Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Cardiovascular surgeon

First Title value, for Searching McAlpine, Wallace Arnold (1920 - 2021)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2021-05-05
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
Occupation Anatomist Cardiovascular surgeon Thoracic surgeon
Details Wallace McAlpine was a thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon who worked in Toledo, Ohio. 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
Resource Identifier RCS: E009964
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Innes, Bruce Jeremy Maitland (1934 - 2017)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2020-08-12
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009700-E009799
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon
Details Bruce Innes chief of surgery at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, Virginia, USA. 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
Resource Identifier RCS: E009783
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Shumacker, Harris B (1908 - 2009)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2015-09-14 2018-07-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380235380235
Occupation Cardiac surgeon Cardiovascular surgeon General surgeon
Details Harris B Shumacker was chairman of the department of surgery at Indiana University and a pioneer of cardiovascular surgery. He was born on 20 May 1908 in Laurel, Mississippi, the son of Harris Blumenthal Shumacker and Corinne Selma Shumacker née Teller. He attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Vanderbilt University, and completed his medical studies at Johns Hopkins University. He trained in surgery at Johns Hopkins under Alfred Blalock then, from 1936 to 1938, he was an instructor in surgery at Yale University. He subsequently moved back to Johns Hopkins, where he was an instructor from 1938 to 1941. In 1942, he joined the US Army and fought in the Pacific during the Second World War. Following his demobilisation in 1946, he became an associate professor at Yale. In 1948, he was appointed as the third chairman of the department of surgery at Indiana University's School of Medicine and served in that role until 1968. Here he established an internationally renowned department with a particular interest in cardiovascular surgery. After his retirement from Indiana University, he became a professor and special adviser at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland. He performed the first open heart surgeries in Indiana and worked to develop synthetic grafts for valve and blood vessel replacement. He described sympathectomy for frostbite and, with Harold King, was the first to describe post-splenectomy infection and sepsis. He also worked on the early development of the artificial heart. Shumacker was the author or co-author of nearly 600 papers and wrote 50 monographs or chapters in textbooks. He was either president or chairman of most of the leading surgical societies in the United States. In December 1933, he married Myrtle (known as 'Myrtie') E Landau. They had two sons, Peter and James, and six grandchildren. Myrtie died in 1992 and Shumacker married Grace. He died on 14 November 2009 at the age of 101.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008052
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Linder, Fritz (1912 - 1995)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008100-E008199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380329380329
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon General surgeon
Details Fritz Linder was born in Breslau in 1912 where his father occupied the house of Miculicz. He started to study medicine there, and after four years came to England to do his fifth year in Bristol, returning to qualify and practise in Germany. Linder served in the German Medical Corps throughout the second world war on the Russian Front. After the war he returned to Heidelberg under Bauer, the successor of Kirschner, went on in 1951 to become Professor of Surgery in the Free University of Berlin, and came back to Heidelberg in 1962. He made major contributions to cardiovascular surgery, and was responsible for infusing many of the British and North American traditions of teaching into the German system. He was President of the German Surgical Society, Vice President of the International Federation of Surgical Colleges and President of the International Society of Surgery. He died some time before the end of 1995.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008146
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching D'Souza, Edward Paul (1935 - 2010)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2011-12-09 2014-03-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373885373885
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon Thoracic surgeon
Details Edward D'Souza was a thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon at Dakota Midland Hospital in the USA. He was born in Panjim, Goa on 19 July 1935 to Gerado Bruno D'Souza who worked in communications and his wife, Maria Orfelinda. He qualified MB,BS at the Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College, Parel, Bombay in 1961 after internship training at the KEM Hospital. In June that year he took up a 6 month surgical residency at Walsall Manor Hospital in the UK and followed this by posts throughout the country including Bolton, Sheffield, Scunthorpe, Altringham, Birmingham and Cornwall. Further experience was gained by a variety of locum jobs in London, St Albans and Northern Ireland. Before passing the College fellowship in 1969, he took various postgraduate courses at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. Early in the 1970's he worked in London at the National Heart Hospital, Great Ormond Street and the Brompton Chest Hospital. Moving to the USA in late 1971 he was appointed fellow in cardiovascular surgery at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, working with Denton R Cooley, the distinguished heart surgeon who founded the Institute in 1962. In 1973 he started the first cardiovascular unit in South Dakota at the Dakota Midland Hospital in Aberdeen and performed the first coronary by-pass surgeries in the state. He was a member of numerous local and international medical associations and a founder member of the Denton Cooley Cardiovascular Society. He married Heather Muriel on 9 July 1965 in Abadan, Iran. They had three children; David Joseph (born 20 March 1966) who became a software engineer for Microsoft, Sharon Megan Gburek (18 June 1967) and Dougal Nigel (5 July 1968). Both his younger children qualified MD from the University of Chicago and, at the time of his death, Sharon was in private practice in Scottsville, Arizona and Dougal was practising surgery in Chicago. In his youth D'Souza had been very athletic - in spite of suffering from undiscovered polio in childhood - enjoying soccer, grass hockey and running. Later interests were ballroom dancing, music and reading. He died, aged 75, on 7 September 2010 in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001702
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Chandra, Tara (1925 - 1998)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008500-E008599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380703380703
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon General surgeon
Details Tara Chandra was principal of the Kanpur Medical College, India. He was born on 25 August 1925, in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh state, and received his medical education at KG Medical College, Lucknow, gaining 16 medals and prizes, and coming first in the final MB BS. After junior posts in Lucknow, he passed his masters in surgery in 1949 and went to England for further training. He won the Hallett prize in 1951, only the third Indian to win that distinction and passed the final in the same year. He returned to Lucknow in 1952 as associate professor of surgery, and in 1963 was appointed professor and head of the department of surgery at the GSVM Medical College, Kanpur, and later at Meerut. He returned to the UK as a Commonwealth fellow to train in cardiovascular surgery. He became principal of the Kanpur Medical College and dean of the faculty of medicine. He held many distinguished offices in the International College of Proctology, the *Indian Journal of Surgery* and the quarterly *Journal of Medical Sciences*. He was President of the Indian Medical Association (Uttar Pradesh State) and the Association of Surgeons of India in 1983. He was an outstanding teacher, administrator and organiser. He left a wife, one son and three daughters. He died on 15 May 1998.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008520
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Golebiowski, Adam (1914 - 1998)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

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/380811380811
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon General surgeon Thoracic surgeon
Details 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 conditions until he was released to join the Polish Free Forces in 1942. He served in Italy as a medical officer and was awarded the Virtuti Militari, the equivalent of our VC for his gallantry at the battle of Monte Cassino. He was at that time a Lieutenant commanding the II Medical Platoon, 5th Medical Company, part of the 5th Kresowa Infantry Division, which was part of the 2 Polish Corps. The citation states that "He showed outstanding bravery and by his manner saved many lives and was a shining example to his subordinates." He arrived in England via France in 1946 and started surgical training under the aegis of Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors, becoming RSO at the London Chest Hospital. In 1951 he was appointed RSO and deputy superintendent at Preston Hall Hospital, a sanatorium in Maidstone, where he worked under the supervision of visiting consultants who rapidly recognised his surgical skills. Gradually, he took over most of the surgical work, was promoted to consultant status and became superintendent. He was awarded the FRCS *ad eundem*. Adam was a respected member of the Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. Jo, his wife of 22 years, predeceased him. There were no children. He died on 15 November 1998, following a stroke.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008628
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Borst, Hans Georg (1927 - 2022)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2022-10-13
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010100-E010199
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon Thoracic surgeon Cardiac surgeon Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details Hans Georg Borst, head of the division of cardiothoracic and vascular surgery at Hannover Medical School, Germany was an internationally renowned cardiovascular surgeon who made major contributions to the surgical treatment of aortic aneurysm and aortic dissections, and to the development of cardiac transplantation. He was born on 17 October 1927 in Munich, the son of Max Borst, the influential chairman of pathology at Munich University, and Margarete Borst. Borst attended school in Munich until early 1945, when he joined the Luftwaffe and subsequently spent six months in a British prisoner of war camp. On his return home, he finished his schooling, taking his final examinations (abitur) at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria in 1947. He then worked as a labourer on a construction site for six months, a prerequisite for matriculation at the faculty of medicine, Munich University. After finishing his pre-clinical training in Munich, he transferred to Harvard Medical School in 1950, entering the second-year class and graduating in 1953. He was an intern in Emile Holman’s department of surgery at Stanford Hospital in San Francisco and then, from 1954 to 1956, a fellow in the department of physiology at Harvard School of Public Health, working with James L Whittenberger, Stanley Sarnoff, Erik Berglund and Jeremiah ‘Jere’ Mead. Here he produced seven papers on the developing fields of invasive cardiology and cardiac surgery. In late 1956 he returned to Germany and joined Rudolf Zenker at Marburg University. He applied his knowledge of the pathophysiology of extracorporeal circulation and was responsible for setting up extracorporeal circulation for the first open-heart procedures performed in Germany. His research resulted in two experimental papers on the combined use of the heart lung machine and moderate as well as deep hypothermia. In 1958 he moved to Munich University, following Zenker, who had been appointed chair of surgery, and completed his general surgical as well as thoracic and cardiovascular residencies there. In 1962 Borst presented his dozenten thesis on ‘The combination of extracorporeal circulation and hypothermia’, which was honoured with the von Langenbeck prize by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chirurgie (the Germany Society for Surgery). While completing his residences, his interest was focused on thoracic aortic aneurysm. In 1963 he was the first surgeon to operate on the aortic arch in deep hypothermia and circulatory arrest. His laboratory work at that time dealt with myocardial blood flow during assisted circulation and induced ventricular fibrillation. In April 1968 he was appointed chairman of the department of surgery at the newly founded medical school of Hannover, and in 1971 he became head of the division of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery there. During the succeeding years, Borst and his department focused on several research topics, including: the consequences of temporary coronary occlusion; the effect of collateral blood flow in conjunction with cardioplegia; coronary and cerebral air embolism; the use of fibrin adhesive in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery; studies of the spinal cord during aortic cross clamping; and the preservation of the heart and lung in conjunction with transplantation. At Hannover he developed a large-scale operative programme in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery. Aside from the by then conventional surgery for valve and coronary heart disease, he and his department published extensively on: oesophagectomy for carcinoma of the oesophagus; thoracic aneurysms, especially new technologies in arch surgery; total correction of congenital anomalies in infancy; antiarrhythmic surgery; and clinical heart, heart lung and lung transplantation. In 1983 he and his colleagues introduced the ‘elephant trunk’ technique, a surgical aortic replacement for patients suffering from extensive aortic diseases. The technique helped to reduced complications during the repair of aortic aneurysms by performing a staged procedure. He was a founding member of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Thorax-, Herz- und Gefäßchirurgie (the German Society for Thoracic, Cardiac and Vascular Surgery) and cofounded the European Association for Cardiothoracic Surgery (EACTS). The EACTS Hans G Borst award for thoracic aortic surgery is named in his honour. From 1978 to 1987 he was editor of *Thoraxchirurgie*. Under his leadership the journal was renamed *The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon*, was published in English and expanded to include cardiac surgery. In 1987 he was appointed as the founder editor of *The European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery*, the official journal of EACTS. He wrote more than 400 peer-reviewed papers and contributed to nearly 50 books. He was a member of many international associations and societies, including the British Cardiac Society, the Cardiothoracic Society (Pete’s Club, London), the Sociedad de Cardiocirujanos, Spain, the Société de Chirurgie Thoracique et Cardio-Vasculaire de Langue Française, the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, the American Surgical Association, the International Society for Cardiovascular Surgery and the International Society for Heart Transplantation. In 1987 he received the Erich Lexer prize of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chirurgie for his work on cardiac transplantation. He became an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1989. Borst was married to Petra Angelika. They had four children – Mathias, Verena, Stefanie and Valerie – and nine grandchildren. Borst died on 8 September 2022. He was 94.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010163
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Graham, Alexander Joseph Paul (1921 - 1999)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

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/380821380821
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon General surgeon
Details Alexander Graham was born at Witbank, Transvaal, South Africa, on 15 February 1921. His father, Alexander Chimes Graham, was a mine manager. His mother, Mary Josephine McKenna, was the daughter of Joe McKenna, the mine captain who assisted Winston Churchill in his escape from the Transvaal during the Boer War. Alexander was educated at Prior Park College, Bath, and at Guy's. After junior appointments, he was lecturer in surgery in Edinburgh to Sir James Learmonth, and then registrar to Lord Brock at Guy's. He subsequently went to the Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith under Ian Aird. After working with Henry Swan in Denver, Colorado, and Michael de Bakey at Houston, he went to Salisbury, Rhodesia (as it was then called), to set up their cardio-thoracic unit. He was the first to practice open-heart surgery in Central Africa. He was active in Rhodesian politics and the activities of the church. He married Alison Mary Brydone in 1947, she was a doctor who was the daughter of James Marr Brydone of London, and god-daughter of Lady Bland-Sutton. They had two daughters, one a doctor, and two sons. He died on 17 August 1999.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008638
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Lawrence, Kingsley (1924 - 2001)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008700-E008799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380911380911
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon Specialist in addiction medicine Thoracic surgeon
Details Kingsley Lawrance was born in London on 22 July 1924, into a Quaker family. His father, Henry, was a builder and contractor. His mother was Elsie Ruth née Ramsbotham. He was educated at Highgate School, from which he went to St Bartholomew's, qualifying in 1946. After a year on the house at Bart's, he went to Birmingham as a lecturer in anatomy, to study for and pass the FRCS. Despite his Quaker convictions, he felt he should offer his medical services, and did his National Service in the RAFVR, reaching the rank of squadron leader. On demobilisation, he underwent training in thoracic surgery at the Brompton Hospital and St Bartholomew's, where he was much influenced by Lord Brock, J B Hume and A H Hunt. In 1955, he was appointed senior registrar to Phillip Allison at the General Infirmary at Leeds, who, in 1957, sent him to the National Heart Institute, Bethesda, as a visiting scientist to study the new methods of cardiac by-pass, then being introduced. In 1961, he returned to the United States as an associate in surgery at the Indiana University Medical Center, Indianapolis, moving on to be clinical instructor in surgery at the University of California San Diego in 1969. There he was in private practice in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery for a decade, but began a period of alcohol addiction, for which he was successfully treated. Thereafter, he specialised in addiction medicine, undergoing further training and passing the appropriate boards. He married Alison Frances née Mallett in 1952, by whom he had two sons, Simon and Nicolas, and one daughter, Karen. There are three grandchildren. This marriage ended in divorce in 1980. He married for a second time, to Patricia Nelson, in 1992, but the marriage also ended in divorce within a year. He was close to his stepson, Evan. He died on 10 June 2001 in San Diego, California.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008728
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Cooley, Denton (1920 - 2016)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by O H Frazier
Publication Date 2019-12-18 2020-03-10
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon Cardiothoracic surgeon
Details Denton A Cooley was an innovative cardiovascular surgeon and founder of the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, Texas. He was born in Houston on 22 August 1920 to Mary Fraley Cooley and a prominent local dentist, Ralph Clarkson Cooley. His grandfather, Daniel Denton Cooley, was a successful Houston real estate developer. After graduating from Houston’s San Jacinto High School in 1937, Denton Cooley received his undergraduate training at the University of Texas at Austin. Being 6’4” and a talented basketball player, he was a key contributor to the team’s Southwest Conference championship win in 1939. Cooley would later say that basketball taught him the importance of practise, which later helped him develop his surgical skills, and of improving dexterity (as a surgical trainee, he would practise tying knots inside a matchbox), as well as ‘skills for coping with loss and disappointment,’ which he felt were important to his success as a surgeon. Cooley began his undergraduate studies intending to become a dentist like his father, but while visiting a doctor friend working at an emergency room, he learned to stitch wounds, and he subsequently changed his course of study from predental to premedical. In 1944, he received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins Medical School, where he then became a surgical intern for the pioneering congenital heart surgeon Alfred Blalock and participated in the first Blalock-Taussig ‘blue-baby’ operation – a successful treatment for an otherwise fatal condition. Later, after losing a patient to ventricular fibrillation during an emergency operation, Cooley designed a defibrillator that was used clinically at Johns Hopkins for almost a decade. Cooley went to London in 1950 to serve as a senior surgical registrar at the Brompton Hospital under the tutelage of Lord Russell Brock and Oswald Tubbs. There he participated in several ‘Brock operations’ – beating-heart procedures performed to treat congenital pulmonary valve stenosis. Cooley considered this an invaluable experience. He returned to Houston in 1951 to take a faculty position at Baylor College of Medicine’s department of surgery, under the leadership of Michael E DeBakey. While at Baylor, Cooley made many contributions to the field of cardiovascular surgery. Prominent among them was his groundbreaking work (with DeBakey) in repairing aortic aneurysms. He also, in 1957, performed the first successful carotid endarterectomy. Cooley had the opportunity to observe open-heart surgery for the first time in June 1955, when he visited pioneering heart surgeon C Walton Lillehei at the University of Minnesota. Lillehei was the first to perform meaningfully successful open-heart surgery, using cross-circulation to support paediatric patients undergoing repair of congenital heart defects (by connecting the patient’s circulatory system to that of a parent, which supported the patient during the operation). Upon returning to Houston, Cooley built a cardiopulmonary bypass machine from parts salvaged from a restaurant-supply store and performed Houston’s first successful open-heart operation in April 1956. That year, Cooley’s results in 95 open-heart surgery cases were the best in the world. This resulted in a large influx of patients, making Houston, Texas a leading centre for cardiovascular surgery. This success was attributable to Cooley’s speed and precision as a surgeon; he told his trainees that when a patient goes on the heart-lung machine, they begin to die, stressing the importance of speed in applying this technology. Because of his unparalleled experience, Cooley made many technical contributions to the field of cardiovascular surgery, participating in as many as 33 ‘firsts’. In 1961, he became the first surgeon to perform open-heart surgery on a Jehovah’s Witness. Initially, heart-lung machines were primed with blood, but in this case, Cooley substituted a 5% dextrose solution. By avoiding the use of blood as a prime, and thus reducing the amount of donated blood required, the number of open-heart procedures that could be performed increased exponentially. After the introduction of heart transplantation, Cooley performed the first successful heart transplant in the United States in May 1968. He performed 20 more such transplants – more than any other surgeon in the world at the time. Importantly, Cooley successfully implanted the first total artificial heart as a bridge to transplant in April 1969. His pioneering work in cardiac replacement continued with implanting the first left ventricular assist device as a bridge to transplant in 1978 and a second total artificial heart as a bridge to transplant in 1981. Cooley was also one of the initial premier heart valve surgeons. He developed his own heart valve in the mid-1960's, and he worked closely with Lillehei to introduce the standard-of-care bileaflet valves that are in widespread use today. Stemming from his many technical contributions to the field of cardiac surgery, he published more than 1,400 peer-reviewed articles in the medical literature. Cooley’s contributions to cardiovascular surgery were not solely technical. He was instrumental in introducing managed healthcare plans to cardiovascular services billing, which was an important step toward addressing the high cost of cardiac surgical procedures in the US. In 1962, while still a member of the Baylor faculty, Cooley founded the Texas Heart Institute: a dedicated research and education institution that was affiliated with St Luke’s Episcopal Hospital and Texas Children’s Hospital. Cooley believed that establishing the Institute was among his most important contributions to the field of cardiac care. A source of great pride to Cooley was his work in educating surgical fellows and residents. During his career, he trained 136 cardiothoracic surgery residents and 927 cardiovascular fellows. He was also a great supporter of the universities he attended and of his home city of Houston. As a result, many facilities have been named for him, including the Denton A Cooley Recreation Center at Johns Hopkins, the Denton A Cooley MD Hall at the Texas Medical Center Library, the Houston Zoo’s Denton A Cooley Animal Hospital, the Denton A Cooley Basketball Pavilion at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Denton A Cooley MD and Ralph C Cooley DDS University Life Center at University of Texas’ school of dentistry in Houston. He received many honours for his work. In 1967, he was awarded the René Leriche prize, the International Society of Surgery’s highest honour. In 1984, US President Ronald Reagan presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. And in 1998, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Bill Clinton. The Royal College of Surgeons of England made Cooley an honorary fellow in 1988. This was a source of great pride to him, particularly because of his training and experience under Lord Brock and Oswald Tubbs. With his wife of 67 years, former Johns Hopkins nurse Louise Goldborough Thomas, Cooley had five daughters, 16 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. Outside of Houston in Orchard, Texas, he built Cool Acres Ranch, a vacation home that became the site of many family gatherings. He continued performing open-heart operations until his early eighties. In his lifetime, his surgical group at St Luke’s completed more than 120,000 procedures with the use of cardiopulmonary bypass – more than any other team in the world. Lillehei, considered by many to be the premier cardiovascular surgeon of his time, once said that it was Cooley who deserved that title because of his early success with using cardiopulmonary bypass, rather than the cross-circulation technique Lillehei used, to support patients during the surgical correction of intracardiac defects. Denton Cooley died on 18 November 2016. He was 96.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009678
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Arnulf, Georges ( - 1995)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007700-E007799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379979379979
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon
Details In his citation at the admission of Professor Arnulf to the Honorary Fellowship, Professor John Kinmonth said: 'Mr President, it is a pleasure to introduce you to my friend, Dr Georges Arnulf, of Lyon. Georges Arnulf is held in high esteem in France. He is a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. He is a holder of the Croix des Combattants Volontaires, which is the decoration for outstanding work in the Resistance. He is also Officier des Palmes Académiques. His surgical appointments include those of Chirurgien des Hôpitaux de Lyon and Chief of the Surgical Service of the Claude Bernard Clinic. He is Professor in the University of Lyon. 'Georges qualified and did his surgical training in Lyon. He was introduced to surgical research by early contact with Alexis Carrel, the Nobel laureate who had been responsible for the pioneer work on arterial repair and organ transplantation. Later he worked closely with Réné Leriche who, I might recall to you, was also one of the great surgeons from France who have been honorary Fellows of this College. (q.v. *Lives* 1952-64, p.209). 'In the second world war Arnulf cared for the wounded in the retreat in Northern France in the bad days of 1940 and was taken prisoner on the Loire. After caring for the wounded he escaped to resume civilian surgery. He soon became secretly involved in work for the Resistance when a combatant with a severe vertebral wound was brought to him for treatment. He operated and helped this patient, and others followed. The work included not only surgery but many other things. Members of the Resistance and escaped soldiers of France and of our army and air force were hidden, cared for, provided with false documents, and helped to escape. This was done in collaboration with London as part of the network 'le coq enchainé'. It was done at great personal risk had he been discovered. In 1944 when the tide of war turned he joined the French 1st Army and served in the upper Rhine and Danube campaigns. 'After the war Arnulf resumed surgical practice and research in the cardiovascular fields. He did pioneer experimental work in animals on lymphography, but I think his greatest contributions have been in his interest in the carotids and in the coronary vessels. He wrote excellent books on these and persevered in their study and insisted on their future importance when others denied it or were defeatist. When we see now the amount of surgery performed on the carotids and upon the coronary arteries we know that he was a prophet. 'I first met Arnulf in 1951 at Turin when he, with Leriche, dos Santos, and others, founded the European Society of Cardiovascular Surgery. I was privileged to be present in a very junior capacity at that meeting. He has since then been the chief driving force in this society, which has included all the leading cardiovascular surgeons of Europe, including two former Presidents of this College - Lord Brock and Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors. Georges Arnulf was secretary of the society for nineteen years and its President in 1971 and 1972. I believe that his energy and vision have been the chief reasons for the success of that society. It has spread knowledge and friendship between European surgeons in this field. His friendship and help in particular to British surgeons have been warm and outstanding.' Arnulf died in January 1995.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007796
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Hanlon, C Rollins (1915 - 2011)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2013-02-20 2013-05-17
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003500-E003599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375780375780
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon
Details C Rollins Hanlon, known to almost everyone as 'Rollo', was a pioneering cardiac surgeon who, through his personal charm and outstanding devotion to the American College of Surgeons, became one of the most admired and well-loved surgeons in the United States. He was born in Baltimore, the sixth of eight children, to Irish-Catholic parents, who instilled in him a love of literature and a strong religious faith, which persisted throughout his life. He attended Loyola High School and then Loyola College, majoring in classics before switching to science. He entered Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1934 and graduated in 1939. He became an intern at Hopkins and then proceeded to Cincinnati General Hospital, where he completed his surgical residency, which included a year in San Francisco learning neurosurgery. In 1944 he entered the US Navy and served in the Far East on the hospital ship *Repose*. Discharged from the Navy in 1946, he came under the influence of Alfred Blalock at Hopkins, and was appointed first to a cardiac research post and then to a residency in cardiac surgery. He became an assistant professor in 1948 and was promoted to associate professor in 1950, during which time he developed with his mentor the Blalock-Hanlon operation for transposition of the great vessels. His reputation as a cardiothoracic surgeon and innovator was established, and at the early age of 35 he was recruited as the first full-time professor in a clinical department at Saint Louis University, Missouri. Here he established a major research unit investigating the effects of denervation of the heart, then thought to be a potential barrier to cardiac transplantation. A stream of publications on this and other areas of cardiovascular research flowed from his department over the years. He was early into open heart surgery when the heart-lung machine was developed and was among the first in the US to perform open cardiac operations. During his time at St Louis he was elected president of the Society of University Surgeons, the American Society for Vascular Surgery and the Society of Clinical Surgery. He was a founding member of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and a member and then chairman of the American Board of Surgery. In 1967 Rollo was elected as a governor of the American College of Surgeons, and two years later became a regent. In 1969, at the pinnacle of his academic career, he was appointed full-time director of the American College of Surgeons, which meant him leaving Saint Louis and relocating to Chicago and Washington. The rest of his long life was spent working tirelessly to promote the College and its varied activities throughout the USA, emphasising in particular the importance of upholding the highest ethical principles in surgical practice. In 1981 he was elected president of the American Surgical Association, perhaps the highest recognition in American surgery of academic achievement and professional standing. His presidential address was titled 'The surgical presidency' (*Ann Surg*. 1982 Sep;196[3]:233-8), as befitted someone who had been president of so many organisations. It was no surprise that when he stepped down as director of the American College of Surgeons he was elected to the presidency, a post he held with distinction. For the next 25 years he acted as an unpaid executive consultant to the American College, and remained in this role until his death. He was the 'voice of continuity', and a source of wise counsel to his successors, all of whom looked to him for advice and guidance when difficult problems arose. Rollo also held the post of emeritus professor of surgery at Northwestern University, where he taught ethics to medical students, and continued to write and speak on socioeconomic issues and medical history. Unsurprisingly, he received many honorary degrees and fellowships, and in 2010 was uniquely honoured by the American College of Surgeons with the first lifetime achievement award, reflecting the esteem in which he was held. Rollo was widely read in contemporary literature, the classics and religion, and regularly laced his many lectures with literary and historical references. He was a rare example of a surgeon who had crossed the bridge between surgical science and the humanities, as a result of his lifelong study of philosophy, religion and humanism. His private life was lovingly shared with Margaret (Peg) Hammond, a paediatrician, whom he married in 1949. They had eight children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. They were a devoted couple, always seen as a pair at functions, always elegantly dressed, and were gracious hosts to visitors from around the world, especially the young. The onset of a lymphoma and the resultant chemotherapy did not detract Rollo from continuing to work daily in his office until a few weeks before his death in May 2011 at the age of 96.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003597
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching DeBakey, Michael Ellis (1908 - 2008)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Roger M Greenhalgh
Publication Date 2012-09-07 2013-09-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002800-E002899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375028375028
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon
Details Michael DeBakey was a pioneering cardiovascular surgeon. He was born on 7 September 1908 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, one of five children of Shaker and Raheeja DeBakey, Lebanese immigrants who had first gone to Canada and then Louisiana. He would refer to himself as a 'cajun', to denote this pathway. The whole family, who spoke French at home, were expected to achieve: they rose at 4am because it was considered sinful to lie in bed. His father was a pharmacist and his mother a seamstress. He liked the doctors who came into his father's shop and wished to become one of them. He did not remember a time when he was uncertain of his future occupation. He studied at Tulane University, New Orleans, where he was influenced by the surgeons Rudolph Matas and Alton Ochsner. In his spare time he became involved in research in the department of medicine. The research team wished to bypass the circulation and were making better progress with the oxygenation than with the pump mechanism. In other words, they could replicate the lungs more easily than the pumping action of the heart. DeBakey researched every kind of pump by reading journals in engineering libraries. He said that he was especially useful as he could read original works in French and in German, as well as English. Eventually he came up with the idea of what became the 'roller pump' for open heart surgery and the problem was solved, unfortunately, no one else saw so clearly the potential for this discovery. In 1935, he went to Strasbourg (to work with René 'Papa' Leriche) and Heidelberg (with Martin Kirschner). Alongside Leriche was Jean Kunlin, who was soon to do the first leg bypass, but DeBakey described Kirschner as the better technical surgeon and Leriche as a great thinker. In 1948 he became chairman of the department of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. The Methodist Hospital became his base within Baylor College of Medicine, of which he became chancellor and for which he raised huge sums of money, over $200 million. In 1953 he was to adapt Dacron to replace the abdominal aorta diseased by aneurysm. He went to a shop for ladies' undergarments, where, he said, he 'felt distinctly uncomfortable'. He took a length of Dacron home and sewed it into a tube and put it into dogs. 'It worked so I used it for humans.' The inert Dacron bypass thus came into practice and remains central to open surgical practice today, 60 years later. Cid Dos Santos (later professor in Lisbon), son of Reynaldo Dos Santos, head of surgery at the university, was asked to remove a thrombus from a femoral artery. His father gave the instruction. Cid pulled a little hard and out came part of the arterial wall and by chance, the first endarterectomy was performed, by mistake. The result was surprisingly good. DeBakey was first to use this new method on a blocked carotid artery on 8 August 1953 and this worked as well. He did not write it up for 19 years. The reason for this delay is uncertain, but he said that time needed to elapse to be sure that it was safe procedure. Felix Eastcott of St Mary's Hospital was of a similar vintage to both DeBakey and Cid Dos Santos, and reported the first carotid procedure in November 1954. The associates of DeBakey were also very distinguished, especially Denton Cooley and Dr Stanley Crawford, both of whom would not have been the men they were without the example of DeBakey. The difference was that Stanley Crawford recognised this and attributed all of his success to 'Mike'. Denton did not, and incurred Mike's wrath. Once, when visiting the president of the United States in Washington, it is alleged that DeBakey received congratulations that his centre had just put in the world's first mechanical heart. The problem was that DeBakey had forbidden Denton Cooley to use the mechanical heart, which DeBakey had declared was not yet ready. Legend has it that Cooley was sacked forthwith. However, Cooley went on to build the Texas Heart Institute, which towered over the Methodist Hospital where DeBakey worked. They did not speak for years, but were reconciled before DeBakey died. 'They were both great men and friends of mine,' said Stanley Crawford, who felt that one hospital was too small for both egos. DeBakey went on to operate on the Duke of Windsor, the Shah of Persia and President Yeltsin in Moscow. He was a celebrity and appeared on the front page of *Time* magazine. With all great people there is another side. He came over as difficult to approach, except to those that he would allow to be close. This is possibly because his attitude was that every moment had to be filled with doing something of significance. He demanded standards higher than many could achieve. He was disappointed if a resident did not have as wide an education as he had had. He demanded good results. DeBakey was indeed a great technical surgeon and had difficulty accepting that some mere mortals fell below his own very high standards. Those few who had the privilege to see DeBakey at the bedside saw a memorable doctor- patient relationship. He had a way of reassuring patients that they were now in his hands and that he would personally see to it that all would be well. The patients, doctors and nurses around him realised that he was absolutely dedicated to their wellbeing. His interaction with his patients was an object lesson that no one would ever forget. It was known by all that he was not just a great surgeon and inventor, but that his presence raised the horizons and ambitions of those around him. Michael DeBakey died on 11 July 2008 at the age of 99, just as his 100th birthday celebrations were being planned. His first wife, Diana Cooper DeBakey, died in 1972. He was also predeceased by his sons, Ernest O DeBakey and Barry E DeBakey. He was survived by his wife, Katrin, daughter Olga and sons Michael and Denis.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002845
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crafoord, Clarence (1899 - 1984)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379407379407
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon Thoracic surgeon
Details The College has no detailed record of Professor Clarence Crafoord and the following is derived from the citation given by Sir Clement Price Thomas on the occasion of Professor Crafoord's admission to the Honorary Fellowship at a College Council meeting on 13 March 1958. Some further information has been added from an article by Ivar Palmer in *Acta chirurgica scandinavica*, supplement 245, 1959. Clarence Crafoord was born on 28 May 1899 and was later regarded as something of an infant prodigy in surgery. He always had wide horizons and the catholicity of his interests was mirrored in his publications. His main interest was thoracic surgery and his greatest contributions were in the field of cardiovascular surgery. The first of the hundred contributions he made to the scientific literature was when, as a young surgeon of 28, at the Swedish Surgical Society, he reported two patients successfully operated upon for massive pulmonary embolism. This fired a lifelong interest in venous thromboembolism, and immediately heparin was isolated by his fellow countryman, Professor Jorpes, he began an intensive investigation into its use. His preliminary observations were published in 1937. During the intervening period he had been working on the problems of anaesthesia for thoracic surgery. He put on a firm scientific basis the principle of what he termed rhythmic ventilation, perfecting the anaesthetic machine which had first been devised by his old chief, Professor J.H. Giertz, with whom he worked for twenty years at the Sabbatsberg Hospital. He performed the first operation for coarctation of the aorta in 1944 and so gave real impetus to the dawning interest in cardiac surgery which then became his chief concern as he developed his service at the Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm. As a result of this work he was honoured in many lands and received the MD (honoris causa) from five foreign universities. He was an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and honorary fellow of many foreign scientific societies. He was awarded the Leriche Medal of the International Society of Surgery and was President of the European Cardiovascular Society and the International Cardiovascular Society. The celebration of Clarence Crafoord's fiftieth birthday was uniquely marked by a presentation to him, by the King of Sweden, of a large sum of money which had been publicly subscribed on a nationwide basis. This he used to finance research in his professorial department of surgery, at the University of Stockholm. Crafoord was held in high regard in his own country and, as a man who radiated friendliness, he inevitably became a globetrotter with a host of devoted friends in many lands. He died, aged 84, on 25 February 1984.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007224
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kirklin, John Webster (1917 - 2004)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372277372277
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon
Details John Kirklin, former chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, revolutionised cardiovascular surgery through his development and refinement of the heart-lung machine. Throughout his life, he sought new methods and techniques to improve the care of patients. Born in Muncie, Indiana, on 5 August 1917, his father was director of radiology at the Mayo Clinic. John earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in 1938. He then went on to Harvard, where he gained his medical degree in 1942. He completed an internship at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and then served as a fellow in surgery at the Mayo Clinic. From 1944 to 1946 he served in the US Army, with the rank of Captain. He then spent six months at the Boston Children’s Hospital. In 1950, he joined the staff of the Mayo Clinic, pioneering the development of cardiovascular surgery and performing the first operations for a range of congenital heart malformations. He also modified the Gibbon machine, improving the original pumping and oxygenator system, and performed the world’s first series of open-heart operations using a heart-lung machine. At Mayo he became chairman of the department of surgery, and trained the next generation of cardiovascular surgeons from all over the world. In 1966, Kirklin joined the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as chairman of the department of surgery and the surgeon in chief for UAB Hospital. He held these positions until 1982, during which time he built one of the most prestigious cardiovascular surgical programmes in the world. He retired from surgery in 1989. He wrote more than more than 700 publications, but he often stated that his greatest contribution was his textbook, *Cardiac surgery: morphology, diagnostic criteria, natural history, techniques, results, and indications* (Churchill Livingstone, 1956), which remains an important reference text in the field. He also served on multiple editorial boards and served as editor of *The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.* He received many awards, including the American Heart Association research achievement award (in 1976), the Rudolph Matas award in vascular surgery, the Rene Leriche prize of the International Society of Surgery and the American Surgical Association medallion for scientific achievement. In 1972 he was awarded the Lister medal by the College. Many universities awarded him honorary degrees, including the Hamline University, St Paul, Minnesota, Indiana University, Georgetown University, the University of Munich, Germany, and Bordeau and Marseille Universities, France. He was a member of more than 60 local, state, national and international associations and scientific societies, including the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (serving as President from 1978 to 1979), the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American College of Surgeons and the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. His wife Margaret Katherine was a physician. They had two sons and a daughter. The Kirklins have continued the medical tradition: his son is a cardiac surgeon and director of cardiothoracic transplantation at UAB, and his grandson is a medical student at UAB. John died on 21 April 2004 from complications from a head injury that occurred in January. The new clinic at Birmingham Alabama, designed by the world-famous architect I M Pei, is named in his honour.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000090
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Douglas, Sir Donald Macleod (1911 - 1993)

2024-04-28T02:02:14Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-07
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/380089380089
Occupation Cardiovascular surgeon General surgeon
Details Donald Macleod Douglas was born on 28 June 1911 and educated at Madras College, University of St Andrew's, where he graduated MB ChB in 1934. He became Commonwealth fellow and fellow in surgery at the Mayo Clinic from 1937 to 1939 and was then appointed first assistant in surgery at the British Postgraduate Medical School from 1939 (when he gained the Fellowship of the College) to 1941. During the second world war he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps with the 8th Army in the Middle East. He became a lieutenant colonel and was awarded the MBE in 1943. Returning to London he took up a post as senior lecturer at the British Postgraduate Medical School from 1946 to 1947. He then moved to Scotland and became reader in experimental surgery at the University of Edinburgh and deputy director of Wilkie Surgical Research Laboratories from 1947 to 1951. Appointed the first full time professor of surgery at St Andrew's University Medical School in Dundee, Donald Douglas was one of the postwar surgeons who transformed university surgery in Britain. A natural surgeon, he was skilful and courageous yet always relaxed while operating - the time that his assistants found best to ask a favour. Though a committed general surgeon, he pioneered his special interest in cardiovascular surgery while supporting the introduction of new surgical specialties. His analytical mind, which quickly unravelled a problem, made him a gifted teacher (he excelled at formal lectures) and a dedicated inquirer. His initial research in gastrointestinal physiology and shock and the use of radioisotopes in surgical research was followed by a deep interest in factors influencing wound healing, about which he wrote extensively. His realisation that it was people who were the source of wound infections stimulated work on operating theatre procedure and led to the design of ideal surgical facilities in Dundee's new teaching hospital at Ninewells, and the use of trousers by his female theatre staff. Douglas was appointed Surgeon to the Queen in Scotland in 1965, a post he held until his retirement in 1976. He was President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain from 1963 to 1964, President of the Surgical Research Society of Great Britain from 1966 to 1968 and President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1970 to 1973. He was knighted in 1972 and awarded an honorary DSc from St Andrew's University in the same year. He was also active in health service planning, and sought relaxation from his busy life in his home and garden. He loved the Scottish countryside, and joining him in his evening walk with his gun-dogs was a necessary part of an external examiner's duties. A formidable, determined and decisive man, he often managed to get committees to see his view as the only rational way forward. He was devastated when his daughter Sheena, then a house surgeon, was killed while driving home. He died on 28 January 1993, survived by his wife Diana, two sons, and one daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007906
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset