Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Colorectal surgeon

First Title value, for Searching Ward, Michael William Noel ( - 2017)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2018-05-18 2021-01-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381855381855
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Michael William Noel Ward was a general and colorectal surgeon in Enfield. He studied at Oxford University and trained in medicine at University College Hospital (UCH), London. He did house jobs at UCH and passed the fellowship of the college in 1978. A consultant general and colorectal surgeon at Chase Farm Hospital, he was a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He retired in 2013 and died on 1 October 2017.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009451
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Glick, Selwyn (1934 - 2023)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2024-01-10
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010500-E010599
Occupation General surgeon Vascular surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Selwyn Glick was a general surgeon who lived in Draguignan, France. 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: E010585
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hanson, Jonathan Mark (1968 - 2020)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 20201-02-10
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Jonathan Hanson was a general and colorectal surgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle. 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: E009918
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jamison, Michael Howard (1947 -2024)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2024-04-30
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010600-E010699
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Michael Howard Jamison was a consultant general surgeon in Bangor, Wales. 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: E010611
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Goodson, Godfrey Matthew (1918 - 1996)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2019-12-18
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Godfrey Matthew Goodson was a colorectal and general surgeon in Heretaunga, New Zealand. 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: E009685
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lindsay, Ian ( - 1992)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

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/380330380330
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Lindsay received his medical education in Edinburgh and qualified MB ChB Edinburgh in 1945. After taking the Edinburgh and English FRCS he moved to Canada, where he passed the Canadian FRCS in 1956. He practised as a general and colon and rectal surgeon at the Central Hospital, and at the Rudd Clinic, Toronto. He died on 3 April 1992.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008147
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Glenn, David Campbell (1931 - 2018)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2021-05-19
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details David Glenn was a consultant general and colorectal surgeon at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, New South Wales. 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: E009976
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Corson, John George (1926 - 2016)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2017-02-17 2020-02-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009300-E009399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381487381487
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details John George Corson was a colorectal surgeon at Sunderland Royal Hospital. He was born on 30 November 1926 in Fareham, Hampshire, the youngest son of Eric Reid Corson, a naval officer, and Marjorie Miller Corson née Winants. He was educated at Wixenford School in Wokingham, West Downs School in Winchester and then at Winchester College (from 1940 to 1944). He went on to study medicine at St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, London, qualifying in 1950. He carried out his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, in Korea and Japan, leaving with the rank of captain. Prior to his consultant appointment, he held posts at St Thomas’ Hospital and at Leicester Royal Infirmary. During his training he particularly remembered being influenced by Trevor Walter ‘Gaffer’ Mimfriss, Ernest Reginal ‘Friz’ Frizelle and Norman Barrett. Outside medicine he was interested in flying, steam engines and boats. In 1963 he married Margaret Frances Beard. They had four sons and a daughter. John George Corson died on 11 December 2016. He was 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009304
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jatzko, Gerhard Rudolf (1942 - 2002)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

First Title value, for Searching Failes, David Geoffrey (1924 - 2014)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2016-03-24 2019-04-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009000-E009099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381277381277
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details David Geoffrey Failes was a colorectal surgeon. Born on 12 March 1924 in Syndey, he was the son of Geoffrey Christopher Failes, a grazier, and his wife Vera Tawmii Caroline Failes née Perry. He was educated at Sydney Boy’s High School and, at the age of eighteen, joined the Royal Australian Air Force, serving as a sergeant from 1942 to 1945. He then attended Sydney University, graduating in 1951. In the UK he held junior posts at Ancoats Hospital in Manchester where he was much influenced by George Oliver Jelly. He passed the fellowship in 1955. On his return to Australia he became honorary surgeon to the Sydney Hospital, the Blacktown District Hospital and Parramatta District Hospital. He was also a surgical tutor at Sydney University. He married a fellow medical practitioner, Beryl Margaret Parsons, in 1959 and they had a son Tim and daughter Kate. Outside medicine he enjoyed playing tennis, golf and skiing. He died on 14 November 2014 aged 90 survived by Beryl, his children, son-in-law Tony File, and grandchildren Georgie and Luka.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009094
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Laurence, Alberto Ernest ( - 2012)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2016-05-13 2019-04-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009100-E009199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381319381319
Occupation Coloproctologist Colorectal surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Alberto Laurence was a distinguished Argentinian coloproctologist. He was born in Buenos Aires on 17 July 1915, the son of Hector Ernesto Laurence, a dentist, and Dora Catalina Laurence née Small, who died when he was a child. The family had ties to the UK: his maternal great grandfather, Harry Wells, was a vice consul in Argentina and his father was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Laurence was educated at St George’s College in Quilmes, a province of Buenos Aires, and then at the National School Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. He went on to study medicine at the University of Buenos Aires, qualifying in 1941. He carried out his internship at the Ramos Mejia Hospital, Buenos Aires and then joined the staff of the British Hospital of Buenos Aires. He was an assistant surgeon at the hospital for 22 years, then chief of the surgical service for 16 years. For two years, he was a member of the committee of management. His initial interest was in vascular surgery; in 1949, he edited a textbook on varicose veins *Varices del miembro inferior* (Buenos Aires, El Ateneo), which ran to three editions. He later transferred to coloproctology and co-edited two colorectal textbooks, one on the cancer of the rectum and sigmoid colon with Allan Murray (1967) and one on diverticular disease of the colon with Edward Donnelly (1979). He was president of the Sociedad Argentina de Coloproctología in 1954 and of the Sociedad Argentina de Gastroenterología in 1965, of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Proctología in 1972, the Academia Argentina de Cirugía in 1978 and the Asociación Argentina de Cirugía in 1982. In 2011, he received the award of master of coloproctology from the Sociedad Argentina de Coloproctología. He was a founding member and, in 1986, vice president of the International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons. He was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1989. In Latin America, he received awards from Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Peru. In 1987, he edited a book on distinguished Argentinian surgeons *Grandes figuras de la cirugica Argentina* (Editorial LEA). In retirement, he wrote an autobiography *Recuerdos de un cirujano* (Buenos Aires, Ediciones Pasco, c.2003). He married Marta Maria Oucinde in 1943 and they had two children, Gloria and Alex, and grandchildren and great grandchildren. Alberto Laurence died on 16 January 2012 at the age of 96.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009136
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Peck, Graham Sherwood (1930 - 2015)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2016-07-27 2019-11-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009100-E009199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381365381365
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Graham Sherwood Peck (also known as ‘Pecky’) was a senior surgeon at the Western General Hospital, Victoria, Australia. He was born in Melbourne on 15 May 1930. His father, Claude Russell Lemuel Peck, was a transport manager; his mother was Mary Queenie Peck née Houghton, a housewife. He attended Melbourne Church of England Grammar School and then the University of Melbourne, where he studied medicine. He qualified in 1957. While at university played cricket and Australian rules football. He held training posts at Prince Henry’s Hospital, Melbourne, where his principal tutor was S F Reid, who went on to become president of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Peck gained his FRACS in 1963 and, from 1964 to 1965, trained in the UK, with Robin Pilcher at University College Hospital, London. He became an FRCS in 1964. He returned to Australia, becoming a consultant surgeon at Prince Henry’s Hospital, Melbourne. He was head of the colorectal unit from 1974 to 1977, and established the colonoscopy service. From 1976 to 1996 he was a senior surgeon at the Western General Hospital, and head of the unit there. He also established and headed the colorectal unit at the Western. He was also an honorary senior lecturer at Monash University, clinical dean of the Western General Hospital (from 1985 to 1991) and a supervisor of registrar training (from 1991 to 1996). Outside medicine he enjoyed cricket, Australian rules football, skiing and oil painting. In 1958, he married Mary Hughes and they had two sons, Michael and Anthony. In 1979, he married Barbara Ann Lacey. They had three sons – Simon, Christopher and Nigel. Peck died in his sleep on 28 July 2015 at the age of 85 and was survived by four of his sons and seven grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009182
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Venables, Christopher Wilfred (1935 - 2019)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2019-05-03 2022-02-09
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Christopher Wilfred Venables was born on 10 March 1935 in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. He was the only son of Wilfred George Venables, the manager of a chain store, and his wife Norah née Rainey. Educated in Swindon, he attended the Commonweal and Headlands Grammar Schools and won a Wiltshire County scholarship to study medicine at London University and the Westminster Medical School. He graduated MB, BS in 1958 and was awarded two Chadwick surgical prizes. House appointments and registrar and lecturer appointments at the Westminster Hospital followed and he was strongly influenced by the work of Sir Stanford Cade and Robert Cox. After a spell as house surgeon at the Birmingham Accident Hospital, he joined the RAMC to do his National Service as a surgical specialist. In this post he travelled widely, working at the Aldershot Military Hospital, the Lagos Military Hospital in Nigeria, the Iserlohn Military Hospital in Germany and spending time in the Southern Cameroons. He also visited New York as he was awarded a surgical research fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital. He joined the staff of the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle as a consultant general surgeon and worked closely with George Young Feggeter. Eventually he developed an expertise in the field of gastroenterology, contributing several papers in that subject to various surgical journals. He also lectured in surgery at the University of Newcastle. Healthcare computing was another field in which he took a great interest. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, a member of the North East Surgical Society and a member of the British Society of Gastroenterology. In 1960 he married Anne Ferguson and they had two daughters and a son. He died on 21 March 2019 aged 84, survived by his wife, children and grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009603
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Thorlakson, Robert Henry (1923 - 2011)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2014-08-15 2014-11-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005800-E005899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378015378015
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Robert Thorlakson was a leading Winnipeg surgeon. He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the son of Paul Henrik Thorbjorn Thorlakson, a physician and chancellor of the University of Winnipeg, and his wife Gladys. Robert and his twin brother Ken were raised and educated in Winnipeg. Thorlakson served during the Second World War and went on to study medicine at the University of Manitoba, graduating with his MD in 1949. He went to the UK for postgraduate work in surgery, and gained his FRCS in 1953. He returned to Canada in 1956 and established a surgical practice at the Winnipeg Clinic, specialising in colorectal surgery. He continued to work there until his death. He was also an associate professor of surgery. He devised and modified a number of surgical operations, and designed and developed 20 surgical instruments. He was president of the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons and the Canadian Medical Association. He was a founding fellow and past president of the Canadian Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. Outside medicine, he enjoyed art and music and was an avid reader. He was an active community leader and served on the executives of many organisations. He was a founder and past president of Manitoba Opera, Opera West, the Federation of Professional Opera Companies of Canada and of the Manitoba Conservatory of Music and Arts. He was chair of the building and fundraising committees of the Chinese Cultural and Community Centre of Manitoba and the first recipient of their golden dragon award. He was vice president of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and served on the board of the Manitoba Theatre Centre and Winnipeg Habitat for Humanity. He received the Canadian Forces decoration. He was made a knight of justice of the Order of St John and an officer of the Order of Canada (1996). He died in Winnipeg on 23 February 2011 from a heart attack after a morning of surgery and an afternoon of seeing patients. He was 87. He was survived by his wife Deborah.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005832
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Clain, Allan (1922 - 2018)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by John Black
Publication Date 2018-11-20 2018-11-27
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/382104382104
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Allan Clain was a consultant general surgeon at Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham. The son of Louis Clain, an accountant, and Lily Clain née Rose, a housewife, he was born on 21 March 1922 at Muizenberg, a seaside town near Cape Town, South Africa. He qualified in medicine in 1944 from Cape Town University. He moved to England and became a senior registrar at the Metropolitan Hospital in East London and then at the Royal Cancer Hospital, where he came under the influence of Hamilton Bailey and R J McNeil Love (of textbook fame). At this time, he played for Wasps Rugby Football Club, then based in Sudbury, and cricket for South Hampstead Cricket Club. In 1962, he was appointed as a consultant at Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham. As usual for his generation, his repertoire was wide, including all of general surgery and urology plus the management of fractures but, as the consultant staff expanded under the leadership of his colleague and the RCS vice president Peter Bevan, he was mainly engaged in colorectal and anal surgery, particularly for cancers, while by no means forsaking general surgery. A particular interest was in the repair of abdominal incisional hernias using stainless steel wire, a material difficult to handle but possessing most of the characteristics of an ideal suture material, later supplanted by improved synthetic materials. He was also a pioneer of day-case surgery, converting a ward for the purpose in the 1970's before the concept became fashionable. He served as a college tutor and was a senior clinical lecturer in the University of Birmingham. In 1971 he established and ran single-handed until his retirement in 1987 the two-week Birmingham FRCS course. Using his personal charm and prestige, he persuaded consultant colleagues from all the Birmingham hospitals and surgical specialties and various national figures to join the faculty, with lectures in the mornings and clinical sessions in the afternoons for up to 32 examination candidates. His acquaintance with Hamilton Bailey, who had worked at Dudley Road in the 1930's, led to him becoming editor from 1954 to 1986 of five editions of the eponymous *Demonstrations of physical signs in clinical surgery* (Bristol, John Wright & Sons). He wrote his own book *Self assessment questions and answers in clinical surgery* (Bristol, J Wright), which went to two editions in 1980 and 1986, as well as more than 20 original articles on surgical subjects and contributions to textbooks. Clain was a kind, honest and plain-speaking man, very fair and generous to junior colleagues. He was popular with his trainees and was regularly mimicked in a kindly manner in the hospital Christmas Show. He was a devoted family man, his wife June (née Akister) being a medical artist. They had two daughters, Louise and Fiona, one of whom became a teacher in computer science and the other a management accountant. At the age of 53 he was proud of making a century for the Birmingham doctors against the clergy at the Edgbaston test match cricket ground. When first in the West Midlands he had played at the highest level of club cricket. He retired on his 65th birthday in 1987 and, moving away from Birmingham, became for 10 years medical officer for Wasps at the time of transition to a professional sport. He also became an umpire for the local club cricket circuit. He died on 23 June 2018 at the age of 96.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009507
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Duthie, Graeme Scott (1959 - 2018)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by John MacFie
Publication Date 2018-11-19
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Graeme Duthie was an academic colorectal surgeon based in Castle Hill Hospital, Hull. He was born and brought up in Aberdeen, attending both the grammar school and the university in that city. He qualified in medicine in 1983. He gained his FRCS from the Edinburgh College in 1987 and an MD with honours in 1993. Most of his surgical training was based in Edinburgh, where he first gained an interest in coloproctology. n 1994, he was appointed as a consultant surgeon and senior lecturer in the newly-created academic surgical unit at Castle Hill Hospital, Hull, where he worked alongside J R T Monson, the foundation professor in that department, and Peter W R Lee. Graeme was awarded a personal chair by the Postgraduate Medical Institute in Hull in 2005. The academic surgical unit rapidly established itself as one of the foremost colorectal units in England and a tertiary referral centre for complex colorectal conditions. n 1994, he was appointed as a consultant surgeon and senior lecturer in the newly-created academic surgical unit at Castle Hill Hospital, Hull, where he worked alongside J R T Monson, the foundation professor in that department, and Peter W R Lee. Graeme was awarded a personal chair by the Postgraduate Medical Institute in Hull in 2005. The academic surgical unit rapidly established itself as one of the foremost colorectal units in England and a tertiary referral centre for complex colorectal conditions. Graeme had a deserved reputation as an innovator. He was the first to speculate on the possibility that ischaemia played a part in neuropathic incontinence and in anal fissures and, having gained access to Hull’s hyperbaric oxygen chamber, embarked on a series of experiments investigating the role of oxygen therapy. He was also in the forefront of research into the value of neural networks for more accurate determination of prognosis in patients with malignant disease. At the time of his death, he was working on patient information systems in collaboration with nurse counsellors in an attempt to improve the quality of life of patients following cancer surgery. Outside of surgery, Graeme was proud of being a Scotsman, was a keen philatelist and enjoyed various handicrafts, including stained glass making and woodturning. Predeceased by his wife Susan, he died on 30 May 2018 at the age of 58 and leaves three daughters, Catriona, Debbie and Wendy. Cheerful, kind and popular, he will be greatly missed by patients, colleagues and his many friends.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009478
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Carr, Nicholas David (1951 - 2019)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2019-11-27
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Nicholas David Carr (known as Nick) was born in Leeds on 15 April 1951, the son of John Allen Carr and his wife Kathleen Mary née Peel. After attending Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield, he studied medicine at Bristol University graduating MB, ChB in 1974. From 1976 to 1978 he did house jobs at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, passing the fellowship of the college in 1976. Moving to Manchester, he worked at the Withington and Stepping Hill hospitals from 1981 to 1983 and was research registrar to the eminent colorectal surgeon, Philip Schofield. In 1983 he won the Royal Society of Medicine’s John of Arderne medal in coloproctology. He moved to Bolton as a registrar in 1981 before taking up an appointment as a senior registrar at University College Hospital and the Middlesex four years later. In 1985 he obtained his MD for a thesis on colonic vasculature in radiation and inflammatory bowel disease. While based in London he also spent a year at St Mark’s Hospital and travelled to South Africa, where he worked with the Mpulmalanga group of hospitals. In 1990 he became a consultant general and colorectal surgeon to the Singleton Hospital in Swansea. Committed to the multidisciplinary approach when dealing with his patients, his flair and enthusiasm did much to raise the hospital’s reputation. He worked hard to establish a specialist colorectal unit and, when it opened in Swansea in 1993, it was a pioneering move for a district general hospital. The unit now employs some seven specialist colorectal surgeons. At the college he was a member of the Court of Examiners and at the Royal Society of Medicine a member of council of the section of coloproctology from 1994. He lectured at St Mark’s Hospital, London and was on the Welsh Surgical Training Committee from 1992. Involved in the founding of the European Society of Coloproctology, he was instrumental in building its world wide reputation. The West Wales Ileostomy Association and Ileo-Anal Pouch Group elected him as their president and he was also president, in 2008, of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland. A keen squash player when young, he also enjoyed diving, sailing and walking. An accomplished artist, he held several exhibitions and, in his retirement, studied for a degree in the history of art. In 1984 he married Gail Heather née Maxwell. He had been ill for a long time before he died at home on 2 September 2019 aged 68, and was survived by his wife, their children Matthew Robert and Faye Louise, and Leo, his grandson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009668
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mann, Charles Victor (1928 - 2013)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2013-11-08 2015-11-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376803376803
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Charles Mann was a consultant surgeon at St Mark's and the London hospitals. He was born in Hampton, Middlesex, on 2 March 1928, the son of Charles Mann, a company director in the City of London, and Hilda Ella Mann née Bramley. At one stage there were 11 doctors in his immediate family, including two professors. His early schooling was disrupted due to the Second World War. He was educated at St Paul's School, King's College School, Beaumont College and was subsequently privately tutored in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire, his father's family's home. He then studied at New College, Oxford University, and St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, qualifying BM BCh in 1951. He held junior posts at St Thomas' Hospital and, from 1952 to 1953, he was a senior lecturer in the department of anatomy at Gordon University College, Khartoum. He then served for two years in the RAF for his National Service as an acting squadron leader and surgeon attached to No 6 RAF Hospital, Habbaniyah, Iraq. Once he returned to the UK, he was a registrar at St Thomas' Hospital and, from 1961 to 1963, a research assistant to C F Code at the Mayo Clinic, USA. He was subsequently appointed as a consultant surgeon at St Mark's Hospital and then to the London Hospital, Whitechapel. At St Mark's he was also dean of postgraduate studies. He was chairman of the Court of Examiners at the Royal College of Surgeons. He also a surgical tutor and examiner in surgery for the University of London, an examiner and chairman of the court, Society of Apothecaries, and for the Conjoint Board. He was president of the section of coloproctology at the Royal Society of Medicine and a founder member of the European Society of Coloproctology. He was a fellow of the British Society of Gastroenterology. He wrote more than 100 papers in refereed journals, mainly on colorectal topics. He was senior international editor of the journal *Coloproctology* and an editor of *Bailey and Love's Short practice of surgery*. He wrote and edited several books, including *Alimentary sphincters and their disorders* (London, Macmillan, 1981) and *Surgical treatment of anal incontinence* (Springer-Verlag, 1991). Outside medicine, he was interested in sport. At medical school he admitted to being more interested in playing rugby than scholastic achievement: he was a member of the team which won the Hospitals' Cup. In the RAF he was captain of the Levant Command rugby team. In July 1958 he married Maria Regina (née Mackay), a consultant anaesthetist at St Helier Hospital, Carshalton. They had two daughters and a son. Charles Mann died on 30 August 2013. He was 85.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004620
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Witte, Jens (1941 - 2003)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2012-03-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372347372347
Occupation Colorectal surgeon Oesophageal surgeon Upper gastrointestinaI surgeon
Details Jens Witte, doyen of German surgery, was born on 4 February 1941 in Perleberg, Mark/Brandenburg, the eldest of three sons of a surgeon father. He studied medicine at the Universities of Homburg/Saar, Hamburg and Berlin. After qualifying, he became a medizinalassistent in Bielefeld and Hamburg, spent some time in a mission hospital in Tanzania, and returned to work under Egerhard Weisschedel in Konstantz. There followed a series of brilliant appointments under Georg Heberer, first in Cologne and then in Munich, becoming professor in 1982 and head of viszeralchirugie in 1984. His special interests were in oesophageal and colorectal surgery. He was a prominent member of the professional surgical organisation, becoming its President in 1998. Active in the European Union of Medical Specialists, he was President of the section of surgery in 2002 and devoted himself to the integration and training of surgeons in the former East Germany. He was the recipient of many honours, including that of our College. He died unexpectedly on 12 June 2003 in Augsburg.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000160
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hale, John Edward (1936 - 2011)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Robin Lightwood
Publication Date 2011-10-06 2015-09-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001400-E001499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373643373643
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details John Hale was a consultant general and colorectal surgeon at Redhill in Surrey. He was born into a family of market gardeners in the Vale of Evesham, Worcestershire. He showed early academic promise and attended Prince Henry's Grammar School in Evesham, where he was head boy. He then gained a scholarship to King's College in London and Westminster Hospital Medical School, where he met his future wife Patricia Hikins, who was a student nurse, and they later married in 1964. Having qualified in 1960 and after house jobs at Westminster Hospital and in Southampton, he set off to Nigeria, where he did a year in tropical paediatrics and obstetrics in Ibadan. He drove back to Europe across North Africa. Following a spell in casualty at Edgware General Hospital, he set sail again, this time as a ship's doctor, travelling through the Suez Canal to the Far East. Having studied for the primary FRCS while at sea, he passed the exam after returning to London. After senior house officer posts in Bath and Bristol, he moved back to the Westminster and Gordon hospitals with the final FRCS under his belt. He then spent a year doing research into colonic healing in rats, using cyanoacrylate glue, at the University of California in San Francisco, under the direction of Englebert Dunphy and Tom Hunt, which led to his thesis for the MS. He returned to work at Roehampton Hospital with Alan Rutter and then as a senior registrar to Harold Ellis at the Westminster. He gained his MS in 1976 and a year later was appointed as a consultant surgeon in Redhill, first at Redhill General and Smallfield hospitals and later at the new East Surrey Hospital, where he remained until his retirement in 2001. Here he developed his interest in coloproctology. He belonged to the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, was an honorary member of the American Medical Association and was an elected member of the Société Internationale de Chirurgie. With the development of laparoscopic surgery, he became an enthusiastic advocate. For several years he visited the Norwegian fjords, operating at local hospitals with a nurse anaesthetist, while his wife and three daughters enjoyed a holiday. John was a kindly person, with wide interests outside medicine and great enthusiasm for all he did. Subject throughout his life to periods of depression, he was devastated to be sent on permanent leave at the age of 62. His many interests kept him busy, with music playing a large part in his life. As a young man he was a church organist in Evesham and he had a fine voice, singing as a baritone with Pat in local choral societies. He enjoyed gardening and in later life he kept bees. He was a keen Rotarian and a member of a walking group. In retirement he studied history, art history and literature to gain a BA in combined studies at the University of Surrey. He also managed his own investments. Latterly he took up windsurfing, but never learned how to turn round. He always maintained his roots in Worcestershire, with a cottage in Broadway and his bank in Evesham. He loved family holidays on the Scilly Isles. He diagnosed his own carcinoid syndrome in 2009, and died on 8 September 2011. He was 74.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001460
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Beard, Randolph Gilbert (1926 - 2015)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Peter Craig
Publication Date 2015-12-04 2017-02-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008900-E008999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381093381093
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Randolph Gilbert Beard, known as 'Randy', was the consultant surgeon in charge of the rectal department at Guy's Hospital, London. He was born on 13 August 1926 in Aldershot, Hampshire, the son of Randolph Beard, a major in the Grenadier Guards. Randy's demeanour reflected this background in no small measure: he looked like a military man and was hugely proud of his father's achievements. His mother, Fanny Louise Beard née Bailey, was a secretary. Randy was educated at Epsom College, where he was a prefect and won two prestigious prizes. From there, he went to Clare College, Cambridge, and qualified MB BChir from Guy's in 1950. He proceeded to the FRCS in 1956 and gained his MChir in 1958. From 1951 to 1956, he was a junior surgical specialist in the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving in the Canal Zone in Egypt between 1953 and 1955. He returned to Guy's, where his surgical mentors were Sam Wass and Grant Massie (whom he succeeded). He obviously much admired and was a friend of both men, and his surgical technique and speed of operating stemmed from their tutelage. He also excelled in his teaching of medical students, treating them with great kindness and tolerance at times. He was a keen anatomist and insisted that his students excelled in this area. He was not a committee man. He was also on the staff of St Olave's Hospital and was an honorary consultant surgeon at St Luke's Hospital for the Clergy. I was seconded from the Army to his unit at Guy's Hospital in 1978 as a senior registrar to him and Red O'Flynn on Luke and Dorcas wards for a year. It was a very happy unit with huge loyalty from all the staff, particularly the nurses, who were universally outstanding. His very military bearing impressed all of his staff, particularly me. He was notorious for the economy of his movements whilst operating. If anyone is a true surgical master, he exemplified this perfectly. I assisted him in a private oesophagogastrectomy, which took just one hour 15 minutes, with an outstanding outcome. Shortly afterwards, I was doing the bottom end of an abdomino-perineal resection. Within what seemed like seconds, he was in the pelvis with a pair of Lloyd Davies or Goligher scissors, the tips of which I was then asked to feel front and back, where he opened them, establishing a virtually avascular plane. Perhaps I should add that the patient was 18 stones. Very shortly afterwards, he delivered the specimen to me. I closed up and rose to see how he was getting on as he put the last stitch into the colostomy. The total operating time was less than one hour. These are just two examples of his technical mastery. He spoke regularly of his 'club', which I later came to realise was the Travelling Surgical Club of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (later a society and including all of Ireland). He was obviously a highly respected member. He married Mary Davies Hockey, a Guy's nurse, in 1951. They had four sons and a daughter. He lived in north London, before moving on retirement to Petersfield in Hampshire and later to Herefordshire. Randy Beard died on 31 October 2015 in Leominster, Herefordshire. He was 89.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008910
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Winslet, Mark Christopher (1958 - 2023)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by George Hamilton
Publication Date 2023-10-17
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010400-E010499
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Marc Winslet was professor of surgery, head of department and chair of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine’s division of surgery and chair of the division of surgical and interventional sciences at University College London (UCL). He was born on 27 February 1958 in Luton, Bedfordshire, the son of Alan John Noel Winslet and Eileen Julia M Winslet née Samm. He qualified in 1981 from the Royal Free Hospital Medical School, was awarded a master of science degree and was Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1988. He trained in general, upper and colorectal surgery in the London, Birmingham and Leicester rotations. After his lectureship at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, he returned to his alma mater as a senior lecturer and honorary consultant to the Royal Free Hospital and School of Medicine in 1992. In 1996 he was promoted to a personal chair and, in 1998, to a substantive professor of surgery, head of department and chair of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine’s division of surgery. In 2002 he was appointed chair of the division of surgical and interventional sciences at UCL. Marc held several leadership roles, clinical and academic, in his specialty, including council membership of the British Association of Surgical Oncology, the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland and the Royal Society of Medicine, and treasurer of the British Stomach Cancer Group. He was a talented and popular trainer in both upper and lower GI surgery in addition to his longstanding commitment to the court of examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. As chair of the division of surgical and interventional sciences at UCL from 2002 to 2012 he developed and actively promoted surgical research not only in his chosen areas (upper GI cancer, Barrett’s oesophagus, colorectal cancer, AIDS/HIV related surgery GI and peri-anal disease) but also across the surgical disciplines in particular plastics, vascular, breast and their associated basic scientific fields. He co-edited several major surgical textbooks (*The complete MRCS. Vol 2 system modules* Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 2000, *Essential general surgical operations* London, Churchill Livingstone, 2001 and 2007, and *Surgical oncology* Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009), in addition to major peer-reviewed contributions to the literature. He also elevated the teaching profiles for the newly combined UCL division of surgery by contributing to the popular undergraduate intercalated BSc and postgraduate MSc in surgical sciences and promoted a network of London centres capable of supporting thesis opportunities for surgeons in training. Marc retired from the NHS and UCL in 2017 to focus on his major interest in medico-legal work – he had always been fascinated by the legal profession as an aspirational advocate. In addition to expert opinion, he was in great demand as a clinical adviser to the medical protection societies. He died after a short illness and was survived by his wife Johanna and their young daughter, and three grown up children from a previous marriage to Esther (née Meli). Marc also leaves his siblings, many colleagues, friends and trainees touched (and occasionally exasperated) by his ebullience and charm. Those who knew him will not forget his ebullient personality and wit. His was a true ‘one off’ character with a personal mix of gritty London Eastender, West Ham fanatic and metropolitan sophisticate.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010494
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gunn, Alastair (1937 - 2010)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Peter Craig
Publication Date 2012-01-06 2015-03-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001800-E001899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374003374003
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Alastair Gunn was a much-loved and respected consultant general surgeon at Ashington Hospital, Northumberland, and later at its replacement, Wansbeck General Hospital. He had a major interest in colorectal disease and instigated and helped establish the NHS northern region's register of familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), and published widely on this and other subjects. Alastair was born on 30 August 1937 and was educated at Gosforth Grammar School, where he was the school's rugby captain and played for the county. He studied medicine at Durham University Medical School in Newcastle, where he was captain of the cricket team. After qualifying in 1961, he was selected to do two house appointments at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. The first was with the senior surgeon Angus Hedley Whyte, a wonderful character with a DSO medal and the rank of brigadier during the Second World War. By contrast, his next appointment was as house physician to the professor of paediatrics, Donald Court. Unusually, he then did a third house job in obstetrics with Linton Snaith at the Newcastle General Hospital and gained his diploma of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. After becoming a demonstrator in anatomy in Edinburgh, he passed the primary fellowship, and started surgical training posts at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, gaining his FRCS in 1967. Later he worked with George Oliver Jelly at Ancoats Hospital and then had two attachments to St Mark's Hospital in London, firstly as a research fellow and then as a senior registrar in 1973 to Sir Alan Parks, Peter Hawley and Sir Hugh Lockhart-Mummery. It was during his time there that he developed his particular interest in familial adenomatous polyposis and its associated pathologies, including colon cancer. He completed higher training as a senior registrar at the Manchester Royal Infirmary with W Nicholson and T Heslop at Salford. In 1974 he was appointed as a consultant surgeon at Ashington, later moving to the new Wansbeck Hospital when it opened in 1993. He published extensively on the surgical pathology of the parotid glands and on an eclectic range of other subjects, including tetanus after cholecystectomy and exploration of the common bile duct and acalculus gall bladder disease. Later in his career he published mainly on FAP. He realised that there were many families with FAP who were not known to the national register at St Mark's in London. In the 1980s he collaborated with Sir John Burn, then the newly appointed professor of genetics at the University of Newcastle, to set up a northern region registry of families with FAP and its sequelae. Over 70 families were identified and their care was enhanced as the genetic breakthroughs allowed more accurate targeting of care. Their paper in the *British Medical Journal* demonstrating the predictive power of congenital hypertrophy of the retinal epithelium, as just one extra-colonic feature of the syndrome, led to the integration of this sign into the teaching of all opticians ('Congenital hypertrophy of retinal pigment epithelium: a sign of familial adenomatous polyposis.' *BMJ*. 1989 Feb 11;298[6670]:353-4). Alastair continued to be an active research member of the cancer genetics group and encouraged a string of younger colleagues to train with the regional genetics team. Together they launched the first of the colorectal adenoma prevention programmes, testing chemoprevention in hereditary cancer. One of Alastair's families supplied the DNA samples that were pivotal in the discovery of the mismatch repair genes as the underlying cause of hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer or Lynch syndrome. The family were the first in the world to benefit from genetic predictive testing. Alastair was held in the highest regard by colleagues regionally and nationally. Although the onset of Parkinson's disease cut short his surgical career in his fifties, he remained active, organising the highly successful Northern Region Colorectal Cancer Audit Group (NorCCAG), a region-wide audit group. He was their chairman. They helped to coordinate enhanced colorectal cancer care across the region and produced valuable papers to improve care more widely. His colleague and successor, Mike Bradburn, describes him as a 'brilliant chap' and the kindest man he has ever met. He worked tirelessly both at the hospital and on several committees dealing with NorCCAG. He was also a council member of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland and also of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, and many other organisations involved in FAP. Although adored by his staff, he could be on occasions irascible, particularly with those who could not keep up with his intelligence and rapid change of thought. He expected and got intellectual vigour from his staff. His irascibility appears to have endeared him even more to them. As a senior house officer at Manchester Royal Infirmary, he met Gillian Linton, who was the senior of two nurses looking after a ward at night. Her father was a GP in Manchester. They courted, wed in 1966 in Manchester and had three children. In 1989 they bought a farm house with outbuildings on the outskirts of Morpeth and converted them into four houses. Alastair had a long and happy retirement with his wife and family. Apart from NorCCAG, their interests were gardening, golf, world travel and Oxfam. Alastair Gunn died on 24 December 2010, aged 73. He was a shining example of the way in which a district general hospital surgeon with a specialty interest could, by diligence, hard work and drive, make major scientific breakthroughs and achieve national recognition, assisted throughout by the supportive team he had built up and by his loving family.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001820
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hansen, Lawrence Herbert (1929 - 1984)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-18 2015-06-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007300-E007399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379494379494
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Lawrence Herbert Hansen was born in Palmerston North, New Zealand in 1929 and after early education at Palmerston Boys' High School entered the University of Otago Medical School, qualifying in 1955. After early hospital appointments in Wellington he came to England to work as surgical registrar at Ealing Hospital and passed the FRCS in 1963. Returning to New Zealand he passed the FRACS in 1967 and was appointed consultant in general surgery at Taranaki Base Hospital where he developed a particular interest in colorectal disease. He was an enthusiastic surgical teacher and served as President of the Taranaki Division of the New Zealand Medical Association. He was a keen trout fisherman. He died suddenly in his consulting rooms on 25 July 1984, aged 55, survived by his wife Valerie, daughters Andrea and Victoria, and son, Guy.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007311
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Collins, Frederick John (1933 - 1997)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

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/380712380712
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Fred Collins was born in 1933, in Australia. His father was Frederick Herbert Collins, his mother Stella Anne Crollick. After junior posts at St Vincent's Hospital, he came to England to specialise in surgery. He returned to St Vincent's in 1961, as a general surgeon, his particular interest being colorectal surgery. He was a tutor in surgical pathology at the University of Sydney, and was on the staff of the Manly Hospital, the Mater Misericordiae Hospital and St Vincent's. For many years he was warden of the clinical school at St Vincent's. He was a member of the New South Wales state committee of the Australasian College from 1978 to 1986, and an examiner in general surgery for ten years. He married Margaret Gustafson in 1960, and they had a daughter, Catherine, who became a lawyer. A memorable raconteur and after dinner speaker, the Fred Collins memorial lecture is dedicated to his memory. He died on 25 April 1997.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008529
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Berger, Peter Lucian (1923 - 2017)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by D R Thomas
Publication Date 2018-01-17 2018-11-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381810381810
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Peter Berger was a consultant surgeon at the Good Hope Hospital, West Bromwich, Sutton Coldfield, Lichfield and Tamworth Group of Hospitals and at the North Birmingham Hospital Group. He was born in Königsberg, East Prussia as the only child of Max Mark Berger, a dental surgeon, and Gertrude Berger née Wald, the daughter of an apothecary. At the age of 14 he left Germany to escape Nazi persecution, arriving in the UK in April 1938. He lived in London and was granted naturalisation in July 1947. Peter was educated at Epsom College and gained an entrance scholarship to St George’s Hospital to read medicine, qualifying in 1946. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1956 and subsequently became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1957. His postgraduate career was as a resident surgical officer at Epping and St George’s, and he was then appointed as a senior registrar in the West Midlands area, working at Coventry hospitals, where he was much influenced by Trevor Berrill, Victor Brookes and Lionel Jones. He was also encouraged early in his career by Rodney Smith. His consultant career commenced in the north Birmingham and Staffordshire area, and he was appointed as one of three consultant surgeons in the then new Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield with outlying outpatient and operating sessions in Tamworth and Lichfield. Peter had a considerable and wide general surgical practice with a particular interest in colorectal surgery. He was the college tutor at Good Hope from 1967 until 1973, maintaining an active interest in surgical teaching of undergraduates and postgraduates. He was a member of the West Midlands Surgical Society, and also attended meetings at the Royal Colleges on a regular basis. He developed many contacts in the surgical world and was responsible for developing an exchange programme for local registrars with Swiss trainees from Basel. He was a great family man. He was married to Helen (née Levy) and had a son and two daughters. His children did not follow him into medicine. PLB was an imposing man with an engaging manner whose main interests were skiing, miniature Schnauzers and supporting his wife’s engrossing hobby of postcard collecting. Following his retirement, he moved back to London and spent the remaining 29 years there and little was seen of him in the Midlands, although he was still remembered with affection by patients and colleagues alike. Peter Berger died on 9 December 2017 aged 94.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009406
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cooke, Stanley Arthur Russell (1932 - 2021)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2021-05-05
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Stanley Arthur Russell (‘Stan’) Cooke was a consultant general surgeon in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born on 18 March 1932, the son of Richard Stanley Cooke and Isobel Faulds Cooke née Russell. He was educated at St John’s College, Johannesburg, and then went to the UK to attend medical school at Guy’s Hospital, London, qualifying in 1957. He held pre-registration posts at Guy’s and was then a senior house officer in the casualty department at Lewisham Hospital, London. From 1960 to 1961 he was a junior lecturer in the anatomy department at Guy’s. From 1962 to 1965 he was a registrar at the London Hospital, St Andrew’s Hospital and Guy’s, and an honorary clinical assistant at St Mark’s Hospital and at St Peter’s Hospital. From 1965 to 1970 he was a senior registrar at Guy’s and a lecturer (in 1968). In 1969 he went to the US, as a research fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. He gained his fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England and of Edinburgh in 1962 and a masters degree in surgery in 1970. In 1971 he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to the South Eastern Metropolitan area in London. He was also an honorary lecturer in the surgery department at Guy’s. In the mid-1970s, he returned to South Africa. He was a consultant and senior lecturer in the department of surgery at the University of the Witwatersrand, initially under Daniel Jacob (Sonny) Du Plessis and later Johannes Albertus (Bert) Myburgh. Here he was able to develop his academic interest in colorectal disease. In 1979 he became a surgeon in private practice at Kenridge Hospital in partnership with John Tinker. He introduced a number of innovations to Johannesburg, including the ileo-anal pouch after proctocolectomy, post anal repair for idiopathic incontinence, colo-anal anastomoses after excision for cancer and colonic pull-through for radiation-induced recto-vaginal fistulae. He also continued teaching part time at the University of the Witwatersrand. He retired in 2006. In 2011 the Association of Surgeons of South Africa honoured him with its distinguished service award. His outside interests included sport, as a spectator and a player, nature and wildlife (he had visited most game reserves in southern Africa). Cooke died on 27 January 2021 in Johannesburg. He was 88. He was survived by his widow Judy (née Scott), whom he had met at Guy’s, their three sons, Richard, Ian and David, and seven grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009959
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fazio, Victor Warren (1940 - 2015)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Neil Mortensen
Publication Date 2015-09-14 2016-03-09
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/380223380223
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Victor Fazio, or 'Vic' as everyone called him, defined colorectal surgery for a generation. For many he was 'the' colorectal surgeon, a dominating figure in the specialty, which he helped to develop and for which he provided leadership and inspiration. He was the youngest ever department chief when he was appointed head of colorectal surgery at the Cleveland Clinic at the age of 35. He was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, of Italian Catholic forbears. He grew up in Tuncurry, on the coast just north of Sydney. His father, also Victor, was a fisherman who had won a Distinguished Service Medal while serving in the Royal Australian Navy during Second World War. His mother, Kathleen Hills, was widowed when Victor junior was only 11. He and his brother Joe were sent off to school at St Joseph's College, Sydney. In 1957 he went to the University of Sydney Medical School, supported by the Legacy Foundation for the children of war veterans. He played rugby for the university and in the junior leagues around Sydney. Joe was a rowing silver medallist for Australia at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. Vic graduated in 1965, was an anatomy demonstrator and did his surgical training at St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst and was made fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1971. He served in the Australian surgical team at Bien Hoa during the Vietnam war. In 1972 he went to the United States as a fellow in hepatobiliary surgery with Ken Warren at the Lahey Clinic in Boston. The following year he was appointed as a fellow in colon and rectal surgery with Rupert Turnbull at the Cleveland Clinic, and this was to be a career defining moment. He was made chair and head of the department of colorectal surgery in 1996. The clinic became one of the foremost departments of colorectal surgery in the world. He was an exceptionally talented surgeon, making important contributions to the development of surgery for ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease and colorectal cancer. He had an unrivalled appetite for hard work and extraordinary stamina. He seemed to know everything about his subject, and yet was delighted to share it with every one of his residents and the many surgeons he knew around the world and to whom he lectured. Former colleagues describe a combination of ability, compassion, selflessness and devotion to his patients. One said that Vic would have been a huge success in whatever profession he chose - 'he would have at the very least been a cardinal in the Catholic Church'. Widely consulted for his opinion by colleagues and patients around the world, he even gave advice in 1981 over the telephone to the surgical team looking after Pope John Paul II after he sustained gunshot wounds in an assassination attempt. His major contributions were to clinical research, publishing regularly on one of the largest collections of ileoanal pouch patients. He was an important opinion former, but had a passion for evidence. For 10 years he was editor in chief of the journal *Diseases of Colon and Rectum*. He was president of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons in 1995, and had been chair of the specialist examination board. He was awarded an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 2001. There were many other distinctions. In 2000 he was the first recipient of Cleveland Clinic's Master Clinician award. Two years later, he was the first winner of the Al and Norma Lerner Humanitarian award, the clinic's highest honour. In 2014 he won a lifetime achievement honour at the US National Physician of the Year awards. In his home country, he was awarded the Order of Australia in 2004. He was married to Carolyn for nearly 50 years and they had three children - Victor, David and Jane. Vic died after a protracted leukaemic illness and, after services in Cleveland, Ohio, he was buried in Tinonee, New South Wales.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008040
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mitchell, James Edward (1926 - 2002)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-18
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/380971380971
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details 'Sam' Mitchell was a consultant general surgeon in Swansea. He was born in Aberystwyth on 30 May 1926, where his father, Samuel, and mother, Doris née Finlay, were school teachers. He was educated at the County School in Aberystwyth and Cardiff University. His junior posts were on the professorial unit in Cardiff, the Royal Hospital Sheffield, the Brompton and Royal Masonic Hospitals. He was a registrar at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, and senior registrar at the Westminster. He did his National Service in the RAMC. He was appointed consultant general surgeon to Singleton and Moriston Hospitals in Swansea in 1966, and set about modernising the department and improving the surgical training, leading to a formal rotation with Cardiff. His main interest was in colorectal surgery. Sam served the College as surgical tutor and was a member of the Court of Examiners. His hobbies included fishing, sailing, golf and skiing. In 1989, he retired to Hampshire to fish and be nearer to his growing family. He married Philippa Martin, a general practitioner, whose parents were surgeons and had been Hunterian Professors. They had five children, of whom one son, David, became a consultant vascular surgeon at the Southmead Hospital in Bristol. Sam died of acute gallstone pancreatitis on 23 November 2002.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008788
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mogg, Geoffrey Alan Gerring (1947 - 1999)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-18
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/380974380974
Occupation Coloproctologist Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Geoffrey Mogg was a consultant general surgeon at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury. He was born in Cardiff and studied medicine at Cambridge. He went to St Bartholomew's Hospital for his clinical training. After junior posts in surgery he emigrated to Brisbane, Australia, in 1980 to become a university lecturer, staff surgeon, and the director of surgery at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital. There he expanded his interest in coloproctology and began to study the management of postoperative pain by means of epidural anaesthesia. In 1990 he returned to England as a consultant at St Cross Hospital, Rugby, where he promoted a day surgery unit. In 1997 he was appointed as a consultant general surgeon to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury, where he set up a rectal bleeding clinic. Six months later, he was found to have non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, from which he died on 28 September 1999. He left a wife, Joan, two daughters and two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008791
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Notaras, Mitchell James (1933 - 2011)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Rod Armstrong
Publication Date 2011-10-07 2015-10-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001400-E001499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373647373647
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Mitchell Notaras was a consultant in colorectal surgery at Barnet General Hospital, London. He was born on 26 March 1933 in the town of Grafton, New South Wales, Australia. His father, Anthony Notaras, and mother, Anthea Notaras née Megaloconomos, were Greek immigrants from the island of Kythera. There were five children, including Mitchell and Angelo, his twin brother. At the age of 16 Notaras was accepted to read medicine at Sydney University Medical School. His studies were supported by a Commonwealth Government scholarship, an act of generosity he never forgot. Nor did he forget the stimulus, help and teaching he received during his holidays from local doctors Mulhearn, Harris and Holland at Grafton Base Hospital. Once qualified, he spent two years working at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital as a junior and senior resident medical officer, before travelling to the UK to further his surgical training. Working his passage to the UK as a ship's doctor on a cargo boat, he remembered receiving a stipend of a shilling a month. Starting work at the Hammersmith Hospital, he obtained his FRCS at the Royal Colleges of England and Edinburgh, before moving to St Mark's as a research assistant. Here he was supervised by Alan Parks, Nigel Porter and Alan Young, mainly studying the problems of anal incontinence. This post led to his appointment as resident surgical officer at St Mark's, where he worked for one year under Sir Clifford Naunton Morgan, O V Lloyd-Morgan, Henry Thompson, Hugh Lockhart-Mummery and Ian Todd. He subsequently retained his links with St Mark's as a member of the St Mark's Hospital Association. At this stage Notaras was firmly committed to a career in colo-rectal surgery and, after a post as resident assistant surgeon at UCH, took up a consultant appointment in colo-rectal surgery at Barnet General Hospital. He became in much demand as a visiting professor in centres abroad and, whilst at heart an innovator, he was also quick to recognise worthwhile new techniques that could be applied back in the UK. He was the first to describe a new (subcutaneous) approach to lateral internal anal sphincterotomy, and made significant contributions to the treatment of rectal prolapse, as well as popularising the use of mesh repairs of hernia under local anaesthesia. He enjoyed writing and teaching, as evidenced by his chapters in Rodney Maingot's *Abdominal operations*, Robb and Smith's *Operative surgery* and Nyhus's *Hernia surgery*. He was a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. As a surgeon he was swift, certain and skilful. He was much admired by those who worked with him as much for his dexterity as for his calm and unflappable nature. He was an extremely generous man who helped many others. In particular he never forgot his Australian roots (nor lost the accent) and the fact that his career had been enabled by the Commonwealth scholarship mentioned above. He repaid this generosity in 2003 by establishing a three-year scholarship in perpetuity at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney. (The scholarship allows young Australian post fellowship surgeons to spend a year in research at the University of Sydney, a year in an approved unit of excellence abroad and a year as a senior registrar at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.) In his later years he established, with others, a company called Abgene, which 'specialised in the manufacture of molecular biological reagents, as well as collaborating with universities and industrial partners in research into gene and DNA technology'. In retirement he frequently returned to Australia to visit his family. Whilst there he and his brother restored the heritage listed Saraton (Notaras spelt backwards) Theatre in Grafton. He also returned to Kythera, the Greek island that was his ancestral home. There he rebuilt his grandparents' old house, spending many holidays on the island with his own family and always contributing generously to the local community. It was on Kythera at the house where his father was born that he died suddenly and peacefully on 30 July 2011 aged 78. He was survived by his wife Bente and two sons, as well as three daughters from a previous marriage.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001464
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jagelman, David Gordon (1939 - 1993)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-10
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/380210380210
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Born on 18 December 1939 in London, David Jagelman was educated at St Joseph's College, Beulah Hill and King's College London, before going on to Westminster Hospital Medical School. After qualifying in 1963 he was surgical registrar, research lecturer and senior registrar at the Metropolitan, Westminster and St Mark's Hospitals from 1966 to 1974. During a year as senior fellow at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, he impressed and came under the influence of Rupert Turnbull who recruited him to his department, and Jagelman thereafter worked in the United States. He was staff surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio from 1975 to 1988. In that year he was asked to establish a department of colorectal surgery at the new Cleveland Clinic in Florida, which he did with great success. His colleagues and students valued his clinical judgement and advice - often conveyed laconically - and admired his technical skill as an operator. This, together with over 200 publications, his establishment of the polyposis registry at the Cleveland Clinic, and his contributions to international meetings, assured him of an international reputation. Jagelman died on 9 August 1993, from renal cancer. He was survived by his wife, Ann, whom he had met when she was a student nurse at the Westminster Hospital, where he too was in training, and by a son and three daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008027
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Brown, Alexander Annan (1919 - 1997)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

First Title value, for Searching Cassell, Paul George (1936 - 2018)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Jonathan Gilbert
Publication Date 2018-11-19 2019-11-27
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Paul Cassell was a consultant general surgeon at Wexham Park Hospital, Slough. He was appointed in 1972 and retired in 1998; his time there can be seen in retrospect as coinciding with the heyday of the district general hospital and certainly of Wexham Park Hospital. Paul was born in south London on 12 February 1936 in Croydon to Walter Cassell and Gladys Cassell née Sperring as the only son with a younger sister. The only medical connection in the family was a paternal aunt who was one of the early cohort of pioneering female graduates of the Royal Free Hospital Medical School, London. He was proud of his origins and, in his self-penned summary of his life for the Lives of Fellows, he described his father as a ‘manufacturer’s agent’. He made his own way in the world on merit. He attended the local state primary school in Kensington Avenue in Thornton Heath and demonstrated his abilities by passing the 11 plus and gaining a place at Dulwich College under a special scholarship to promote children of ability. He did well at his A levels and gained a place at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, which he entered in 1955. He won the Treasurer’s prize in anatomy and demonstrated the surgical direction he wished to follow by winning the Brackenbury prize in surgery. He graduated in 1960 and, after house jobs at Bart’s, he left to take up a post as a senior house officer at the Birmingham Accident Hospital, which at the time was the leading accident and emergency unit in the country. He then returned to London as a lecturer in anatomy at King’s College Hospital, where he studied for and passed the primary FRCS. His registrar posts followed at Bart’s, the Westminster and Reading. He passed the FRCS in 1966 and was appointed to a senior registrar post at Bart’s. During his surgical training, he was influenced by the Bart’s surgeons Alan Hunt, John Beattie, James Robinson and Ian Todd. It was Todd (later president of the Royal College of Surgeons) who inspired him to develop an interest in coloproctology and he attended Todd’s clinics at St Mark’s Hospital when it was in the City Road, London. He wrote papers with his chiefs on perforated peptic ulcers, pericardiotomy and ischiorectal abscess. Although he was a ‘general surgeon’ in the fullest sense he became increasingly interested in coloproctology as a specialty. He was an active member of the section of coloproctology of the Royal Society of Medicine and served on its council and as its treasurer. The section undertook an annual overseas meeting, which he and his wife Janet frequently supported. At one such meeting one of the members made a joke presentation of a suppository wrapped in silver paper, which was awarded to the best new attendee. Paul took this to a new level and commissioned a local jeweller to create a real silver emblem in the shape of a suppository mounted on a wooden plinth. This ‘silver suppository’ continues to be awarded at the annual overseas meeting of the section! He was a sensitive and encouraging mentor to his trainees. He taught them good sound surgical practices learned from his own mentors. He encouraged original thought and academic advancement. He became associated with Kurt Hellmann while at the Westminster Hospital and, when Hellmann developed the antimitotic drug ICRF 159 (later razoxane) he encouraged its use at Wexham Park Hospital. A randomised trial of its use as an adjuvant in colorectal cancer was set up under his supervision and this attracted international interest, which was a significant achievement from a district general hospital. Despite having a very busy clinical life he found time to serve the wider community as a magistrate. He sat on the Slough bench from 1974 for 33 years. He met his wife Janet (née Sheldon), who was a physiotherapist, while working at the Birmingham Accident Hospital and they married in 1963. He was a family man and he and Janet had two sons and a daughter, who produced a total of 10 grandchildren, of whom Paul was inordinately proud. In his personal life, he was a committed Christian and formed an attachment to Herefordshire after leading a team from Bart’s when he was a medical student to take services in small rural churches. This attachment to Hereford continued throughout his life and he bought a property and land there, to which he and the family would go to enjoy their personal time together. His Christian principles guided his life and he gave his time to evangelical Christian circles, including youth clubs and preaching. He always sought friendship rather than enmity, cooperation rather than confrontation. He was the ideal colleague, friend and person. He died at the age of 82 was survived by all his close family, including his wife Janet, their three children, one of whom is a plastic surgeon, seven grandsons and three granddaughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009476
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Taffinder, Nicholas James (1965 - 2006)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2008-01-24 2018-05-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372621372621
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Nick Taffinder was widely considered to be one of the brightest and most able young consultants when, at the age of 39, he was diagnosed with metastatic malignancy, from which he died two years later. He showed academic talent as a schoolboy, being a scholar at King's College, Taunton, from where he won an exhibition to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. His clinical training was undertaken at St Thomas' Hospital, London, where he won the Sutton Sams prize in obstetrics and gynaecology. Graduating in 1990, his first surgical house officer post was on the rectal firm and he retained this early interest in coloproctology throughout his career. Subsequent SHO jobs were in Southampton and Portsmouth, where he spent six months on the intensive care unit, before being appointed a specialist registrar to the training rotation of St Mary's Hospital, London. After a year on the academic surgical unit, he was seconded to Paris for a year, where he worked as a registrar in a world-renowned laparoscopic centre with Gérard Georges Champault and where he learned advanced laparoscopic skills. Returning to St Mary's he became a research fellow to Ara Darzi (later Lord Darzi), where he studied the quantification of manual dexterity in laparoscopic surgery, the effects of sleep deprivation on surgical dexterity and the impact of virtual reality on surgical training. His thesis on this subject was accepted for the MS degree and the work gained him two international prizes, one in the UK and one in the USA, as well as many publications. In the year 2000 he was awarded two travelling scholarships, both to European centres, to further enhance his laparoscopic skills and the following year he completed his colorectal training with an appointment as RSO at St Mark's and Northwick Park hospitals. He was then appointed consultant colorectal surgeon to William Harvey Hospital, Ashford, where he practiced and taught advanced laparoscopic surgery until his untimely death. Nick Taffinder contributed widely to surgery outside of clinical activity. He continued to publish regularly after his consultant appointment, his last paper appearing in print after his death. At the College, he taught on the care of the critically ill surgical patient course (CCRISP) and also trained the faculty for this course, a reflection of his own early experience in intensive care medicine. He was a faculty member on numerous laparoscopic courses, both basic and advanced. He was a council member of the section of surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the Association of Endoscopic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. He was in constant demand as a lecturer at home and abroad. In private life he was equally talented. His first love was his family, Jane his wife and four children, Jacques, Louis, Max and Jessica. But outside of family life he was an enthusiastic pilot, a good games player (tennis and squash), a snowboarder, paraglider and oarsman, to say nothing of his ability as a conjurer. He was universally popular. In early 2004 he was diagnosed with malignant fibrohistiocytoma of the pelvis with lung metastases. He underwent multiple operations, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Throughout, he showed truly remarkable fortitude and wrote a moving personal view in the *British Medical Journal* (2005, 331, 463) of how he diagnosed a rectal cancer in a male nurse of his own age at four o'clock in the morning while he himself was an in-patient awaiting his third operation. Despite returning to work between operations and treatments his disease pursued a relentless course and deprived the profession of a much loved and greatly talented colleague before his full potential could be realised.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000437
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Levitt, Abraham Solomon (1927 - 2017)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Michael Levitt
Publication Date 2017-05-19 2017-06-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009300-E009399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381533381533
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Abraham Solomon ('Sol') Levitt was a colorectal surgeon in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on 17 April 1927, the second child of Pinchas and Hadassah Levitt, who had emigrated from British mandate Palestine. Pinchas had been born in Bendery, then in Bessarabia, and had fled violent anti-Semitic pogroms in the early 1920's. Hadassah was a native of Petach Tikva, east of Tel Aviv, whose antecedents had settled the region when it was still swamp and marshlands, over a century earlier. Along with his parents and his older sister, Bella, Sol returned to Palestine in the early 1930's and received his primary school education there. The family emigrated to Australia a second time, just as the Second World War was breaking out, joining family in Perth. With the help of friends and family, they settled well into the Perth Jewish community, where Sol proved to be an excellent student and a talented sportsman. After completing a scholarship to the prestigious Perth Modern School, Sol entered medical school. At that time, there was no medical school in Perth and he was one of six entrants into the Adelaide University course reserved for applicants from Perth. In Adelaide, Sol was introduced to a local general practitioner, Leon Opit, and his wife Bertha and their family; he fell in love with their daughter Jeanette, whom he married after his graduation (with honours) in 1952. Sol was a champion soccer player at university and was twice selected in the All-Australian Intervarsity team. When he returned to Perth to work as a junior doctor in 1951, he continued to play soccer, playing in the highest division in Perth at that time. Sol and Jeanette left for England in 1954 so he could pursue a career in surgery. He passed his fellowship first in Edinburgh and later in London, and worked in Colchester and later at St Mark's Hospital in London. He soon earned a reputation as an excellent doctor and surgeon, and was invited to stay on at St Mark's for a second term, establishing his expertise in colorectal surgery. While in England, Jeanette gave birth to sons Leon and Michael and, shortly after their return to Perth, to their third son, Anthony. All three sons followed their father into a career in medicine. In Perth, Sol provided an honorary service to the Royal Perth and Sir Charles Gairdner hospitals (SCGH), while developing a private practice across town. He was the first general surgeon at SCGH, and 'Charlie's' was always his favourite; he remained there as a staff surgeon until 1992 and was chairman of its medical advisory committee and a member of the SCGH board of management from 1984 to 1985. Within medicine, he made extensive contributions. He was the key Western Australian point of contact for the emerging specialty of colorectal surgery, serving on the committee of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons' section of colon and rectal surgery, as its chairman on two separate occasions. He was also a foundation member and councillor of the Colorectal Surgical Society of Australia and New Zealand. He provided the driving advocacy for the establishment of enterostomal therapy in Perth (he was the patron of the Stomal Therapy Association of Western Australia for many years), and single-handedly established the local Familial Adenomatous Polyposis Registry, liaising with international centres and experts with similar interests. He was a mentor and an inspiration to numerous Perth surgeons, served as an esteemed member of the Medical Board of Western Australia from 1986 to 1995, and played an instrumental role in the professionalisation and financial stabilisation of the Medical Defence Association of Western Australia (now a robust, national organisation) from 1973 through to 2003. Outside of medicine, he was one of a handful of young Perth Jewish men and women in the late 1950s who founded Carmel School, which is today still the small Perth Jewish community's only day school, and served on its board of management, two years as its president. His three sons all attended Carmel School and each benefited from its excellence, something for which Sol had always strived. He had an abiding passion for farming, probably the result of a summer holiday job he took as a teenager droving cattle in isolated farming land on the south coast of Western Australia, which left an indelible impression upon him. In the 1960's, as a surgeon in Perth, he extended his interest in farming to co-own property in Dale River (near Beverley) and run a Murray Grey beef cattle stud. Sol relished both the science and the physicality of farming life and became a respected (if atypical) member of the local farming and cattle-breeders' communities. He served as a committee member for the Western Australia Murray Grey Beef Cattle Society, judged cattle at a small rural cattle show, participated fully in the life of the farms with which he was involved and turned every farming endeavour into a success. His ability to master skills and knowledge well outside of surgery - his undisputed sphere of excellence - was testament to his immense intellect and his capacity for new knowledge. In his early 80's, he was afflicted by a slowly progressive form of dementia, which gradually robbed him of his cognitive skills and, later, his mobility. Jeanette managed to look after him with her usual affection, devotion and good humour until he required more intensive nursing care. After a long and slow decline, he died with Jeanette at his side on 16 February 2017, two months short of his 90th birthday. Sol Levitt was a superb doctor and surgeon. Thousands of patients and colleagues have attested to his sublime technical skills and his calm, deeply reassuring demeanour. His gentle, respectful, humble manner inspired the confidence of those around him in whichever sphere of activity he found himself, from hospital life to the medical indemnity industry, from the legal and regulatory environment of the medical board to communal school education, from the farming community to his close and loving family. He was survived by Jeanette, his wife of 65 years, three sons all still in active medical practice, their wives, nine grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and his sister Bella. He lived a full life characterised by love for his family and in the service of his community.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009350
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kmiot, Witold Andrzej Wladyslaw (1959 - 2006)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2007-11-22 2018-05-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372611372611
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Wit Kmiot was a consultant in general and colorectal surgery at St Thomas' Hospital, London. He was born in London on 15 August 1959, to Polish parents. He was an undergraduate at King's College, London, and Westminster Medical School, qualifying in 1983. House officer appointments in Poole and King's Lynn were followed by an accident and emergency post at Charing Cross Hospital. He then moved to the Midlands and spent his registrar and senior registrar years in different hospitals in Birmingham. During this time he developed an interest in colorectal surgery and was awarded a travelling fellowship to the Cleveland Clinic in Florida, where he gained special coloproctological experience. He spent time as a research fellow in the academic department of surgery in Birmingham, where he studied the aetiology of acute reservoir ileitis after restorative proctocolectomy. In 1991 the resulting thesis was accepted for the degree of master of surgery, and in the same year he was awarded a Hunterian Professorship by the college for this work. In 1994 he returned to London as senior lecturer and honorary consultant in colorectal surgery at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, working with Robin Williamson. He remained in this post for two years, before moving to an NHS consultant appointment at the Central Middlesex Hospital. A year later, in 1998, he was appointed consultant in general and colorectal surgery to St Thomas' Hospital, where he worked until his untimely death at the age of 47. By the time of his death he had already established himself at the forefront of academic coloproctology, with a stream of published papers in peer reviewed journals, chapters in textbooks and oral presentations at meetings at home and overseas. His early research interests were in molecular biology and clinical immunology, but he later became particularly involved with anorectal physiology and 3-D endoanal ultrasound. He supervised the research of several trainees, all of whom gained a higher degree. He was a co-editor of the *International Journal of Colorectal Disease*. Married to a nurse, he had two sons to whom he was devoted. He was a gourmet and every year entertained his firm at St Thomas' to Christmas lunch at an exclusive private dining establishment. As an undergraduate he had been a first class rugby player, playing in the Wasps first 15 and representing Middlesex as well as the United Hospitals. Perhaps, therefore, it is no surprise that he was a large man physically. He also had a big personality and could at times be somewhat outspoken, a trait which did not always endear him. Very sadly, he was found to have a malignant brain tumour after being involved in a minor road traffic accident caused by impaired vision which he had not recognised. Despite surgery and chemotherapy he died within a few months of diagnosis on 17 November 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000427
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dale, Richard Foley (1945 - 2016)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Oliver Dale
Publication Date 2017-01-25 2017-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009200-E009299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381474381474
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon Naval surgeon
Details Richard Dale was a surgeon in the Royal Navy. He was born in Worcester on 18 March 1945, the son of Reginald William Dale, a county planning officer, and Margaret Dale née Norman. He grew up in Somerset, where he was to return in retirement, along with his wife Hilary. He attended Taunton School and went on to study medicine at Westminster Medical School in London, during which time he joined the Royal Navy. Following his qualification in 1968, Richard secured his first house job at West Middlesex Hospital. Working for Ian Ranger, this job inspired him to choose surgery and was a formative experience, shaping the surgeon he would become. Richard then joined Westminster Hospital's medical and dialysis unit, where he worked for Malcolm Milne. These were the early, heady days of organ transplantation, and for a period his love of cars and surgery briefly combined as he rushed around the country with critical cargo. It was also during this time that Richard impressed his future wife with his dedication and enthusiasm: as a patient on the ward, post appendectomy, in his dressing gown, he jumped in to sort out a dialysis machine for a fellow patient. Perhaps it was this or his clambering up the scaffolding of the nurses' accommodation to ward off a rival, but not long after he and deputy sister Hilary Closs were married. In 1969, Richard went to work at the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar. Soon after, he was called to action in the Cod War, the confrontations with Iceland over the right to fish in the north Atlantic. He later joined the nuclear submarine HMS *Conqueror* in Liverpool, where his main responsibility was to evaluate health hazards on board, including the threat from radiation. He took to this task with vigour and ensured the atmosphere was as lively and spirited as it was healthy. To broaden his surgical experience, Richard completed his junior training in the NHS, where he joined the rotation at Addenbroke's and in Ipswich, working for Roy Calne. In 1977, he became a lecturer for John Kinmonth at St Thomas' Hospital and during this period completed an MS on 'The inheritance of primary lymphoedema'. It was here that his passion for quality would first cause controversy. Always an early adopter and pioneer, Richard was fascinated by the use of computers for the recording of surgical outcomes. This proved too much for some of his seniors, one even branding him 'a dangerous man'. In the early eighties, Richard moved back to Cambridge to work with David Dunn, and then in 1988 returned to the Navy as a surgeon commander and consultant at the Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse, Plymouth. Although truly a general surgeon, he started to specialise in colorectal surgery. He would often bring home stories of the latest developments in surgery, including bowel pouch surgery, colonoscopy and laparoscopic surgery. Alongside his interest in technological developments, his interest in quality deepened. During this time, he established a great friendship with Brendan Devlin, working with him in the Royal College of Surgeons' surgical epidemiology and audit unit, where Richard was assistant director from 1995 to 1998. This work was recognised when he was awarded an honorary fellowship of Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1995. Although he was not on active duty during the first Gulf War, this period was deeply informative as he reflected on the medical infrastructure needed to support the front line. In 1990 Richard was made a professor of naval surgery. It was an exciting time within the services as there was a genuine wish for tri-service collaboration. He brought a huge amount of energy and original thinking to his role. Drawing on these experiences, Richard developed the concept of the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, along with the idea of embedding Ministry of Defence hospital units within NHS trusts. His occasional tours on HMS *Illustrious* and HMS *Invincible* helped him develop his work on quality and care pathways. It was during one of these tours that the captain of the *Illustrious* commented on the great numbers of his crew who appeared to have had elective surgery, even when crossing the rough seas of the Bay of Biscay. Richard, pleased that his work was being recognised, stated he believed in the importance of the team's ability to function at peace time as well as at war. The best way to keep the team sharp was to keep them active! As assistant medical director of the Defence Secondary Care Agency, he was to have a profound impact on the effectiveness and sustainability of military medicine. His proudest contribution was perhaps the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, which was described as 'his baby' by his commanding officer. Richard left the Navy in 2003 as a surgeon captain and joined Benenden Hospital as a consultant surgeon. Later he became the medical director at Benenden, where he soon took on the responsibility for restructuring and reorganising the care there. This experience led to his becoming the medical director of the commercial directorate at the Department of Health. In this role, Richard was to play a key figure in the Independent Sector Treatment Centre (ISTC) programme, whereby private sector-owned treatment centres were contracted within the NHS. Whilst politically controversial, Richard's singular focus on delivering quality elective surgery to many allowed him to keep to the task. Whilst the conflict went on around him, he was not troubled by the rhetoric, preferring the comfort of the reality instead. Apart from some consultancy work, this was his last post before he retired, however this did not mean a quiet life. Shortly before his death, Richard was to start his final career as a politician for the local Conservative Party. In the 2015 election he ran a close second in the county council elections. Recognising his diplomatic skills, he was then elevated to the post of local party chairman. It was with much regret and sadness that he had to give up this role when he became ill as he was a great believer in democracy, political discourse and the Conservative Party, in that order. Never afraid to challenge vested interests, he thought it far more flattering to be admired by his juniors than his seniors. Since his death, many have approached the family with tales of how he supported them. As a family, we recognise that he was a very effective leader. One of his qualities was his ability to inspire those around him to achieve more than they thought they were capable of. It is difficult to unpick how he did this, but he was not particularly afraid of failure and this allowed him to enjoy learning and allow others to enjoy it too. Richard died on 23 November 2016 following 11 months and two days of treatment for oesophageal cancer. He was 71. Shortly after his diagnosis and after much research, he predicted to the day when he would die. He was survived by his wife, Hilary, three children, four grandchildren and a beloved fox terrier.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009291
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Parks, Thomas George (1935 - 2023)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Rowan Parks
Publication Date 2023-10-17
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010400-E010499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/387416387416
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Thomas George Parks was a consultant general surgeon in Belfast and a former president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was born on 14 June 1935 in Lurgan, Northern Ireland. The youngest of seven children, his early life was spent on the family farm and attending the local rural school. He was the first in his immediate family to attend university and moved to Belfast to undertake a medical degree at Queen’s University Belfast. He was awarded academic scholarships in each year of the course, the Adami medal for first place in pathology and the Marion Sims medal for first place in midwifery and gynaecology, graduating MB BCh BAO and achieving second place in the final examinations in June 1959. His house officer training was at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, following which he was an assistant lecturer in the department of physiology at Queen’s for one year. He undertook his senior house officer posts in surgery, obtaining his fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1963. In 1966 he was awarded an MCh from Queen’s with a thesis entitled ‘An enquiry into the pathogenesis of diverticular disease of the colon’. George Parks’ senior registrar training was at the Royal Victoria Hospital, before he moved to London, to work at St Mark’s Hospital and the London Hospital for a period of 18 months. He returned to Belfast to complete his senior registrar training before being appointed as a consultant surgeon at Armagh City and South Tyrone hospitals in October 1970. He was subsequently appointed as a senior lecturer in surgery at Queen’s and as an honorary consultant surgeon at the Royal Victoria and Belfast City hospitals from April 1971. He was promoted to reader in surgery in 1973 and was awarded a personal chair as professor of surgical science in 1982. He was the professor of surgery and acting head of the department of surgery from 1997 until his retirement in 2000, when he was awarded the status of emeritus professor of surgery. George Parks received a travelling award in 1970 and spent three months visiting several leading gastrointestinal centres, famous hospitals and renowned universities in the United States and Canada, to witness at first hand reputable clinical practice and discuss recent advances and current trends in gastrointestinal research. He also observed medical curriculum changes and new methods of teaching and training undergraduates, the knowledge of which he brought back to Belfast. For 20 years, George Parks was the central individual for surgical training in Northern Ireland, chairing recruitment panels, organising senior house officer and registrar rotations, being specialty adviser to the Northern Ireland Council for Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education, and a specialty adviser to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was a respected examiner both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He examined at Queen’s and for several other universities in Great Britain and Ireland, and internationally, as well as postgraduate fellowship examinations for all four of the surgical royal colleges. His research was in all aspects of gastrointestinal disease but especially colorectal disease, which was his main area of clinical focus. He set up the first dedicated specialist colorectal unit in Northern Ireland and was responsible for training a generation of future colorectal surgeons. He published extensively, with 38 book chapters and 127 major publications in scientific journals. He was regularly invited to deliver lectures at national and international meetings and travelled extensively. George Parks had a passion and panache for administrative responsibilities. He chaired numerous committees and working parties for Queen’s and within the NHS throughout Northern Ireland. He will be particularly remembered for his professional activity within specialist associations and the royal colleges. He held numerous positions of responsibility across a wide range of organisations and was recognised by being elected as president of the Ulster Society of Gastroenterology, the Irish Society of Gastroenterology, the section of proctology of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Irish Association of Coloproctology, St Mark’s Association, the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland and the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. George Parks became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1983 and this provided an opening for what would be one of his most cherished contributions to surgical practice that he was to enjoy for 40 years. He was elected to council in 1986, served on and chaired many of the standing committees, before being elected as vice president in 1998 and subsequently president from 2000 to 2002. He was only the fourth president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland from Northern Ireland in it’s 239-year history. George Parks will be remembered as a kind, considerate and charming man. He was generous to all he came in contact with and was described as the epitome of a professional gentleman, a mentor, an inspiration, a leader, role model and remarkable, humble gentleman. George Parks married Elizabeth Mahood in March 1964. They had three children, Rowan, Fiona and Cheryl. Rowan followed his father into a surgical career, Fiona trained in banking and now works in a legal practice and Cheryl trained in accountancy and is now practice manager of a legal firm. George and Rowan have shared some unique roles and responsibilities. Both have been awarded personal chairs as professor of surgical sciences at their respective universities, both were president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, being the only father and son to have done so in the Association’s 103-year history, and both were elected as president of their respective surgical college, with George being president of Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland from 2000 to 2002 and Rowan being elected as president of Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 2022 to 2025. George’s hobbies were travelling, gardening and DIY. He loved time with family and arranged many travelling adventures to Europe and North America. A highlight was a wonderful Caribbean cruise with Elizabeth, their three children and spouses, and seven grandchildren on the occasion of their golden wedding anniversary. George suffered a significant stroke on his 59th wedding anniversary. He had a gradual decline of his health over the following six months and died on 19 September 2023. He was 88.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010492
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cawkwell, Walter Irving (1914 - 1965)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006000-E006099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378226378226
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Tony Cawkwell was born in Auckland and educated at Auckland Grammar school. At an early stage he showed great scholastic and athletic ability, and when seventeen he also became an Associate of the London College of Music. In 1933 he commenced the study of medicine at Otago University and joined fully in the social and sporting life of Selwyn College. His chief game was hockey, he represented Otago University during 1933-37 and was awarded a blue. In 1936 he was selected for the Otago hockey team to play All India. After qualification Cawkwell was the first RMO appointed to the Mater Misericordiae Hospital where he worked under Sir Carrick Robertson and Dr Cronin. He then decided on a surgical career, and proceeded to England, working at various hospitals before obtaining the Fellowship in 1942. Cawkwell joined the Army in 1942 and served with distinction in Egypt and Italy. After the war he served in the Territorial Forces, becoming Officer Commanding No 1 New Zealand Hospital, 1959-61. In 1946 Cawkwell returned to London to work at St Mark's Hospital, in order to gain further knowledge in what was becoming his chief interest, proctology. After returning to New Zealand he was appointed to the staff of Green Lane Hospital, and then commenced private practice as a general surgeon with a special interest in proctology. Between 1948 and 1963 Cawkwell contributed several articles to the surgical journals, including one on perineal hernia complicating abdomino-perineal excision of the rectum which was published in the *British journal of surgery* 1963, 50, 431. For many years he was the Secretary to the Auckland Division of the BMA, and in 1953 was secretary for the Biennial Conference of the New Zealand Branch of the Association. In 1946 he married Olwen Eirehis Jones at the Ton Pentr, Rhondda in Wales. Early in 1965 he developed signs of the cerebral tumour which eventually claimed his life and he died on 24 October 1965 at home, survived by his wife, one son and two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006043
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fink, Roy Laurence Willis (1938 - 2014)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Michael Fink
Publication Date 2014-08-15 2015-03-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005800-E005899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377992377992
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Roy Lawrence Willis Fink was born in Ballarat on 27 April 1938. His father was a state school headmaster and the family moved between various country towns, including Learmonth, Yea and Benalla, before moving to Ferntree Gully and subsequently Bentleigh. His early years were influenced by World War II, holidays with relatives in the Western District, the romance of the bush, general mischievousness and country football. He completed his schooling at Xavier College, where he excelled academically and competed at a high level in athletics and football, being identified at this time by the Prefect of Studies at Xavier College as the sort of person who would form the backbone of society. It was at Xavier's May Time Fair that he met the girl with whom he would subsequently form an enduring and unbreakable bond, Jill Duncan. He barracked for Richmond in his early years, but was influenced by a Xaverian who played for Hawthorn and Roy commenced his lifelong attachment to the Hawthorn Football Club in the lean years of the 1950s. Roy matriculated with honours and was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to study at university. Encouraged by his family's General Practitioner, he commenced studying Medicine at the University of Melbourne in 1956. He focused on his studies, but also found time to develop his relationship with Jill, firm and long-term friendships with a number of fellow medical students, play amateur football for St Paul's Bentleigh CYMS and work as a labourer for the Public Works Department during university holidays. He described as a "natural choice" the decision to undertake the clinical years of his medical degree at St Vincent's Hospital Clinical School in view of his sense of duty to the Catholic Church and the fact that most of his friends chose to go there. This was the start of an association with St Vincent's Hospital that would last for 53 years. He felt a strong sense of allegiance to St Vincent's Hospital throughout his career and afterwards. Roy graduated in 1961 and was a Resident at St Vincent's in 1962 and 1963. He likened this to a period of imprisonment alleviated by parties that included games, including one that involved attempting to fit as many people as possible on the mantelpiece in the residents' quarters. He was a noted mimic, imitating St Vincent's Hospital consultants, including John Horan. In 1964, he was an anatomy demonstrator at Melbourne University in 1964. He chose a career in surgery, was a Surgical Registrar at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital in 1965 and at St Vincent's Hospital in 1966, working for his "surgical hero", Jim McCoy. He was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1967. Roy and Jill were married in 1963 and their children, Michael, Kathryn and Liza were born in 1964, 1966 and 1969, respectively. Roy rounded out his surgical training in England, working from 1967 to 1969 at the Lambeth Hospital, Nottingham General Hospital and St Mark's Hospital. It was at the latter that he developed his interest in colorectal surgery. He was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons (England) in 1967. This was a stimulating period of career development, but also included frequent family trips in the countryside of the British Isles in a tiny caravan. In 1970, the family returned to Melbourne and Roy renewed his association with St Vincent's Hospital, being appointed Casualty Surgeon and Honorary Outpatients Assistant, and opened a private practice at 20 Collins Street, which he moved to 55 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy in 1979. He was a Consultant Surgeon in the Connell Unit and Hurley Unit, before joining the Ryan Colorectal Unit. In 1986, he moved to the Vellar Unit and rejoined the Colorectal Unit in 1989. He was the Director of the Department of Colon and Rectal Surgery from 1999 to 2003 and was a founding member of the Colorectal Surgical Society of Australia and New Zealand. His strong interest in teaching at an undergraduate and registrar level continued for much of his career and he was particularly renowned for his "lumps and bumps" teaching sessions. He was an examiner for the MB BS for 25 years and also examined for the RACS Clinical Examination. He pursued research in anorectal pathophysiology and colorectal clinical disorders. From 1974 to 1991 he held the position of Senior Lecturer in the University of Melbourne Department of Surgery and Associate Professor of the University of Melbourne, St Vincent's Clinical School from 2000 to 2011. Roy retired from private practice in 2003 and from his Consultant position at St Vincent's Hospital in 2004. However, he retired gradually and continued roles with St Vincent's Hospital in risk management and running a surgical clinic at Port Phillip Prison and was also a private surgical assistant, Senior Examiner for the Australian Medical Council and Medical Panel member for Workcover. He suffered from locally advanced, and subsequently metatstatic, adenocarcinoma of the pancreas over three years, though he bore his tribulations with courage and pragmatism. He passed away at St Vincent's Private Hospital on 11 January 2014. Roy will be remembered for his absolute dedication to his patients whom he treated equally no matter their walk in life, his unerring sense of responsibility, honesty, empathy, modesty and great humour.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005809
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cutait, Daher Elias (1913 - 2001)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-22 2016-02-02
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/380724380724
Occupation Coloproctologist Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Daher Cutait was nominated the 'Father of Latin-American Colo-Proctology' by the Latin-American Colo-Proctology Association. He was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1913, and was educated at the University of São Paulo. After graduating in 1939, he won a scholarship provided by the Institute of International Education of New York, and later by the Kellogg Foundation of Michigan and the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau, to study in the United States. He worked with Green Carter and Whipple at Presbyterian Hospital, New York, and then moved to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor under Frederick Coller. Towards the end of his three years he visited the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Lahey Clinic, Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic. He returned to Brazil as an academic surgeon in the University of São Paulo-Hospital das Clínicas, becoming in 1947 head of colo-proctology, a post he retained until he retired in 1983. His service became one of the most prestigious in the world and he trained hundreds of surgeons from South America and elsewhere. He published three textbooks on surgery of the bowel and intensive care, and was much sought-after as a visiting professor all over the world. His most important contribution to the speciality was the 'pull-through' operation for cancer of the rectum and the megacolon caused by Chagas' disease, which he developed independently and at the same time as Rupert Turnbull. He was President of the Brazilian Society of Colo-Proctology, the Brazilian College of Surgeons, the Latin-American Surgical Federation, the International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons, and the Brazilian chapter of the American College of Surgeons. He presided over the World Congress of Colo-Proctology in 1986. He was awarded honorary fellowships of innumerable international medical societies. In Brazil an annual Cutait oration was founded in his honour. In the early 1960s he established and directed the Hospital Sirio Libanes, a not-for-profit institution that became a referral centre for complex cases. He married Yvonne in 1948, and had four children, one of whom followed him into surgery. There are ten grandchildren. His autobiography, *A doctor; a life*, was published in 2000. He died on 6 June 2001.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008541
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Schofield, Philip Furness (1930 - 2012)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2012-04-13 2013-10-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002100-E002199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374376374376
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Philip Schofield was a colorectal surgeon in Manchester. There is a belief, that has some foundation, that northern surgeons of Schofield's era were a special breed, who were hard working, tough, decisive, technically competent and highly experienced. If so, he was a prime example of such surgeons who, in his case, also commanded affection, respect and admiration for his intellectual honesty, in equal measure. Born in Huddersfield, the only child of an industrial chemist, he attended the local grammar school and, on leaving school, somewhat surprisingly for someone with his undoubted intellectual abilities, became a professional rugby league player. Although his personal and physical qualities would have guaranteed a highly successful sporting career, this was interrupted by National Service in the RAF. At the end of conscription he crossed the Pennines to enter Manchester Medical School and began a career that was to be based entirely in Lancashire. There he met and married Wendy, a fellow doctor, who was to be the rock upon which his successful family life and surgical career was built and sustained. His surgical training in Manchester led him to gain his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1962 and of the English College in 1963. He then commenced his lifetime interest in colorectal disease, writing his MD on Crohn's disease. It was in the course of this research that he demonstrated the essential role of the terminal ileum in the absorption of vitamin B12 and the requirement for lifetime B12 injections to prevent megaloblastic anaemia in patients who had undergone terminal ileal resection. On the basis of this work he gained a Hunterian professorship in 1964. A year in the United States as the John M Wilson memorial scholar at the Cleveland Clinic allowed him to work with Rupert B Turnbull Jr, one of the international doyens of colorectal surgery. His consultant career in Manchester followed a somewhat unusual path, commencing with an appointment to Ashton-under-Lyne Hospital in 1969. This was followed by a move to Trafford General Hospital, and from there he transferred to the University Hospital of South Manchester in 1976, an appointment which included clinical sessions at the famous Christie Hospital. It was through this latter connection that he was able to pursue his interest in complex pelvic surgery, working in partnership with his urological and gynaecological colleagues. In addition he took advantage of the Paterson laboratories to explore the basic science aspects of his specialty and, with colleagues and research fellows, he produced over 200 original papers and chapters on topics ranging from the flow cytometry characteristics of colorectal cancers, to the management of carcinomas involving the vagina. A notable and treatment-changing randomised trial of preoperative radiotherapy in the management of rectal cancer conducted with Roger James, a radiotherapist, received international acclaim ('Adjuvant preoperative radiotherapy for locally advanced rectal carcinoma. Results of a prospective, randomized trial' *Dis Colon Rectum*. 1994 Dec;37[12]:1205-14). His enthusiasm for innovative practical surgery led to him developing new approaches such as the creation of a myocutaneous flap, which could be used in the one stage management of difficult problems such as complex perineal fistulae. He demonstrated equal passion for teaching, particularly postgraduate trainees, specifically at the operating table. His reputation in both these aspects led to him being invited as a visiting professor and lecturer all over the world. In 1984 he was elected a member of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. Notably, he was invited to deliver the prestigious William C Bernstein memorial lecture in Minneapolis in 1994. Similar accolades followed at home, when he was appointed first as honorary reader and then visiting professor of surgery at Manchester University. He was president of the section of surgery of Manchester Medical Society, president of both the section of surgery and the section of coloproctology of the Royal Society of Medicine, and president of the North of England Gastroenterology Society. However, the accolade he most savoured was his appointment in 1992 as president of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, a society he and a nucleus of others had campaigned to establish in order to put the sub-specialty on an independent footing. Philip Schofield also recognised the importance of surgeons being involved in administration and policy making, and not just sitting back and blaming management when administrative matters went wrong. He allowed himself to be put forward for leadership roles in this aspect of health services management, and as a result successively chaired medical executive committees, the regional sub-committee for surgery, and the north west regional committee for hospital medical services. He showed similar dedication to the administration of surgical education, being chairman of the board of the primary FRCS examiners, chairman of the north western regional specialist training committee, a member of the presidential board of surgical specialties of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a member of the specialist advisory committee in general surgery. Learning from his experiences in the United States, he set up with others the acclaimed M62 training course in coloproctology. When retirement eventually came in 1995 he turned his talents to the taxing task of providing medico-legal reports, at which he excelled. He built up a huge national practice as an expert witness. Just as he forged high standards of care in clinical coloproctology, so he campaigned for high standards of report writing in medico-legal practice. In 1997 he set up, with the Royal Society of Medicine, a report writing training day at the Law Society. This was the first step in the now accepted principle that doctors needed training if they were to become expert witnesses in medico-legal cases. It was whilst writing the opinion section of such a report on 12 February 2010 that he suffered a massive stroke. His formidable constitution and the devoted and tender care of Wendy and his three children meant that he lived for a further two years, before dying peacefully on 18 March 2012, aged 82.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002193
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Fearon, Kenneth Christopher Howard (1960 - 2016)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Olle Ljungqvist
Publication Date 2016-10-27 2017-06-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009200-E009299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381443381443
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon Surgical oncologist
Details Kenneth Christopher Howard (Ken) Fearon was professor of surgical oncology at the University of Edinburgh. He was born in Glasgow on 3 August 1960. He attended St Aloysius' College in Glasgow and studied medicine at the University of Glasgow. He was an exceptional student and graduated with honours in 1982. He was awarded the prestigious Brunton Memorial prize during the MB ChB course. He then trained in Glasgow and Edinburgh under the tutelage of luminaries like Sir Kenneth Calman and Sir David Carter. He developed an interest in surgical oncology early in his career and was awarded an MD by the University of Glasgow in 1986 for his thesis 'Mechanisms and treatment of weight loss in cancer'. He obtained a fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1988 and was awarded *ad eundem* fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and England in 1996 and 1997 respectively. Ken was appointed as a lecturer in surgery at Edinburgh University in 1988, promoted to senior lecturer in 1993 and to professor in 1999. He was an honorary consultant colorectal surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh. Ken was a busy clinician who loved treating his patients. He was a consummate colorectal surgeon with a longstanding interest and expertise in surgical nutrition. He kept pace with technical advances in surgery throughout his career, and remained a key member of the colorectal surgical team who continued to fulfill his on-call commitments. Ken had an insatiable desire for depth of general knowledge and this mirrored in his approach to surgical research. His clinical research focused on cancer cachexia, nutritional pharmacology, enhanced recovery after surgery and improving surgical outcomes. He was a true translational scientist and clinical researcher, and a great driver of ideas from bench to bedside and patient benefit. He supervised numerous MD and PhD theses, and had over 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including *The New England Journal of Medicine*, *Nature* and *Lancet Oncology*. He had an extraordinary talent for surgical research, with a brilliant mind that remained concentrated on recognising clinical problems, formulating hypotheses and seeking solutions. He had the capacity to ask the right questions and also the stamina and stubbornness to answer them, often through large, complicated clinical trials. Starting with his MD thesis, Ken worked on cancer cachexia research for over 30 years. He published extensively on muscle metabolism, muscle function and systemic inflammation in cancer, making him the most longstanding, most prolific and most cited researcher in clinical cachexia. Ken was a tireless advocate for progressing cancer cachexia therapies into the clinic and completed several early international randomised clinical trials, without the support of cooperative groups or pharmaceutical companies. When he saw a need to identify and treat patients early and before dramatic weight loss, Ken initiated exciting work to discover early cachexia biomarkers. He was lead author of 'Definition and classification of cancer cachexia: an international consensus' (*Lancet Oncol.* May;12[5]:489-95), a landmark paper providing a road map for clinical classification and management. With Olle Ljungqvist from Sweden, he formed the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) study group in 2001, a group that served as a forerunner of the worldwide ERAS Society in 2010. As the chairman of the board of the ERAS Society, Ken was instrumental in formulating highly cited guidelines for enhanced recovery after surgery, successfully encouraging great success in collaboration, and spreading key messages that have improved outcomes for patients, reduced complications and assisted faster recovery in several surgical disciplines. During his career, Ken was the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the Cuthbertson award of the Nutrition Society in 1991 and the James IV Association of Surgeons travellers' award in 1997. He was elected a member of the James IV Association of Surgeons (in 2000) and was president of the International Association for Surgical Nutrition and Metabolism (from 2005 to 2007). He had served as an examiner for the Intercollegiate Specialty Board in General Surgery and was a chair of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh's research board, its ophthalmology sub-committee and the Lorna Smith Charitable Trust committee. He was a member of the National Cancer Research Institute's palliative care cachexia sub-group and the Scottish Home Parenteral Nutrition Managed Clinical Network's executive committee. He was a board member of the Society on Sarcopenia, Cachexia and Wasting Disorders and received its Hippocrates award in 2009. He was honoured by the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism with the Wretlind lecture in 2011, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Örebro University in Sweden in 2015. Ken was a brilliant speaker and a superb debater, didactic, but with a wry sense of humour, and in great demand nationally and internationally. His integrity and humanity shone through all of his activities and when speaking in public he held his audience with his engagement and directness. He was a much-loved teacher of undergraduates and postgraduates. Above all, Ken was a family man and his greatest treasures were his wife, Marie Fallon, and their two children, Christopher and Katie. Marie holds the St Columba's Hospice chair of palliative medicine at the University of Edinburgh and is an honorary consultant in palliative care at the Western General. They had a thriving personal and professional partnership, and friends, colleagues and collaborators were always made welcome in their home. Ken enjoyed gourmet cooking and fine wine, and was a keen golfer. He was an avid art collector and could enthral friends and acquaintances with animated discussions on art, music, cooking and wine. Despite his achievements, he remained down to earth and his humility was remarkable. Ken passed away suddenly on 3 September 2016 in Edinburgh aged only 56. It is with great sadness that we face the loss of a very close friend, a great mind and an outstanding clinical and academic leader. All those who knew him will miss his camaraderie, collaboration and friendship, as well as the joy of his lively and spiritual company. Ken was a giant in his field and a role model in medicine and biomedical science. His contributions will remain a lasting legacy for his colleagues and patients.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009260
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Doig, Caroline May (1938 - 2019)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sir Miles Irving
Publication Date 2019-12-18 2020-01-17
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/382914382914
Occupation Paediatric surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Caroline Doig was a consultant paediatric surgeon in Manchester and the first woman elected to the council of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. She was not easy to miss in a crowded room: firstly, she was tall, but more importantly she had a formidable but likeable presence and was always surrounded by friends and colleagues. Born on 13 April 1938 in Forfar, Scotland to George William Lowson Doig, a master draper, and May Deeson Doig née Keir, a teacher, Caroline was not to know her father for he was killed in South Africa in 1942 during the Second World War when she was three and a half years old. This tragedy led to a very close relationship between Caroline and her mother, which endured until the death of her mother in 1997. Caroline attended medical school, initially at St Andrews for pre-clinical studies, moving to Dundee for her clinical training. She graduated MB ChB in 1962 and took up her first post in Dundee Royal Infirmary as a house surgeon to Sir Donald Douglas, who sparked her interest in surgery as a career. Following completion of pre-registration training posts, she became an anatomy demonstrator at Queen’s College, Dundee, subsequently passing her primary FRCS in 1964. Furthering her wish to be a surgeon, she applied for senior house officer posts, at which time she encountered the first prejudice against women graduates wishing to be surgeons. She was fortunate to gain a post in Darlington, where she worked with Kenneth McKeown, the renowned general and oesophageal surgeon. In 1965, she obtained a post at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow; here she realised that the developing specialty of paediatric surgery was what she wanted to do. Following completion of her time in Glasgow in 1966, she returned to Dundee to undertake a period of research, supervised by Sir Donald Douglas, into wound infection. When presenting her results at a meeting of the Surgical Research Society, she was introduced to Andrew Wilkinson of Great Ormond Street Hospital, a meeting which was subsequently to bear fruit. It was during this time that she passed her FRCS Edinburgh, but was advised that should she wish to work in London she would need to be a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. In 1970, she was appointed to a senior registrar post at Great Ormond Street Hospital, an appointment that offered the opportunity of work with some of the great names in paediatric surgery and to publish papers with them. One important feature of her training was the opportunity to spend a year ‘off site’, this she did at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh. Although tempted to remain in the south for her consultant career, Caroline wanted to move back north to be in easier reach of her homeland whilst still practising in the heart of England where there was so much development in children’s surgery to be carried out. Consequently, when a teaching hospital appointment in paediatric surgery was advertised in Manchester, she applied for it and was successful. Caroline was for 25 years, commencing in August 1975, senior lecturer in paediatric surgery in the department of surgery at Manchester University based at Booth Hall Children’s Hospital, but with on call duties at Pendlebury Children’s Hospital in Salford and the Duchess of York Hospital in south Manchester, as well as at the new surgical neonatal unit at St Mary’s Hospital attached to Manchester Royal Infirmary. Colorectal surgery became her chosen subspecialty, although, as one of only a small number of paediatric surgeons serving five children’s hospitals in the Manchester region, she had to deploy her skills widely, especially when covering emergencies and trauma. She had a particular interested in childhood constipation and adopted one part of a ward for their treatment, which was called ‘The House at Pooh Corner’. She was universally liked by children and their parents, many of the latter commenting on her kindness and empathy, especially when children were seriously ill. Possibly because of her huge workload, she was not a major surgical innovator or clinical researcher, although she continued to publish within her specialty. She was however interested in the wider field of medical politics; she was president of the Medical Women’s Federation from 1985 to 1986 and was a member of the General Medical Council from 1989 to 1999. Caroline loved going on the overseas visits of both Royal Colleges, not only to examine but also to meet fellow paediatric surgeons, amongst whom she was widely known. These visits also offered her the opportunity to lead other women in the groups to visit souks and local jewellers, from which she would emerge with precious stones and pearls, some of the latter being of such a size and quality as to enter into the realms of RCS social history! As a proud Scot, she kept her soft Scottish accent, which survived her quarter of a century residence in Manchester. She was noteworthy in being equally loyal to the English and Scottish Royal Colleges, in both of which she was an active until her death. After retirement from the practise of surgery in 2000, she turned her attention increasingly to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In 1984 Caroline had become the first woman surgeon to be elected to the council of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and served for two terms of office. To mark this historic event, in 2000 she established a medal, the Hunter Doig medal, to commemorate her appointment to the council, joined with the name of Alison Headwards-Hunter, the first woman to pass the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (in 1920). The Hunter Doig medal is awarded to female fellows or members of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh who demonstrate career potential and ambition. In latter years, Caroline brought to fulfillment her long-planned ambition to write her autobiography, knowing that after her death there would be no relatives left to secure her memory, though there were many friends and godchildren who could have fulfilled the task. Titled somewhat enigmatically *Enilorac* (Caroline spelt backwards) and subtitled *Hands of a lady* (UK, AuthorHouse, 2018), the book is an account of the difficult career progression of a woman surgeon in times gone past and how she strived successfully to reach the peak of her chosen profession. At the beginning of November 2019, Caroline, as usual, attended the London meeting of the senior fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons, where she was cheerful, regal and relaxed amongst her friends and admirers. She returned to her flat in Edinburgh and died peacefully in her sleep a few days later on 14 November. She was 81.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009679
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pendower, John Edward Hicks (1927 - 2016)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Jane Pendower
Publication Date 2016-03-24 2016-08-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009100-E009199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381285381285
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details John Pendower was a consultant surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital, London and Mayday Hospital, Croydon. He was born on 6 August 1927, less than ten years after the end of the First World War; his father had been a teenage infantryman on the Somme. He grew up through turbulent and exciting times, and came through his education remarkably well considering that he moved school five times during the Second World War. For one period of three months during the bombing of London he slept every night in his family's underground air raid shelter at the bottom of their garden in Bexley, listening to the anti-aircraft guns firing all night. In the summer of 1944 a flying bomb destroyed the school's science block and he persuaded his father to let him go to university to study medicine aged 17. In 1950 John qualified from the University of London, taking honours both in medicine and surgery, having trained first at King's College and then at Charing Cross Hospital, both in the Strand. Thereafter he took his FRCS in 1955 and his early surgical career began. After further training and a couple of spells in Malaya and Cyprus as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, he was appointed as a consultant surgeon and spent most of his career at the old and the Charing Cross hospitals for 34 years, and at the Mayday in Croydon for 25 years as a general surgeon. In 1959 John became engaged to a nurse, Kate Tuohy, and not long after he had to leave for Boston, Massachusetts, to undertake the Harvey Cushing fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He could not bear to be parted from his fiancée and called for her to join him in Boston, where they were married on 9 January 1960. Kate and John spent a happy but penniless time in the US, eating from paper plates, until they returned to the UK and the first of their three children was born in July 1961. Thereafter Kate 'retired' from nursing to look after the family and run John's private practice to enable him to dedicate his working life to medicine; for patients a reassuring conversation with Kate was almost as good as having spoken to the great man himself. When Kate tragically died in 1987, at the age of only 51, John described her loss as 'a pickaxe through the heart'. John always felt that the law was the other profession he could have followed, so at the height of his medical career he studied to qualify as a barrister and was called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1972. Subsequently, he always enjoyed involvement with the law when it crossed over with medicine and was a long-term member of the Croydon Medico Legal Society. His interest in the dual professions assisted him in undergraduate teaching and he had great skills as a chairman. So, between 1979 and 1984 John was vice dean of the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School and later sub dean of the newly-formed Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School between 1984 and 1987, an examiner in surgery for London University and a member of Hammersmith and Fulham (subsequently Riverside) Health Authority between 1983 and 1990. From 1989 to 1993 John was happy for his career to culminate in his appointment as dean of the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, having experienced the merger with the Westminster Medical School and Her Majesty The Queen's opening of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, now part of his domain as dean of the combined medical schools. At this pinnacle of his career, he led the medical school, taught students and continued his duties as a surgeon. He had a great sense of humour and was always willing to share his wit and wisdom. When the name of the new medical school was being debated he vetoed 'Westminster and Charing Cross' on the basis that no medical school of his would have the initials WC; it duly became CXWMS, Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School. John was an inspiration to his students and always seemed to find the time to teach however busy he was. A former student recently said: '…as an operating surgeon [he] was a master. As a teacher the best I have met. He had a system for everything - pragmatic, organised and above all easy to follow and to remember. He was more than an influence professionally; he was a hugely honourable man who inspired others to reflect his principles in their lives beyond surgery.' Perhaps John was close to the truth when he claimed to lack an aesthetic imagination, always wearing his immaculate trademark suits for work with black jacket, grey pinstripe trousers and stiff collared white shirts - a 'uniform' he had worn at school and never changed. He was, however, famous for some individual accessories, particularly his pom-pom hats (the originals knitted by his mother), worn when driving his MG sports car to work, almost always with the roof down, covering the most magnificent head of hair, which he kept to the end. He retired from all of his duties as a consultant surgeon, teacher and dean of the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School in 1993, and his portrait was painted and hangs as an inspiration for those who follow him. Apart from working as chairman of the Sargent Cancer Charity for Children, having also been a special trustee at Charing Cross, much to everyone's surprise he really did give it all up. Subsequently, for the next 22 years he made up for time lost in his busy professional life. Having remarried, he travelled, spending long holidays in Spain and watched the progress of his grandchildren, forging individual relationships with each. Although he gave up playing squash and skiing, he pursued his interest in history, visiting the battlefields of the Somme and Waterloo, walking (long after his three Irish setters were gone) and entertaining friends. He spent the last decade living next door to family on Box Hill in Surrey and thought it wonderful that he could wake up in the morning and see for 35 miles out of the bedroom window without lifting his head from the pillow. John described his life in the medical profession as 'the best of lives'. He reached the top of his profession and dedicated the greater part of his life to others. He remained sharp and fit throughout his retirement, and died in his sleep on 8 February 2016 at age of 88. John leaves a wife Paulette, a son and two daughters, Mark, Jane and Katie, by his first wife Kate, eight grandchildren and a great grandson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009102
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Tjandra, Joe Janwar (1957 - 2007)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-27 2013-11-25
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372660372660
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Joe Tjandra was a colorectal surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Royal Women's Hospital, and associate professor of surgery at the University of Melbourne. He was born in Palembang, Indonesia, to Hasan and Tini Tjandra, who were of Chinese origin. His father ran a small trading business. After primary school in Indonesia, Joe Tjandra was sent to Singapore, where he learnt English. He went on to Melbourne, Australia, to Mentone Grammar School, and then studied medicine at the University of Melbourne. He was house surgeon to Alan Cuthbertson and Gordon Clunie in the colorectal unit at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He then went to the UK, where he trained under Les Hughes at Cardiff. He gained his FRCS in 1986. In 1987 he returned to Australia and carried out clinical research with Ian McKenzie at the Research Centre for Cancer and Transplantation at the University of Melbourne. They worked on monoclonal antibodies, hoping to target toxins specifically to cancer cells. Among the volunteers for his project was his old headmaster at Mentone. Tjandra was awarded his MD for this research and, in the following year, gained his FRACS while a surgical registrar in the colorectal unit. Tjandra then spent a year with John Wong in Hong Kong, after which he went to the Cleveland Clinic, USA, to work for two years with Victor Fazio. He then spent a further year with Les Hughes in Cardiff. In 1993 he returned to Australia and was appointed colorectal surgeon to the Royal Melbourne Hospital and to the Royal Women's Hospital. In 2002 he was made an associate professor at the University of Melbourne and, three years later, coordinator of the Epworth Gastrointestinal Oncology Centre. He also established a large private practice. He published over 150 scientific papers, wrote 70 chapters and edited six books. His *Textbook of surgery* (Malden, Mass/Oxford, Blackwell Scientific) is now in its third edition. He was frequently a visiting lecturer/professor, particularly in the Asian Pacific region, but also in the US and Europe. He was editor of *ANZ Journal of Surgery* for several years and was on the board of a number of international journals. He died on 18 June 2007, aged just 50, following a ten-month battle with bowel cancer. He leaves a wife, Yvonne Pun, a rheumatologist, two sons (Douglas and Bradley) and a daughter (Caitlin).
Resource Identifier RCS: E000476
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hand, Bernard Hillary (1919 - 1984)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007300-E007399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379491379491
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Bernard Hand was born on 21 November 1919. His father, Ernest Francis Hand, was an architect and his mother, Mary, née Searle, was the daughter of an engineer. He was descended from Sir William Hillary, founder of the lifeboat service; as a consequence he gave constant support to the RNLI throughout his life. Six months after graduation, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a Surgeon-Lieutenant and his ship was sunk by a mine off Omaha beach, during the D-Day landings. He began surgical training on demobilisation in 1946 and was influenced by David Patey, Richard Handley, Sir Eric Riches and Leslie LeQuesne. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the Ipswich and East Suffolk Hospitals in 1958 and he founded a specialist service in colorectal surgery as well as dealing with all the usual demands on a general surgeon. He was a regional adviser at the Royal College of Surgeons and examiner in surgery to the University of Cambridge. He was an enthusiastic trainer of his juniors and his reputation as a teacher was such that his posts of house surgeon and registrar were much sought after. He had little enthusiasm for committees but he undertook his share of that work with the thoroughness that characterised all his activities. He was a man of deep convictions strongly expressed and his loyalty to his training schools, the Middlesex and St Mark's Hospital Association was deep and sincere. He married Jean, a former Middlesex nurse, in 1945 and they had two sons, one of whom entered general practice in Suffolk. His main interest aside from his work was his home and his lovely garden in the country outside Ipswich; it was said of him that he could often be found precariously perched on the top rungs of a ladder trimming a yew tree! It was a tragedy that he fell ill within a few months of retirement and so had little time to enjoy his home or the grandchildren of whom he was so fond. He died on 6 October 1984, aged 64 years, survived by his wife and sons, Christopher and Charles.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007308
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, Jeremy Paul (1932 - 2020)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by P E A Savage
Publication Date 2020-10-19 2020-12-07
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009800-E009899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/383909383909
Occupation General surgeon Colorectal surgeon
Details Jeremy Wilson was a consultant general surgeon at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup. He was born on 27 January 1932, the youngest child of Charles Paul Wilson and Margaret Fraser Wilson née Cameron. His early education was at Moffats School and Bryanston, before going up to Downing College, Cambridge in 1951 to read medicine. He completed his clinical studies at Middlesex Hospital, where his father was a consultant otolaryngologist. He qualified MB BCh in 1957 and was awarded the Lyell gold medal for surgery. After house jobs at the Middlesex and Mount Vernon hospitals, his surgical training included a casualty post at the Middlesex and a senior house officer appointment at Chase Farm Hospital. He obtained his FRCS in 1963. Registrar appointments at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and Central Middlesex Hospital followed, before returning to the Middlesex Hospital as a senior registrar in 1969 to work with O V Lloyd-Davies and C J B Murray. Surgical training was comprehensive in the 1960s and it was only after 17 years as a ‘junior doctor’ – six as a senior registrar – that he finally obtained a consultant appointment at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup in 1974 at the age of 42. (It was often thought in those days that teaching hospital consultants became so dependent on their senior registrars that they were reluctant to let them go!) In 1974, the new 600-bed district general hospital at Sidcup opened, replacing the ‘temporary’ wooden huts of the old Queen Mary’s, which had been built in 1917 to deal with casualties from the First World War and where Harold Gillies carried out his pioneering work on facial reconstruction. Within the first two years of its opening 25 new consultants had been appointed, replacing the old guard who retired and enlarging the departments needed in a new district general hospital. For the whole of his consultant career J P Wilson, and his colleague P E A Savage, provided a consultant-delivered general surgical service to the local community – Wilson specialising in colorectal and Savage peripheral vascular surgery. They were joined in 1985 by J G Payne. Each unit’s junior staff consisted of a house surgeon and a senior house officer (with primary fellowship) with one shared registrar. An early decision was to develop clinical services linked with surgical training so that Sidcup would become recognised as a ‘learning hospital’ and attract good calibre trainees. Soon the department was teaching medical students and house surgeons from St Thomas’ and the Westminster hospitals, and over the years 48 senior house officers and registrars were helped up the lower rungs of the surgical ladder to eventual consultant or specialist posts in the UK or abroad. Having set up a colonoscopy unit Jeremy Wilson formed a multi-disciplinary gastrointestinal service with his medical colleague, M Lancaster-Smith, co-ordinating the management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease in joint clinics. During his last year at Sidcup he mastered the then new technique of laparoscopic cholecystectomy. He retired in 1992 aged 60. A quiet but effective leader, J P Wilson was chairman of the hospital division of surgery and of the medical staff committee, a Royal College of Surgeons’ tutor and a council member of the section of coloproctology of the Royal Society of Medicine. To many founder members of the hospital, the phrase ‘the Pride of Queen Mary’s’ was always associated with Jeremy. He was instrumental in arranging for Paintings in Hospitals, of which he was a council member, to provide pictures to hang on the many blank walls in the hospital. On more than one occasion he could be found leading a party cleaning up the grounds or doing some light (and occasionally heavy) gardening. As a member of the postgraduate centre appeal committee he played an important role in raising funds that led to the building of the Frognal centre for medical studies. With a consultant body of similar age, many with young children, colleagues and their wives soon became friends, and ‘collegiality’ a feature of Queen Mary’s that made it such a happy and rewarding place in which to work. Every summer Jeremy would organise a strawberries and cream tea party for junior staff and their families, many of whom came from overseas; he was also an enthusiastic supporter of the Frognal Ramblers – a walking group of colleagues whose gentle excursions would be rewarded by a convivial pub lunch. It was at Bryanston School that Jeremy developed his love of music. William Glock held the first Summer School of Music there in 1947, before it moved to its permanent home in Dartington in 1953. From the outset Jeremy helped with the organisation of this annual festival of music-making and it was at Dartington that he met Clare Addenbrooke, a flautist studying at the Royal College of Music. They married in 1962 and had two children (James, who became an organisation consultant, and Harriet, a music critic). Jeremy was a proficient bassoonist and every summer he and Clare helped with the organisation of the Dartington Summer School of Music. He was a member of its advisory council from 1980 to 1995. With the security of a consultant appointment came the opportunity to set up home in the Old Bakery, Farningham, where he and Clare held regular chamber music concerts. They soon became known for their kindness and generous hospitality to friends and colleagues. Jeremy, in addition to developing his talent as a landscape gardener, made time to be principal bassoonist and vice chairman of the Sidcup Symphony Orchestra. The marriage was dissolved in 1985. In retirement Jeremy went on to receive a first-class honours music BA degree from York in 1996 and an MA in musicology (with a distinction) from Southampton in 1997. It was while in his first year at York that Jeremy was struck down with a severe headache, vomiting and diplopia. He was transferred to the neurosurgical unit at Hull, where a benign adenoma of the pituitary was removed by transsphenoidal hypophysectomy. Afterwards he said that he never felt better once he was on HRT! He continued to take part in the annual Dartington Summer Music School and there met Maggie Giraud, an art historian. They married in 1999. In a surgical career spanning 35 years it is impossible to quantify the number of patients whose pain and distress have been relieved or whose lives were saved by one man’s surgical skill. Over the years Jeremy Wilson demonstrated all those qualities Sir William Osler attributed to a good doctor: imperturbability, equanimity, courage in adversity and the art of detachment. He is remembered with gratitude by his patients, with esteem by his colleagues and affection by all who had the privilege of knowing him. J P Wilson died on 25 July 2020 aged 88 following a series of strokes.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009841
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Todd, Sir Ian Pelham (1921 - 2015)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2015-05-08 2016-02-29
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379418379418
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Sir Ian Todd was one of the most distinguished colorectal surgeons of his generation. Internationally-known for his teaching and superlative operative technique, he became a reluctant president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He was the founder of stoma care nursing in the United Kingdom. Ian came from a strong medical background. Both his grandfathers were general practitioners and his father, Alan Herapath Todd, was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. His mother, Constance Alice Payne (née Edwards), was a nurse and his brother, Peter, became a consultant physician. Three uncles were also doctors and one of his aunts a nurse. Perhaps it is not surprising that he chose medicine as a career. He was educated initially at Norman Court in Potters Bar and then Sherborne (from 1935 to 1938), proceeding to St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College in 1939, where he had a chequered time. With the threat of London being bombed, the medical students were evacuated to Queen's College, Cambridge in 1940 and a year later, in 1941, Ian relocated to Toronto University Medical School with a Rockefeller studentship. While in Canada he was an officer cadet in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. He returned to the UK in 1944 to qualify with the conjoint MRCS LRCP, gaining a Toronto MD in 1945. National Service as a major in the RAMC followed and on demobilisation he was at various times a house surgeon and anatomy demonstrator at Barts, a resident surgical officer at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, a registrar at Barts and at St Helier Hospital, Carshalton. After gaining his final FRCS in 1949 he was appointed chief assistant at Barts, during which time he was awarded the Luther Holden research scholarship and was developing his abiding interest in coloproctology. In 1954 he gave a Hunterian lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons titled 'The role of elective surgery in diverticulitis of the colon' (*Ann R Coll Surg Eng.* 1955 Feb;16[2]:118-34). In 1954, also, he was resident surgical officer at St Mark's Hospital, at the end of which post he was appointed to a small number of consultant sessions at the same hospital. This was the beginning of his lifetime's association with St Mark's. In 1955 he returned to Toronto for a year on a Wellcome research fellowship, during which time he won the Lister prize in surgery and gained a Toronto MS. On his return to the UK, he took additional consultant sessions at Bromley Hospital for two years before, in 1958, being appointed a consultant back at his *alma mater* St Bartholomew's, the same year of his Arris and Gale lecture titled 'Physiology of rectal sensation and its relationship to disease'. Between 1958 to 1961 he was also a consultant at Enfield War Memorial Hospital. There followed a stellar consultant career as his reputation grew, being a first class clinical opinion and an excellent technical surgeon. He published regularly and gave numerous postgraduate lectures, which led in 1970 to his election as president of the section of proctology of the Royal Society of Medicine and his appointment as a civilian consultant (proctology) to the Royal Navy (from 1970 to 1986). In 1972 he was invited to join the staff of King Edward VII's Hospital for Officers, London, where he remained a consultant until his retirement. He served as an examiner in surgery in London, Cambridge and Bangladesh, and in 1975 was elected to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, serving for 12 years. During his training and early consultant years he became concerned at the many problems associated with intestinal stomas and the generally poor standard of stoma care and advice available for patients. In 1972, with the aid of a ward sister at St Mark's, Barbara Saunders, he set up the first specialist training course for nurses in the management of stoma problems, which ultimately led to the recognition of the stoma care nurse. The three-week course for four carefully selected nurses required agreement and funding by the DHSS, who were initially reluctant, but it proved a notable success and other courses were soon set up elsewhere in the UK and subsequently abroad. A few years later, in 1978, he published a textbook *Intestinal stomas* (Heinemann) aimed not only at surgeons but also stoma care nurses and patients. Stomatherapy soon became an essential service in all large hospitals. Ian's international recognition was by now beginning to grow both in the USA and also in developing countries, especially rural India, where he was a regular visitor, enjoying teaching both undergraduates and postgraduates. This commitment to the developing world was maintained throughout his professional life. He said that he found ward rounds in these hospitals most rewarding, with the students clamouring to be taught and where he also learned a lot about himself, about local diseases and about how to manage on a shoestring. In 1979 he gave the Howard H Frykman memorial lecture in Minneapolis titled 'Surgical experience with megacolon and megarectum', the first of several named lectures in the USA. He was elected an honorary fellow of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. Many more named lectures were to follow in years to come in countries the world over, including in 1985 the Zachary Cope lecture of the College titled 'Surgical approaches to the rectum'. Just as his lectures increased in number so did his visiting professorships and honorary memberships of world-wide colorectal societies, including those based in France, Greece, India, Belgium, Malaysia, Brazil and other South American countries. By the time of his retirement in 1989 he was arguably the widest-known UK coloproctologist throughout the world. His election as president of the Royal College of Surgeons 1986 was not something that he desired, indeed the very contrary, for he was not at ease in medico-surgical politics nor did he relish attending the many committees which the presidency inevitably demanded. He could be called the reluctant president. However, his colleagues on Council who elected him recognised his international stature, his notable qualities of integrity and sincerity, and believed that in a time of potential change both in surgical training and also in the wider NHS, a steady hand on the tiller was needed. In this, their judgment proved entirely correct. Throughout his three-year term he proved to be an exemplary president, firm in his dealings with Government and handling domestic problems with great diplomacy, especially with the Court of Examiners. It was the time when major changes in the College examination structure were being explored; abolition of the primary FRCS in favour of a multiple choice examination and the award of the final FRCS in a specific specialty at the end of the appropriate specialist training. Initially there was much opposition to these proposed changes, but not only did they come to pass but intercollegiate agreement was also obtained. This was no mean feat. He was appointed KBE in 1989, before he completed his term as president, showing the respect in which he was held. Other offices included president of the Medical Society of London (from 1984 to 1985), vice-president of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (from 1986 to 1989), vice-president of the International Federation of Surgical Colleges (from 1990 to 1993), president of the British Colostomy Association (1991 to 1995), president of the London division of the Ileostomy Association, governor of St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College and vice-president of the Friends of Vellore Christian Medical College and Hospital. Throughout his life, Ian was wonderfully supported by his wife Jean Audrey Ann (née Noble), a nurse, whom he married in 1946. They had close on 70 years together. They had five children Neil, Jocelyn, Jane, Caroline and Stewart. Outside of surgery, he was keen skier and tennis player in his younger days, and in later life he enjoyed gardening and carpentry. Music was always a great love. He first attended a performance at Glyndebourne in 1938 very soon after it opened as an opera house, but his love of live opera and classical music concerts transferred to CDs when he retired to the country. Ian was of gentle, quiet personality with a very deep Christian belief. Despite his fame and many honours, he said that contact with patients was what he found most satisfying in his career. He was revered by his junior staff for his teaching and lack of pomposity, and admired by his contemporaries for his superlative surgical technique. He died after several episodes of ill health on 21 April 2015 aged 94.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007235
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Butler, Edward Clive Barber (1904 - 1999)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

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/380656380656
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Clive Butler was born in Flaxton, near York, on 8 April 1904, the only son of William Barber Butler and Edith Eastmond, a nursing sister. They had both trained at the London Hospital and had helped to care for the Elephant Man after he had been rescued by Sir Frederick Treves. His father subsequently became a general practitioner surgeon in Hereford and sent Clive to Shrewsbury. He followed his father to the London Hospital in 1923, qualified in 1928, did several junior jobs, and became registrar to Russell John Howard from 1933 to 1935. He was then offered the position of surgeon on the *Queen Mary* on her maiden voyage and continued in this position for seven months, during which time he crossed the Atlantic more than 30 times and made many interesting friends, among them Sir Clifford Naunton Morgan, who was very helpful to Butler in later years when he developed an interest in colorectal surgery. In 1936 the brilliant young thoracic surgeon H P Nelson died from septicaemia after pricking a finger during an operation. Clive Butler was summoned back to the London to fill the gap, and was appointed assistant surgeon the following year. As the most junior surgeon he was put in change of the septic block, which was then crowded with cases of osteomyelitis. His predecessor in that post, Charles Donald, had introduced the Winnet Orr management of osteomyelitis, immobilising the affected limb in a Thomas splint reinforced with plaster and refraining from changing the dressings, maggots or no. But Butler arrived at a turning point in surgery; Domagk discovered the antibacterial effects of prontosil rubrum in 1935 and in 1937 Fuller had found that its effects were due to a metabolite, sulphanilamide. Within a short time Butler had gained huge experience in the use of sulphanilamide, but staphylococcal infections, especially osteomyelitis, continued to baffle him. He was able to show that drilling gave better results than guttering, and together with Frank Valentine, developed a method of monitoring bacteriaemia by counting the colonies in blood cultures. Nevertheless in his Hunterian lecture of 1940, which was based on 500 cases of acute osteomyelitis, the mortality was 25 per cent, rising to 80 per cent in children under a year old. Then in 1944 a limited supply of penicillin was made available to him. The next 21 patients all survived, and soon he could show that it was safe to perform a secondary suture within ten days, instead of months in a stinking plaster. At the end of the second world war, he accompanied Alexander Fleming and Christie to Copenhagen to describe the new techniques. Throughout the war Butler had been kept busy as an EMS surgeon, and in 1945 was formally appointed to the Harold Wood Hospital. By 1948, he had extended his interests to a much wider field of general surgery, notably colorectal surgery, where he had much help from Naunton Morgan, and parotid tumours, where he was one of the first to use a nerve stimulator and to use radium as an adjunct. He was a popular teacher, examined for the MB at home and in Nigeria, and in both the primary and final Fellowship, ultimately becoming Chairman of the Court. He was President of the section of proctology of the Royal Society of Medicine. He retired in 1969, but retained his active interest as curator of the museum at the London Hospital Medical College, where the relics of the Elephant Man were preserved. Shyness made Clive Butler seem a little gloomy and aloof to those who did not know him, but he was in fact a very sensitive and friendly person. He married Nancy Harrison of Minneapolis in 1939, by whom he had two sons, Bruce and Douglas, and a daughter, Anne, none of them entering medicine. The marriage ended in an amicable divorce in 1957. He died on 25 January 1999.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008473
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ryan, Peter John (1925 - 2002)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2016-05-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372311372311
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Peter John Ryan was a pioneer in colorectal surgery. He was born, the eldest of four boys, on 25 November 1925 in Dookie, Victoria, Australia, to farming parents. He was dux of Assumption College, Kilmore, and then went on to study medicine at Melbourne University. He graduated in 1948 and was a resident medical officer at St Vincent's Hospital. From 1953 to 1954 he served as a Major in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps in Japan and Korea, and then worked for a number of years in England. After obtaining his Fellowship of the College, he spent three years at Leicester General Hospital. Following his return to Australia in 1960, he joined the surgical staff at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne. In 1972, the Ryan unit was established, with Ryan as the inpatient surgeon. It later became the department of colon and rectal surgery, with Ryan as its first director. He retired from St Vincent's in 1990. His laboratory work included studies of the effects of a proximal colostomy on bowel anastomoses. In 1986, his Hunterian address to the College was on diverticular disease. He was the first to advocate immediate resection (with anastomosis) in selected cases of diverticular perforation. He was keen to share Australian surgical expertise with medical colleagues in Asia. From 1965 to 1966 he led a St Vincent's surgical team to Long Xuyen, in Vietnam. He also established a programme of visiting fellows from Japan and Indonesia, and lectured in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. He was the first honorary fellow of the Indonesian Surgical Association. Ryan was President of the International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons from 1986 to 1988, and an original member of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons' road trauma committee, which was responsible for the introduction of compulsory car seatbelts. His knowledge of anatomy and ability to sketch clearly made him a popular teacher. He was proud of his small red book entitled *A very short textbook of surgery* (third edition, London, Chapman & Hall Medical, 1994), which ran to several editions and was translated and widely used in China. He was an author of over 50 journal articles. In 1950 he married Margery Manly. They had 10 children, three of whom - Rowena, Jeremy and Roderick - followed him into medicine. He was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia in 2002, shortly before his death on 3 June 2002. The following is an amended version of this obituary, based on updated information. Peter Ryan was a consultant surgeon in Melbourne. He was born on 25 November 1925, in Shepparton, Victoria, the eldest of a farming family: his father was also Peter Ryan, his mother was Mona née McGuinness, a secretary and aspiring actress. From the Dookie State School, Peter went on to Assumption College in Kilmore, where he was *dux* in 1941. He studied medicine at Melbourne University, where he met Margery Manly, an arts student, whom he married in 1950. He was involved in theatre, writing, and the Newman and Campion societies, at one stage considering joining the Catholic commune, Whitlands. During his studies he contracted tuberculosis from a patient and took a year to recover. After qualifying, he did resident posts at St Vincent's Hospital. He passed the MS in 1953 and, partly to fund his future studies, joined the RAAMC and served in a field ambulance unit in Korea, where he averaged six operations a day, seven days a week. At the end of the Korean war he moved to London in 1954, passed the FRCS, and became registrar at Leicester General Hospital. On returning to Melbourne in 1957, he was appointed to St Vincent's, where he was a general surgeon, but gradually became more interested in colorectal surgery, receiving the Sir Alan Newton essay prize for a paper on diverticular disease. In 1965 St Vincent's asked Peter to organise civilian surgical teams to work in Vietnam. He led the first of these to Long Xuyen. He later learned that the cook and several of the other staff were Viet Cong. From then on he pioneered a programme for trainee surgeons from Indonesia and Japan, many of whom became firm friends. For this work he was honoured by being made the first honorary Fellow of the Indonesian Surgeons Association. In 1978 he set up a colorectal unit at St Vincent's and a few years later his own successful private service. He was one of the first to learn laparoscopic techniques, and to advocate resection and anastomosis in selected cases of perforation, for which he was awarded an Hunterian Professorship in 1986. He was President of the International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons from 1987 to 1988. A prolific author of more than 50 research papers, Peter was a gifted teacher and produced a popular work *A very small textbook of surgery* (London, Chapman & Hall Medical, 1988) which was translated into Mandarin and Indonesian. In 1996, the Peter Ryan prize in surgery for final year students was established in his honour. He and his wife had 10 children, 3 of whom - Rowena, Jeremy and Roderick - followed him into medicine. He was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia in 2002, shortly before his death on 3 June 2002.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000124
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Guest, James Stuart (1916 - 2015)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-13 2015-05-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006900-E006999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379136379136
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Jim Guest died peacefully in Melbourne on 20th January 2015, during his 99th year. He had a distinguished career in surgery, medical education and civilian life. Jim was born in Mildura, the only child of Edith and James. His early education was at Mildura West State School and subsequently Geelong Grammar School. His admission to Melbourne University and Trinity College was the start of great things. In the Science Faculty he specialised in zoology (winning the Baldwin Spencer Prize) and comparative anatomy, much influenced by Professor Frederic Wood Jones. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in 1938, then entered the medical course, to graduate in 1941. He rowed for Trinity and the University in several winning crews, and was awarded a blue for rowing. Following graduation, he was appointed to the junior medical staff of the Royal Melbourne Hospital, where he served from 1941 to 1943, when he joined the Royal Australian Navy as a medical officer on HMAS *Westralia*. The *Westralia* was a cruiser and had just undergone a major refit and was used as a troop carrier. She had an operating theatre where Jim, with senior surgeon Douglas Lesley, performed surgery on injured soldiers. They took part in a number of landings, mainly serving in waters north of Australia, where his distinguished service led to the OBE award. During this time, Jim needed a particular type of surgical retractor. He convinced the ship's engineer to fashion the instrument, which is still exhibited in the museum at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Over many years after the war, he contributed to the rehabilitation of Ambon, as described in the book "Gull Force" by Joan Beaumont. "We were getting ready to go into Japan when the atomic bomb was dropped," Jim once said. "I didn't really know what I was going to do next, except that I wasn't going to grow grapes in Mildura." He planned to build on his early war-time surgical experience. Returning to the Melbourne University Anatomy School, Jim also became surgical tutor at Trinity College. The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons awarded him the Gordon Craig Travelling Fellowship in 1948, for experience at the Connaught Hospital and St Mark's Hospital, London. During this time he developed his interest in colorectal surgery. Whilst completing his English surgical fellowship, he married Simonette ("Timmie") Macindoe in London. They returned to Australia in 1952 when Jim was appointed honorary surgeon at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, initially working with Mr Marshall Renou. Jim made his name as a colorectal surgeon. His forte was an ability to consult on a complicated patient, where his opinion was frequently sought. He became Dean of the Alfred Clinical School, responsible for teaching undergraduate medical students at the hospital. His teaching was clear and fundamental. As head of the unit, Jim expected the commitment and service he so readily gave himself. He subsequently became senior surgeon at the hospital, and during this time was also examiner for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He was elected to the Board of Management of The Alfred in 1971. He retired from the active staff in 1976 but remained Consultant until 1981. He continued his interest in anatomy, and in 1989 was invited to give the Vicary Lecture, a prestigious lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. His subject was "John Hunter's Disciple - Frederic Wood Jones". This lecture remains a classic reflection on comparative anatomy. He maintained his involvement in the Navy, and became naval aide to the Governor of Victoria for some years. He was a member of the board of management and, subsequently, Chair of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, steering that hospital through troubled waters during the development of cancer services in Melbourne. Jim became medical adviser to the Jack Brockhoff Foundation, and later Chairman of the board, and Patron through his senior years. He was instrumental in developing the Jack Brockhoff Chair of Child Health and Wellbeing at the University of Melbourne. He also contributed to development of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, and many other causes. He was a long time member, then president, of the Medical History Society of Victoria. He was also active in the history section of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He was president of the Melbourne Club in 1991 and maintained a long involvement in and enthusiasm for that institution. He was awarded an AM in 1982, for distinguished services to medicine, and later, in 2013, an honorary doctorate from the University of Melbourne. With all this activity and industry, what of the man? One always knew where one stood with Jim. He was down to earth, gave tirelessly to the positions he held, and was constructively critical when the need arose. He and Timmie were generous hosts and his sense of humour was infectious. He was a marvellous raconteur, with an extraordinary memory for people, places, and stories. He remained interested in everything throughout his life, but especially in young people and their ambitions and enthusiasms. Most admirable was his support and love for his family. Jim's dedication to his wife, both during the long period when she was in Fairfield Hospital in 1959, and the decade of her final illness, when he rarely left her side, is legendary. James Guest was a big man. He led a big life, which was dedicated to his country, his profession and his family. He was the much-loved and proud father of James (deceased), Charles and Sibella; of grandchildren Thomas, Frank, Stephanie, William, Stuart and Daniel; of daughters-in-law Nerissa and Hilary, and son-in-law Gavin. But he was also an unassuming and modest man, whose own achievements he considered to be simply what one should do. He remained thoroughly engaged with the world, right until his final days - reading *The Age* with enthusiasm, and particularly enjoying the biographies which made up a large part of his leisure reading. Checking that all was complete in the operating theatre, staff would say "The final count is correct, Mr Guest". So indeed it proved to be. Rest in Peace.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006953
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Miles, William Ernest (1869 - 1947)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-11-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376863376863
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Born 15 January 1869 in Trinidad and educated at Queen's Royal College, Port of Spain, of which his father William Miles, BA Oxford JP, was head master; his mother, Amelia Sarah Bailey, was of Irish descent. He was their only son. He took his clinical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he served as demonstrator of anatomy, and then house surgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and at the Metropolitan Hospital, London, and St Mark's Hospital for Diseases of Rectum under David Goodsall. Miles was appointed assistant surgeon to the Royal Cancer Hospital in 1899, and became surgeon in 1903 and eventually consulting surgeon; with his colleague Sir Charles Ryall he did much to raise the prestige of the hospital and establish a tradition of first-class surgery there. He was particularly interested in the surgical treatment of carcinoma of the large intestine and rectum, and after prolonged anatomical and pathological research into the mode of spread of cancer of these organs he introduced in 1907 the abdomino-perineal operation known by his name, which revolutionized this branch of surgery and established his reputation as a supreme scientific and operative surgeon in his chosen field. He clarified the pathological anatomy of haemorrhoids, by emphasizing the distribution of the terminal branches of the superior haemorrhoidal vessels; while his complex classification of fistulae revivified the work of Peter Thompson (*J Anat* vols 33-35), and inspired that of E T C Milligan, FRCS, and C Naunton Morgan, FRCS (see *Lancet*, 1937, 2, 1119). Miles paid much attention to the training of his assistants, many of whom rose to distinction, and he perfected the team work and technique in his theatre so that without any appearance of hurry everything went forward with the utmost speed and smoothness. Three of his distinguished pupils died shortly before him: Cecil Joll, Jocelyn Swan, and Cecil Rowntree. Miles also devoted much time and work to the Gordon Hospital for Diseases of the Rectum, both as surgeon and in promoting its development from a small collection of converted houses to an up-to-date special hospital. He was also consulting surgeon to the Royal Hospital, Richmond, and to the West Hertfordshire Hospital. He was a keen territorial soldier and won the Territorial Decoration. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he went to France with the British Expeditionary Force, and at first commanded No 7 Red Cross Hospital for Officers. He was appointed in 1916 Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services in the 58th Division, and in 1918 was in command of the 56th General Hospital; he was consulting surgeon for the Etaples area in 1919, retiring as lieutenant-colonel, RAMC (T). He was consulting proctologist to Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital, Millbank. Miles contributed to the professional societies several important records of his work, particularly to the annual meeting of the British Medical Association in 1910 and to the Medical Society of London in 1923, where his Lettsomian lectures surveyed the whole problem of rectal cancer. He served as president of the sub-section of proctology in the Royal Society of Medicine. He was an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and of the American Proctological Society, and a foreign associate of the French Academy of Surgery. He served on the National Radium Commission and the executive committee of the British Empire Cancer Campaign. He was the defendant in a legal action brought against him in 1930 for negligence in an operation; although he could have claimed the technical protection that the action was brought more than seven years after the alleged negligent act, he preferred to defend his reputation by contesting the action, and was successful. He had a very large private practice. Miles was a keen player of games, excelling at tennis in younger days and later at golf. Horse racing was his chief amusement, and he liked to entertain colleagues and old patients in his box at Ascot; he had many friends in all sections of the racing community, owners, trainers, and riders. A man of real originality of mind, he was also possessed of uncompromising drive and perseverance, and was somewhat irascible, but a staunch friend. Miles was twice married; his second wife, whom he married on 16 August 1944 was Janet Mary, daughter of Ernest Robert Loxton; she survived him. There were no children of either marriage. He died at 106 Hallam Street, W1 on 24 September 1947 after a period of failing health, aged 78. The funeral was at Golders Green crematorium, and a memorial service was held at Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, on 8 October, at which Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor gave a valedictory oration. He had formerly practised at 82 Harley Street, at 14 Park Crescent, and at Fitzroy House, 16 Fitzroy Square. Publications: *Diseases of the anus and rectum*, with D H Goodsall. London, Longman, 1900-05. Part 1, 311 pages; part 2, 271 pages. A method of performing abdomino-perineal excision for carcinoma of the rectum and of the terminal portion of the pelvic colon. *Lancet*, 1908, 2, 1812. The radical abdomino-perineal operation for cancer of the rectum and of the pelvic colon. *Brit med J* 1910, 2, 941. Cancer of the rectum, Lettsomian lectures. *Trans Med Soc London* 1923, 46, 127-198. Diseases of the rectum, in R Maingot's *Postgraduate surgery*, 1936, 1, 1261-1480. *Rectal surgery*, London, Cassell, 1939; 2nd edition, 1944. Dedicated to the memory of his old master, David Goodsall, FRCS. The problem of the surgical treatment of cancer of the rectum. *Amer J Surg* 1939, 46, 26-39. Miles was a member of the editorial committee of the *British Journal of Surgery*
Resource Identifier RCS: E004680
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kock, Nils Gustav Johannes (1924 - 2011)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by N Alan Green
Publication Date 2012-09-07 2015-03-20
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/375031375031
Occupation Colorectal surgeon Urological surgeon Urologist
Details Nils Kock, professor of surgery and chief of the department of surgery II, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, was an eminent colorectal surgeon, widely known for his development of the 'Kock pouch', a continent pouch formed by using the terminal ileum after colectomy. Known as 'Nicke' to his friends, Nils Kock was born on 29 January 1924 in the Finnish town of Jakobstad ('Jacob's city'), to use its Swedish name, and Pietarsaari ('Peter's Island') in Finnish. This town in Ostrobothnia, western Finland, on the Gulf of Bothnia, is an important Finnish port and industrial centre with some 20,000 inhabitants. Nils Kock's family were Finnish-Swedish in origin. His father, Emil Kock, owned an equipment store in Jakobstad: his mother, Aili Kock née Lönnmark, was a housewife. Nils had one older brother, Sven, who became a professor of economics, and an older sister, Auda Andersson, a language teacher. The first four years of Nils' school life were spent in the Jakobstad Folkskola, or elementary school, followed by eight years at the Jakobstad Samlycéum or secondary school. His teenage years were interrupted by the Second World War. Drafted into the Finnish Army, he was involved in the confrontations between Russia, Germany and the Western Allies. Entering the Army as a private in the heavy artillery, by the end of the war he had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant. His home town of Jakobstad was bombed by the Russians during the war years. Nils Kock was always modest about his war-time experiences, but these years remained important to him for the rest of his life: he was very proud of belonging to the Finnish Second World War veterans. Demobilised after the war, Nils applied for entrance to Helsinki University to study medicine. As his school grades were not all that outstanding, even after being given extra marks for exemplary military service, his first application was turned down. Clearly disappointed at the outcome, he entered what he felt was the second best option, the dental school. Within a year he re-applied for a place on the medical course at Helsinki University and was successful. He was further compensated for this early upset by meeting his future wife, Birgit Bretenstein (known as 'Bie'), a student of languages. She was born in Tampere in southern Finland. Their romance led to their wedding in 1950 at a small family ceremony. They had a very happy and successful life together. The first of two daughters, Anki, was born in Helsinki in May 1952. Nils graduated in 1951 and held post-qualification house appointments in Helsinki, but to realise his ambition of specialising in surgery, he decided to move to Sweden in the hope of gaining entrance to a residency programme. Travelling in the autumn of 1952 with his wife and daughter, he studied hard in order to pass the Swedish qualifying examination in the spring of 1955. By now the Kocks had another daughter, Maria, who was born in Gothenburg in January 1955. Having a Swedish licence to practice, he managed to get a foot on the first rung of the ladder as an assistant in surgery in the department of surgery I, Sahlgrenska University Hospital. The period of higher surgical training within the University Hospital was to last another five years or more. He was to remain in Gothenburg for the rest of his professional life: from 1974 to 1990, when he retired as professor of surgery and chief of the department of surgery II, Sahlgrenska University Hospital. He formed the opinion that to progress in his chosen career of surgery, basic science education must work hand-in-hand with clinical work. Supervised for two to three years by Bjorn Folkow, head of the department of physiology at Gothenburg, Nils worked towards a PhD thesis. Entitled 'An experimental analysis of mechanisms engaged in reflex inhibition of intestinal motility', he defended his thesis before the adjudicating panel, receiving his doctorate in 1959. At this early stage of his training he had established a laboratory for 'urodynamic' studies, and adapted the apparatus for pressure studies on intestinal segments as bladder substitutes on both canine and feline models. This was just the beginning of his future clinical research, with projects that led to innovations in continence-preserving urological and colo-rectal techniques in patients undergoing cystectomy and procto-colectomy. For years those patients with conditions requiring radical colectomy accepted the need for a permanent opening or ileostomy, for which external appliances/bags were required over the stoma to collect faecal waste. There was still a degree of patient satisfaction of 'conventional ileostomy', as popularised by Bryan Brooke of Birmingham, who had founded the Ileostomy Association in 1956 in the UK. Similarly, urine drainage bags were acceptable in patients after total cystectomy with ileal conduits, and continued to prove satisfactory. However, in 12% of patients the continuous flow of faecal material/urine over the abdominal wall caused skin erosion, and prolapse of the ileostomy and para-stomal hernias were also significant problems. Clearly, other approaches were needed. During his animal experiments that were part of the evolution of the 'continent ileostomy', Kock discovered that graded filling of the sigmoid colon as well as small bowel segments induced strong pressure waves, even when low volumes of fluid were introduced. Such pressures were sufficient to overcome sphincter tone and allow leakage of fluid. But by detubularising of the intestinal segments using a new double folding technique and suturing together the opened terminal ileum, a spherical 'reservoir' could be constructed virtually free of pressure on filling. A satisfactory 'bladder/reservoir' capacity with minimal leakage therefrom resulted after years of experimental work. This unique invention meant that patients whose colon and rectum had been removed could be offered an alternative to an external appliance. Stimulated by these promising experiments, in 1967 Kock began a clinical study using low-pressure reservoir continent ileostomy after procto-colectomy in patients with ulcerative colitis. The reservoir was constructed on a distal 15cm of ileum and the outlet or stoma from the pouch passed through the rectus abdominis muscle at an acute angle to form a flat cutaneous ileostomy. It was hoped that rectus muscle tone would be sufficient to gain continence. Sadly, in many cases it proved insufficient to stop leakage from the internal pouches, and alternatives were sought. In 1969, Nil Kock published a landmark article on this, the 'Kock pouch', or continent ileostomy ('Intra-abdominal "reservoir" in patients with permanent ileostomy. Preliminary observations on a procedure resulting in fecal "continence" in five ileostomy patients' *Arch Surg*. 1969 Aug;99[2]:223-31), describing a surgical method for achieving continence by creating an internal reservoir in the form of a sphere. Fashioned from the lower end of the patient's own small intestine it led to an opening or stoma on the patients' abdominal wall. Several times a day the patient would sit on the toilet, insert a catheter via the stoma and into the pouch and drain out waste material. It was only necessary to place a small dressing over the stoma to absorb mucus in between regular self-catheterisations. A 'nipple valve' constructed by intussuscepting a short outer segment of the efferent limb at the stoma achieved a greater degree of continence: some valves required stapling in order to increase stability. But evacuation difficulties, stenosis, slippage of the valve or leakage still remained the Achilles heel. None of these problems and complications were ignored by Kock and the many other investigators who were attracted to this revolutionary concept. Solutions were found whenever possible. Needless to say, long-term studies are being done on continent ileostomies, with or without valve mechanisms. The incidence of pouchitis, improvements on the nipple valve and, most important of all, pouch durability and need for revisions are being researched. Many studies were done by Nils Kock himself, assessing quality of life and patient satisfaction. Kock's method spread world-wide, and specialist centres in North America and other parts of Scandinavia began to report good or improved results. A Canadian devotee, Zane Cohen, set up a clinic at the University of Toronto after first visiting Kock at St Mark's Hospital, London, where he held a fellowship. He described him as 'an amazing individual who was kind, clever, committed and creative'. Cohen and his colleagues modified and worked on the Kock pouch procedure at the University of Toronto, and the Scandinavian experience has been shared and improved throughout other parts of the world. Nils was a charismatic tutor and skilled clinician who generously shared his skills and ideas with others: he also very much preferred to 'go his own way'. In so doing he expressed a slight distrust of hospital administration and bureaucracy in general. On joining the permanent staff of his old medical school, he set up a private clinical and experimental gastroenterological research unit with a staff of research nurses and graduate assistants, who constituted the cornerstone of his research activities. From this laboratory emanated a large number of original papers and academic theses in gastroenterology and urology. Over the years he himself had over 300 publications, including those detailing modifications necessary to overcome problems with the Kock pouch. As an early part of his own training, and to broaden his experience of other systems of healthcare, in 1968 he and his family went for a year to the USA. In Buffalo, New York, he worked with Bud Schenk in laboratories attached to the Edward J Meyer Memorial Hospital, doing research work on intestinal circulation. No doubt he imbibed the cut and thrust of discussions on 'grand rounds', so common in USA institutions. Nils had numerous invitations to lecture and demonstrate his techniques abroad. In 1973 he was asked by the thoracic surgeon, Ake Senning, to spend a sabattical year and to establish a new clinic for gastrointestinal surgery in Zürich, Switzerland. In 1986 he went to work in the urological department of the University of Mansoura, Egypt, for several short periods. A common problem in this country is the development of carcinoma in bladders infested with bilharzia. Working with Mohammed Ghoneim, who became a great friend, he developed a Kock reservoir which would avoid a stoma after cystectomy. They started a trial using the low pressure pouch provided with an anti-reflux valve that was anastomosed directly to the urethra, a technique which is now used widely. Nils Kock was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1978, at an annual general meeting held in Swansea. At the meeting he also gave a Moynihan lecture entitled 'A new look at faecal and urinary diversion procedures'. Throughout his career he was presented with numerous awards, including, in1988, the Söderberg prize in medicine - the so-called 'small Nobel prize' - for his ground-breaking research and clinical development of continence-preserving surgery. In 1997 he received the Société Internationale d'Urologie award in recognition of his great contributions to urology. Although he was in many ways a workaholic, Nils had many interests outside medicine. He was fond of sailing his yacht round the islands of southern Sweden. In 1969 he, with two other surgeons, bought properties and land on Ljusterö, an island located in the northern part of the Tjust archipelago on the east coast of Sweden. It became a favourite place to which he could escape with his closely-knit family. His original mind led him to carpentry for relaxation, befitting a surgeon who was a good technician. He was widely read on diverse subjects, and visited the library near his home in Gothenburg on a regular basis to borrow books to read at home. Following his retirement in 1990, he and his wife lived for part of the year in southern France, where they enjoyed the French cuisine and wine. In addition they and the members of the family were able to meet up more frequently on Lustjerö. Anki, the older of the two daughters, is married and has two children, My Ernevi and Jonas: she followed her mother into the study of languages. The second daughter, Maria, has followed her father into medicine. She is an anaesthetist and specialist in intensive care at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg. She is married and has three children - Björn, a trainee cardiologist, Olaf, an intern in medicine, and Tove, who is studying psychology. Nils Kock died as he would have wished, peacefully, on 24 August 2011, at his home in Gothenburg whilst waiting to go out for lunch. He was 87. He did not wish for any fuss at his memorial service, which was non-religious. He was known to have cardiac problems, so this was presumably the cause of his sudden death. He was survived by his wife of 61 years, their two daughters and five grandchildren. As the coloproctologist Sir Alan Parks described him at the time of his election to the honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, he was 'A giant of a man in all ways, a great Scandinavian, and a great European'. His colleagues, Leif Hultén and Helge Myrvold, end their tribute: 'We who had the privilege to work and interact with "Nicke" have a lot to thank him for and have great memories to look back on. We remember him for his dedication, his curiosity, his thoughtfulness and humour.'
Resource Identifier RCS: E002848
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Goligher, John Cedric (1922 - 1998)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

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/380812380812
Occupation Coloproctologist Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details John Goligher was an outstanding surgeon who made an immense contribution to the clinical science of coloproctology. He won a national and international reputation and was always in demand for second opinions and as a lecturer. His writings, especially his textbook, were marked by their thoroughness and honesty and were essential reading. John Cedric Goligher was born on 13 March 1912 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, where he was educated at Foyle College. His father was John Hunter Goligher, a businessman, and his mother was Henrietta neé Monteith. He chose the University of Edinburgh for his medical studies and graduated MB ChB in 1934. He was appointed to house officer posts at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh and gained a Fellowship in both the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and of England in 1938. In 1947 he became a Master of Surgery of Edinburgh University. In the early years of the Second World War, he chose to work at a small postgraduate hospital, specialising in diseases of the rectum and colon, just one mile from the centre of the City of London. His appointment to St Mark's Hospital (now located at Northwick Park in Harrow), first as house surgeon and then as resident surgical officer, was to shape his career. Although there was great difficulty in maintaining the hospital's specialist work during the war, he came under the influence of the three great St Mark's surgeons, William Gabriel, Clifford Naunton Morgan and Oswald Lloyd-Davies, and the pathologist Cuthbert Dukes, all of whom worked tirelessly to maintain the clinical service at the hospital. In 1941, Goligher began a five year tour in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was a surgical specialist and, being a paratrooper, was an officer in charge of an airborne surgical team serving in both Greece and Italy. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After his military service, Goligher had a short spell as a senior registrar at St Mary's Hospital, gaining inspiration from that hospital's first professor of surgery, Charles Pannett and the well-known Arthur Dickson Wright. In 1947, he was appointed honorary assistant surgeon to St Mark's and St Mary's Hospitals. (One year later, at the formation of the National Health Service, he became a consultant surgeon.) At St Mark's the appointing panel could not decide between Goligher and Henry Thompson who had also been in the RAMC. In the event, both were appointed. He was thus able to develop his interest in colo-rectal surgery. In 1955, having established himself firmly in London surgical practice, he caused some surprise when he made the unconventional move to become professor of surgery and chairman of the university department of surgery at the General Infirmary at Leeds. His former colleagues at St Mark's, recognising his ability, made him a consulting (later emeritus) surgeon, a position he held for 43 years. In Leeds, Goligher had a spectacular career as a clinical academic, as a writer and, above all, as a thoughtful and very hard-working surgeon. John Goligher was always at pains to critically evaluate the outcome of his clinical work, which was methodically audited. He enriched academic surgery by his analytic skills and his scrupulous honesty of reporting. He also pioneered the randomised control trial to investigate many of the operations undertaken in his department. Perhaps the most significant of these trials was that carried out in Leeds and York to assess the various operations that were then used to treat patients with peptic ulcer (now usually treated with medicines) with special reference to the long-term outcome. This seminal work and many other projects in the colo-rectal field resulted in the publication of many papers and contributions to surgical meetings at home and overseas. Goligher was in great demand as a visiting professor, delivering over 20 named lectures in Europe, North America and at home. In 1961 the textbook *Surgery of the anus, rectum and colon* (London, Bailliere Tindall) appeared on the bookshelves. This volume, extensively researched and written (except for one chapter) by Goligher, who intended it for surgeons in training and young consultants, was the first comprehensive account of coloproctology. Running to five editions (the last published in 1984) most of which were reprinted twice and with Spanish and Italian translations, this reference book was essential to those involved in the care of patients with intestinal problems. In the preface to the first edition, Goligher described precisely how this piece of writing and much of his other written work was perceived by others: "I believe I have reported the views of other writers fairly but I have naturally assessed the significance of their work in the light of my own personal experience and have, moreover, felt it my duty to state my own opinion even when equivocal, on all controversial matters." It was as a clinician that he really shone and his clinical activity underpinned all that he did in other areas. He dispensed the highest standards of care and rightly expected the same from those around him and had amazing stamina, operating for long periods. Affectionately known as 'Prof' by his staff and patients, he always respected and valued his fellow men. Whilst he was a shy, quiet and somewhat self-effacing person, he was loved by his patients who were overwhelmed by his kindness to them. His humanity was exemplified when he was looking after a chronically ill young boy - he went out at lunchtime to purchase books for him. Even in retirement he continued to care for patients, establishing a most successful private practice. Goligher served on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England for 12 years (1968 to 1980), was President of the Royal Society of Medicine section of proctology (1962), President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland (1974) and President of the British Society of Gastroenterology (1975). He was an honorary Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the Brazilian College of Surgeons, and received honorary doctorates from universities in Belfast, Goteborg and Uruguay and an honorary doctorate of science from his own university of Leeds. His interests outside surgery included reading, classical music and, appropriately for an intestinal specialist, gastronomy and oenology. He was a committed family man. In 1952 he married Nancy Williams from Melbourne, Australia, whom he met when she was an almoner on his ward at St Mary's Hospital. She survives him, as do their three children, Susan, Jane (a consultant radiologist) and Michael. There are three grandchildren. He died on 18 January 1998. Perhaps his last ward sister could have the final word: "Prof was a very good doctor". There could be no finer accolade.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008629
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Parks, Sir Alan Guyatt (1920 - 1982)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-06-01 2012-03-13
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372426372426
Occupation Colorectal surgeon
Details Alan Parks became President of the College but died while in office. He was born on 19 December 1920. After education at Sutton High School and Epsom College he proceeded to Brasenose, Oxford, in 1939, graduating BA in 1943. He was due for enrolment at Guy's for clinical training, but was one of a small wartime group selected for further training in America, becoming a Rockefeller Student at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, in 1943. He was medical intern there and graduated MD in 1947 before returning to Guy's to complete his BM, BCh in the same year. He served as house surgeon to Sam Wass and Sir Heneage Ogilvie, passed the MRCP in 1948 and FRCS in 1949. There followed two years in the RAMC, when he was a graded surgeon and served in Malaya, Japan and Korea. On returning home he was resident surgical officer at Putney and then registrar and senior registrar at Guy's from 1953 to 1959, having obtained his MCh in 1954. Parks was an only child, and himself believed that this made it difficult for him to adjust socially. At an early age he developed a wide interest in crafts and hobbies, his later attraction to surgery was largely attributable to this. He was head boy at Epsom and a good athlete who earned his place in the rugby XV. He was a big man and at wartime Oxford, when blues were not awarded, he was captain of athletics and a forward in the university XV. Early in his career he decided which field of surgery was to become his life's work. At Guy's Hospital his study of 'thick sections' of the anal canal enhanced the knowledge of anatomy, leading to papers on fistulas, the development of the submucosal plane of dissection, and submucosal harmorrhoidectomy. His first published work appeared in 1954 with the anatomical study of the anal canal in the *Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine*. This was followed with a thesis on the surgical treatment of haemorrhoids for the degree of Master of Surgery at Oxford University. Alan's interests at this stage also included fibroadenosis of the breast, in which he collaborated with Sir Hedley Atkins, when he was research assistant, and the lymphovascular systems of the leg. His main interest, however, remained in the lower bowel; papers on submucous haemorrhoidectomy (1959) were followed by others on fistula-in-ano (1961), pelvic floor physiology (1962), pharmacokinetics of the intestinal wall musculature (1963), per-anal removal of rectal tumours (1970), techniques of colo-anal anastomosis (1976) and the 'pelvic pouch' operation after pan-proctocolectomy (1980): each of these introduced a new field or altered surgical practice. It is a truly astonishing list and a full bibliography was published in a commemorative supplement by the *Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England* 1983. He joined St Mark's in 1959, the only consultant surgeon to be appointed without having been a resident. Soon after this his interest switched to a better understanding of anorectal physiology in relation to continence. Parks gathered around him experts, neurophysiologists and neuropharmacologists and young men clamouring to work with him. He left a devoted band form all parts of the globe with a better understanding of the function of pelvic-floor muscles. He perfected the technique of colo-anal anastomosis and ileoanal anastomosis with a reservoir (Parks' pouch) - a technique dependent upon his work on sub-mucosal dissection and an understanding of pelvic physiology. In these two procedures his technique as a master surgeon is well exemplified, it was perhaps in the operating theatre that he was able to teach at his best, demonstrating his special techniques and instruments. In addition to his demanding clinical commitments he undertook a heavy load on behalf of the profession and shortly after being elected to Council in 1971 he became an honorary secretary of the Joint Consultants' Committee, being elected Chairman the following year. Few but those closest to him realised how much time, energy, and personal expense he devoted to this work; for this and his seminal contributions to surgery he received the accolade of knighthood in 1977. He was elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1980 having previously been Hunterian Professor in 1965; he was to be Hunterian Orator in 1983. He was consultant surgeon to the Army, had been President of the Section of Proctology at the Royal Society of Medicine, an examiner for Cambridge University, and chief medical adviser of BUPA. He was particularly proud and delighted by the award in 1980 of the Ernst Jung Prize in medicine in recognition of his signal contributions to colorectal surgery and physiology. In 1981 the University of Geneva awarded him the Nessim Habif Prize and he was later awarded Honorary Fellowships of the Edinburgh, Australasian, and American Colleges of Surgeons and of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and Canada. He was corresponding member of the German Surgical Society, and honorary member of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, and, only a few days before the onset of his fatal illness was admitted to Honorary Fellowship of the Italian Surgical Society. He possessed a deep faith which pervaded all his activities. He was at the time of his death President-elect of the Christian Medical Fellowship. He would always do what he conceived to be his duty, even when exhausted, Sir Alan was blessed by a supremely happy marriage to Caroline Cranston, herself a medical graduate, who survived him with their four children. They much enjoyed visits to their seaside home in Dunwich, Suffolk, bird watching. Parks' own hobbies included craftwork with old books, binding and particularly engraving. In October 1982 Sir Alan suffered a myocardial infarct when in Rome. Later he was moved to London and died on 3 November after emergency cardiac surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000239
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hughes, Sir Edward Stuart Reginald (1919 - 1998)

2024-05-02T16:28:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-06
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/380882380882
Occupation Colorectal surgeon General surgeon
Details Sir Edward Hughes, known as 'Bill', was Chair of Surgery at Monash University and a former President of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He was born on 4 July 1919, the third child of Reginald Hawkins Hughes and Annie Grace née Langford. He was educated at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School, where he was academically successful and also good at sport, representing the school at tennis, football and the hurdles. He was house captain in 1937, a position which gave him an early opportunity to display his great organising abilities. While at school he developed otosclerosis, which became a lifelong disability: eventually he became totally deaf in one ear and had only 30 per cent hearing in the other. In 1938, he entered the medical course at Melbourne University, gained honours through the course, and finished with first class honours in surgery and medicine, coming top of the year in aggregate marks. As a student he coped with his deafness by comparing his notes with those of fellow students. He entered Queen's College in his second year and represented the university at football, gaining an Australian blue. He also rowed for his college. For two years he held house jobs at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. During the second year he also tutored at Queen's College. He then took an MD by examination and followed this with the MS. During this time he was a demonstrator in anatomy under Sydney Sunderland and contributed to papers on peripheral and cranial nerves. Sunderland suggested that he apply for a scholarship to study at Oxford under H J Seddon, where he stayed for a year, obtaining both parts of the FRCS. From 1947 to 1948 he was surgical registrar under Joe Fathi at the Connaught Hospital and Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford (East London). He then won a Leverhulme research fellowship at the College, where he made a study of the development of the mammary gland, which gained him an Arris and Gale lectureship in 1949. He next went to St Mark's Hospital as clinical assistant and then RSO, which led to a life-long interest in colorectal surgery. He returned to Melbourne in 1950 as assistant surgeon to the Royal Melbourne Hospital, but this was interrupted by Army service in the Korean war. The Australian Army Hospital in Kure, Japan, was short of experienced surgeons and Hughes, who had spent a brief period as a private in a field ambulance unit, was approached to become commanding officer with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He organised the hospital services in Kure, did a great deal of the surgery himself, established a high standard of documentation and promoted the rehabilitation of the wounded. After he returned to Melbourne, he remained on the reserve and became surgical adviser to the Army. He became surgeon to outpatients at the Royal Melbourne in 1954 and surgeon to inpatients from 1963 to 1974. During this time he built up a large private practice and wrote prolifically, including more than 200 papers and several textbooks on colorectal surgery. In 1974 he accepted the Chair of Surgery at Monash University and moved from the Royal Melbourne to the Alfred Hospital, where he remained until his retirement in 1984. After some negotiation, the University agreed to his taking his private practice with him to the Alfred. He was a stimulating head of department, an initiator of research and very active in teaching undergraduates. A man of immense energy, Hughes was an excellent technical surgeon and had a keen sense of humour. He had a great reputation as a teacher, which began with his undergraduate tutorials at Queen's College. His contributions to colorectal surgery, including the largest series of bowel cancers in Australia, were mostly based on his private referral practice, in which he showed that excellent academic work could be done outside the confines of a university department. Another important contribution came from his interest in road trauma, a major problem in Australia. He played a large part in the introduction of seat-belts in Victoria, one of the earliest examples of such legislation in the world. During the latter part of his career he was involved with the affairs of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, of which he was an outstanding President from 1975 to 1978. He was knighted in 1977. He received honorary memberships of surgical societies in Europe and the USA, and honorary fellowships of a number of colleges, including those of Ireland, Edinburgh, Canada, the Philippines and USA, as well as our own. He gave a large number of named lectures all over the world. He married Alison Lelean, a ward sister, when he was a house surgeon. They had four children. Hughes developed Parkinson's disease in 1978, which became increasingly severe. He died on 16 October 1998, probably of a bowel obstruction.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008699
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset