various RAF bases, from which he was seconded in 1952 to accompany the Royal Family as their family physician. He was seconded from the RAF to do surgical training at the Hammersmith Hospital and passed the FRCS in 1957, continuing to serve in the RAF until he retired as Group Captain. On retirement Garraway returned to South Africa as surgeon superintendent at the Eben Donges Hospital in Worcester, and later settled in Durban, where he ran the casualty department at King Edward VIII Hospital. He was given the nickname of *Khanyisani* from his Zulu staff, meaning 'light': this was because, on busy weekends, when casualty was crowded, he rolled up his sleeves and dealt quickly with everyone, which made him the 'light at the end of the tunnel'. He died on 31 December 1992, survived by his wife, three children and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007947
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dignan, Albert Patrick (1920 - 2012)

2024-05-18T11:17:01Z

by Peter Craig
Publication Date 2013-02-20 2013-09-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003500-E003599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375778375778
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon Military surgeon
Details Albert Patrick ('Paddy') Dignan was a former director of Army surgery. He was a remarkable character who was born into a modest family in Dublin. His father, Joseph, a tailor, was able to get all five of his sons through medical school. (Whether an ability to stitch can be inherited remains open to speculation.) Joseph Dignan had worked in the War Office during the First World War collating casualty lists, and had concluded that doctors were less likely to die during wars. Patrick won a medical scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin, which certainly eased the financial burden on his parents. Unusually, he became an anatomy demonstrator as a student and from that time decided to pursue a career in surgery, qualifying in 1943 and proceeding to the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1947. In order to supplement his income after qualifying he became a GP's assistant, sending much of his income to his family back in Ireland. He was then a resident surgical officer at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, a registrar in Wigan, and a senior registrar at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and at Wanstead Hospital, London. He then carried out his National Service, going to Malaya as a surgical specialist in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Emergency, with the rank of captain, subsequently major. He had been under no compunction to sign on, being Irish, but decided to do so anyway and his efforts there culminated in his award of an MBE in 1952. It was during that tour of duty that he met his future wife Eileen (Helena née White), who happened to be designated as his theatre sister. Their first meeting was less than immediately convivial. She had been ambushed by Malayan insurgents in a convoy on the way to the hospital and she had arrived late and in a not unsurprisingly dishevelled state. Patrick had been raring to start his list and gave her a strong ticking off. After a transient look at civilian practice, he made the decision that the excitement of military surgery prevailed and he re-joined in December 1953 as a regular Army doctor. During the next eight years he served primarily in military hospitals in Germany, but for a short period in Cyprus during the Suez Crisis of 1956. On a posting to the British Military Hospital Singapore in 1961 he began publishing papers on exotic surgical cases in consequence of tropical diseases. On his return to Tidworth in Hampshire, he took a great interest in the prevailing surgical treatment of peptic ulcers and gained an MD for his work on this topic. This was by no means easy, working as he was in a military hospital, with no direct university back-up support. During his penultimate tour, by then a brigadier in Singapore, and as a consultant surgeon to the Army in the Far East, he visited Vietnam at the height of the war in 1969 and became very impressed by the benefits of the evacuation of wounded soldiers by helicopter. There were others in the Army at that time who also realised this need, and helicopters were unofficially used in Borneo, Oman and Northern Ireland, despite the Ministry of Defence's continued refusal to sign up to the idea of medical helicopter evacuation. It is perhaps interesting to note that in both Iraq and Afghanistan this became standard practise, with evacuation hugely enhanced by on-board resuscitation teams. Patrick was, like many of his military colleagues, prescient. On his promotion to major general in 1974 as director of Army surgery, he was able to continue with his surgical practice at the Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital at Millbank, rather than become just an administrator, a move that enhanced his position with junior staff. In truth, he was more than happy to flee the headquarters of the Army Medical Services on a regular basis to avoid the persistent intrusion of a whole crowd of junior non-medical administrative officers attempting to introduce quite nonsensical bright ideas that had no proven evidence-based support. This was his last military appointment and he retired from the Army in 1978. In the same year he was appointed as an accident and emergency consultant at the newly-opened Ealing Hospital in west London, but was unhappy and resigned after 18 months. He concluded that the ways of the Defence Medical Services, with its recognised chain of command, bore no relation to the NHS as it was operating at that time. This was followed by 10 very happy years as president of the medical boards, based at the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital in Woolwich. Paddy was a sharp rather than blunt dissector, but his results were always very good. His compassion for his patients on the oncology/cancer unit at Millbank and bedside manner was unparalleled and much admired. He was the most concerned and kind clinician one could imagine. His dealings with some particularly ill-disciplined junior surgeons was robust; in one case he was threatened by a disgruntled young surgeon, who nearly thumped him. His comment after that interview was that 'it had been difficult'. His autobiography *A doctor's experiences of life* (Edinburgh, Pentland Press, 1994) was less than accurate, which is perhaps a pity. While writing about some very frightening surgical emergencies, he sometimes neglected to credit the other people who had been directly involved. Outside medicine, he was enthusiastic about horse racing and golf. At the latter, he was frankly a menace. One incident ended up being reported in the *The Straits Times* in Singapore, when his driver ended up 30 feet up a tree and had to be rescued by his caddy. He also managed to hit a series of other golfers with his wayward shots. He was great fun to be with and his conversation was always engaging, incorporating a mixture of humour, sagacity and utter nonsense, almost one after the other. Sadly his wife Eileen died in 2001, and he ended his days happy in the Priory Home in Tetbury, from where he was able to go for a pint and place the odd bet. He died on 11 October 2012, at the age of 92, and was survived by his sons, Terence and Fergus, and daughter, Finola. He was a consummate surgeon and a thoroughly delightful colleague, who gave the most superb and genuine support to all his patients, and was basically a very gentle, kind and considerate man. The idea of a gentle director of Army surgery seems somehow out of place, but was, in this case, correct.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003595
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Watson, Alan Jardine (1905 - 1993)

2024-05-18T11:17:01Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008300-E008399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380544380544
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon Military surgeon Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Alan Jardine Watson was born on 2 December 1905. He received his medical education at the Middlesex Hospital and qualified with the conjoint diploma in 1927. He graduated MB BS two years later. He served in the RAMC from 1942 to 1946 in North Africa, Italy and Britain. After the second world war he worked at the Middlesex Hospital and the British Postgraduate Medical School, before being appointed director of accident services in Coventry and consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Coventry and South Warwickshire from 1939 to 1966. An obituary in the *British Medical Journal* by J H Penrose says: 'Within two years of being appointed director of accident services and consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital in 1939, Alan Jardine saw the hospital almost completely destroyed in the air raids on the city. After his demobilisation from the army he returned to Coventry and set about rebuilding an accident service in hastily reconstructed buildings in the bombed out hospital. 'With the advent of the NHS he was appointed a member of Birmingham Regional Hospital Board and served on this for nine years, during which time he helped to plan Coventry's new hospital at Walsgrave. The accident and orthopaedic departments remained at the old hospital and, under his guidance and with the gradual opening of new facilities, had grown into a highly efficient unit by the time he retired. 'A bachelor, Alan had a keen sense of humour and was a charming and genial host who enjoyed entertaining friends at his home. He also enjoyed music and foreign travel, but in recent years a slowly progressive illness gradually deprived him of all his main interests.' He died on 17 January 1993, survived by his sister Margaret.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008361
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kirby, Norman George (1926 - 2019)

2024-05-18T11:17:01Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2019-09-16 2019-09-20
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation Military surgeon Trauma surgeon Accident and emergency surgeon
Details Major general Norman Kirby was a military surgeon and director of clinical services, accidents and emergencies, at Guy’s Hospital, London. *On wings of healing* (Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood & Sons) by Howard Cole is the definitive account of the airborne medical services from their beginning in 1940 to 1960. It was published in 1963, in a maroon binding reflecting the regimental colours of the airborne forces. On page 218, Cole records that on 5 November 1956, during the Suez Crisis, a parachute surgical team led by the unit surgeon, captain Norman Kirby, dropped on El Gamil airport in Egypt and set up a casualty collecting post and operating theatre. Kirby was soon busily engaged. This particular conflict, Operation Musketeer, described by Kirby as ‘a political disaster but a surgical success’, brought to a conclusion the story of the beginnings of airborne medical services as told in the book. Norman Kirby, having entered the annals of British military surgical history, went on to serve it and the cause of trauma management in the United Kingdom for decades to come. Norman Kirby was born on 19 December 1926 in Coventry, the son of George William Kirby and Laura Kirby née Sparrow. He went to school at King Henry VIII School in Coventry and subsequently studied medicine at Birmingham University, qualifying in 1949. That year he married Cynthia Mary Bradley, commencing a long and happy marriage that produced a son, Robert, who also became a surgeon, and a daughter, Jill, a broadcaster and travel writer. Norman’s surgical training was undertaken in the NHS at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Birmingham Accident Hospital and two years at the Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital, London, as well as in Army hospitals. He gained his FRCS in 1964. The early awakenings of the military side of his career first blossomed in 1948 when he became a member of the Territorial Army whilst still a student. After qualification, he became regimental medical officer to 10th Parachute Regiment and, following two years National Service, he decided to stay in the regular armed forces. In the subsequent years, he had plenty of opportunity to exercise his skills in trauma management coping with, amongst others, treating EOKA terrorist casualties in Cyprus and casualties of the officer’s mess bomb in Aldershot in 1972. In 1978, he was made director of Army surgery and honorary surgeon to the Queen and elevated to the rank of major general. He received the OBE in 1971 and the Order of Saint John in 1977. After leaving the Army in 1982, following a highly successful career, he returned to civilian life and the NHS as head of the accident and emergency department at Guy’s Hospital. He might have thought that this appointment would be busy but straightforward and surgically based, as indicated by his title of accident and emergency surgeon, but he soon found his experience of managing military casualties was also required in civilian life, dealing with casualties from terrorist bombs, train accidents and civilian disasters, notable amongst which was the sinking of the *Marchioness* boat on the River Thames (in 1989). The year 1992 was especially taxing, with three terrorist bomb explosions in the city centre and the London Bridge rail crash. His and his staff’s exemplary and kindly management of the victims of the Cannon Street rail disaster in 1991 was brought to the attention of the House of Lords by Lord McColl during a debate on the provision of major accident services in London. In subsequent years, it soon became apparent that his management skills and diplomacy were also needed in the machinations surrounding the ultimately successful transition of his specialty from being ‘casualty’, as represented by the Casualty Surgeons’ Association, to the newly-named, independent specialty of accident and emergency medicine with its own Royal College. He used his considerable experience to help bring this transition about, even though it is possible that personally he would have preferred to be a trauma surgeon in one of the newly developing centralised trauma centres of which he approved. He retired from Guy’s in 1993. Throughout the two principal phases of his career, he was heavily involved in educational activities. He edited and wrote several books on disasters and emergencies, including the 1981 edition of the *Field surgery pocket book* (London, HMSO), treasured by generations of military surgeons, and gave lectures on the management of injury and disasters in the United Kingdom and overseas. He was an examiner for the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England and of Edinburgh. He was also active in medical societies and livery companies, holding office in many. Needless to say, he received honorary fellowships from colleges and learned societies. He was particularly proud of the award of the Mitchener medal by the Royal College of Surgeons in 1982. Norman Kirby died on 25 July 2019 aged 92. Predeceased by his wife, he was survived by his son and daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009643
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Harold Spencer (1924 - 1999)

2024-05-18T11:17:01Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008400-E008499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380666380666
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon Military surgeon
Details Harold Brown was born at Lostwithiel, Cornwall, on 7 August 1924 and educated at Truro School. He trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital, qualifying in 1949. After house surgeon appointments, including obstetrics and orthopaedics, he joined the RAMC in March 1952. Initially on National Service, he was appointed to a regular commission in 1954. Following a surgical rotation at the Royal Herbert and Queen Alexandra's Military Hospitals and the Royal Army Medical College, he was graded as a surgical specialist and posted to the British Military Hospital at Kamunting, Malaya, during the internal troubles. He was awarded the General Service medal with the clasp 'Malaya'. During this time he was actively engaged in a wide range of military surgery, including treating active war wounds and was promoted to Major. He returned to the Royal Army Medical College for the senior officers' course, during which he passed the FRCS in 1959 and was graded as a senior specialist. Service in the British Army of the Rhine followed at the busy British Military Hospitals in Hostert, Munster and Rinteln. At Rinteln he was appointed as a consultant by the armed services consultant approval board, made officer in charge of the surgical division, and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. In 1965, he returned to Malaya to the British Military Hospital at Terendak. Here he was officer in charge of the surgical division, but, as the troubles had ceased, life was quieter. He was then posted to the Cambridge Military Hospital Aldershot in 1967, a busy hospital serving a large garrison, including the Parachute Brigade. This appointment introduced him to a wider range of trauma. He decided to retire on retired pay in 1969 and return to his beloved Cornwall. He had a wide experience of general and trauma surgery, and thus was a good candidate to join the newly expanding specialty of accident and emergency. He was appointed A&E consultant to the Royal Cornwall Hospital at Truro, where he was able to revitalise the department. He retired in 1989, remaining in Truro. He was a keen sailor and sailed his yachts from the River Fowey. A long distance walker, he walked the Cornish coastal path, as well as the Western Isles of Scotland. Happily married to Barbara née Robson, she survives him with their two sons, Stephen and David. He died on 25 November 1999.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008483
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gibbons, John Robert Pelham (1926 - 1999)

2024-05-18T11:17:01Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008600-E008699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380803380803
Occupation Accident and emergency surgeon General practitioner Military surgeon Thoracic surgeon
Details John Gibbons was born in Moseley, Warwickshire, on 26 November 1926. His father, Leonard Norman Gibbons, who had been severely gassed in the trenches during the First World War, later became legal adviser to the Birmingham Gas Board. His mother was Gladys Elizabeth née Smith, a secretary. John was educated at Moseley Grammar School and Pates' School, Cheltenham, before enlisting in the ranks of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in 1944. He was then commissioned in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and, while on active service with them in Palestine, he had his first experience of battlefield casualties. He later transferred to the Guards Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, leaving Palestine for Egypt by road on the last day of the British Mandate on 14 May 1948. On completing his service, he went to Leeds Medical School, where he gained prizes in anaesthesia and clinical medicine and won the Brotherton scholarship, qualifying in 1954. He then worked as a registrar at Leeds General Hospital and also helped his brothers-in-law run their general practice. He obtained the FRCS diploma in 1960 and later, when senior registrar at the National Heart Hospital, he was one of the team who carried out the first heart transplant in the United Kingdom. He was appointed locum senior lecturer and consultant at King's College Hospital, following which he became a consultant in accident and emergency medicine at the Royal Free Hospital. This led on to his definitive appointment as surgeon to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. He managed to combine his medical career with territorial services in the Army, from 1948 to the day of his death. In Northern Ireland he was honorary surgeon to the Army and medical officer of the 10th Battalion of the Ulster Defence Regiment. He also served with the Royal Tank Regiment, the Warwickshire Yeomanry, Leeds Rifles and the Parachute Regiment, where in the late 1960's he commanded a company until it was decided he should be transferred to the RAMC. He was president of the Northern Ireland branch of the Parachute Regiment Association. During the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s, when Britain was supporting Iraq, Gibbons was asked to go to Basra to help treat the wounded and organise the evacuation of some casualties to British hospitals. He was subsequently decorated by Iraq for his work during the conflict. He served as consultant thoracic surgeon to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast between 1977 and 1993, becoming the pre-eminent British authority on crush, blast and missile wounds of the chest. This led to the award of a Hunterian Professorship in 1984. He published widely on chest injuries and oesophageal surgery, enjoyed teaching his juniors and acknowledged the influence of Digby Chamberlain and John Goligher in both his training and in his surgical practice. In his younger days, John had played rugby football, gaining his university colours at Headingley, and also playing for Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derby, as well as the Territorial Army. He was also interested in shooting, travelling, railways, good food and wine. In 1952 he married Marie-Jeanne Brookes, a teacher, and they had four sons and two daughters, two of the sons being doctors.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008620
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset