First Title value, for Searching Parfitt, Gilbert John (1910 - 1991)

2024-05-11T23:22:28Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2023-08-17
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010400-E010499
Occupation Dental surgeon Specialist in preventive dentistry
Details Gilbert John Parfitt was the first department head of the faculty of dentistry at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He was born on 20 March 1920 in Caversham, Oxfordshire. His father, John Brodribb Parfitt, was a consultant dental surgeon at Guy’s Hospital, London; his mother was Amy Sophie Parfitt née Goodenough. Parfitt studied dentistry at Guy’s and gained his LDS in 1934. He also qualified as a doctor with the conjoint examination in 1939. During the Second World War he was an emergency surgeon in the maxillofacial department at East Grinstead, then pioneering the treatment and reconstruction of the faces of wounded servicemen. After the war, Parfitt was appointed to Guy’s as head of the department of preventive dentistry, then a relatively new field. He subsequently spent four years working with the World Health Organization. He immigrated to the United States, to the University of Alabama, where he began teaching oral medicine. He became a naturalised American citizen in 1961. Two years later, he was appointed to the faculty of dentistry at the University of British Columbia and set up the department of oral medicine and radiology there. He retired in 1974. He wrote more than 50 research publications, was a member of a dozen professional societies and received 15 academic awards. He was married twice. In December 1934 he married Hilda Maud Maxwell, the daughter of a civil servant. They had a son, David Maxwell. In 1954 he married Muriel Martin (or Small). Parfitt died on 12 January 1991 in Ventura County, California. He was 80.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010453
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Walsh, Sir John Patrick ( - 2003)

2024-05-11T23:22:28Z

by Alastair Stokes
Publication Date 2023-08-11
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010400-E010499
Occupation Dental surgeon
Details Professor J P Walsh, Dean of the University of Otago School of Dentistry from 1946 to 1971 died recently in Auckland, New Zealand. He was 92. It is impossible for one dentist to personally chronicle the achievements of this remarkable man. He studied dentistry and medicine in Australia after starting working life as an apprentice dental mechanic. He graduated with first class honours in dentistry in 1936 and followed this with a medical degree. By the end of WW II he was a medical officer in the Royal Australian Air Force and in 1946 he was appointed Dean at the school of dentistry in Dunedin, New Zealand. He transformed the school, broadening the scientific and clinical base, encouraging research and introducing a vigorous postgraduate programme. At the same time he was deeply involved in both national and international activities. In New Zealand he led an ultimately successful battle to fluoridate city water supplies, for which the related decline in dental caries speaks all. Internationally he was a key worker for dentistry with the World Health Organization. During his deanship Sir John persuaded a reluctant government to fund a major new building. This was opened in 1961 and was a revelation to me, moving into the “new” school for my final undergraduate year. Here was state-of-the-art dentistry with that marvel of the 1960’s, high speed drills available in special circumstances. Few of my generation were aware of Sir John's role in this remarkable development. His involvement commenced while he was conducting discharge medicals in Melbourne in 1946. He observed the relation between the frequency of vibration applied to teeth and pain perception. From this base he sought to produce a rotary instrument with a frequency above the “discomfort level”. By 1949, whilst transforming the Dunedin Dental School, Sir John had gained local support leading to the construction (and patenting) of a high speed air turbine handpiece little different from those of today. Details of this astonishing development were published locally and are summarised in a British Dental Journal article (*Br Dent J*1974; 136: 469–472), which included the 1949 patent drawing. Sir John will be remembered with affection by all those he supported professionally but he is owed as great a debt of gratitude by all those who have unknowingly benefited from his pioneering work with the high speed drill. Sir John’s wife, Enid predeceased him and he is survived by his four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010410
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Dental surgeon

First Title value, for Searching Parfitt, Gilbert John (1910 - 1991)

First Title value, for Searching Walsh, Sir John Patrick ( - 2003)