Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Gastroenterological surgeon

First Title value, for Searching Rangabashyam, Natesan (1936 - 2013)

2024-05-03T20:48:07Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2014-06-13 2014-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005400-E005499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377653377653
Occupation Gastroenterological surgeon General surgeon
Details Natesan Rangabashyam, who was based in Madras, established the subspecialty of surgical gastroenterology in India. He was born on 5 November 1936, the son of a general practitioner. He originally intended to become a pilot, but joined Loyola College in Madras to study natural sciences. He then studied medicine at Madras Medical College. During his studies he was influenced by Sadashivam, the first cardiothoracic surgeon in Tamil Nadu. Rangabashyam qualified MB BS in 1957. He then went to the UK, intending to study for the FRCS in London, but when he arrived he changed his mind and went to Edinburgh, where he joined the primary course at the Royal College of Surgeons there. He stayed in the UK for five years. He passed the primary examination at the second attempt and then went to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Rhyl, north Wales, as a medical officer, where he began to learn surgical gastroenterology with Ivor Lewis and Owen Daniels. He gained his FRCS Edinburgh in 1963. He then went to the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, working with Small, Card and Falconer for six months. He subsequently returned to the Royal Alexandra Hospital as a surgical registrar and later went as an observer to Liverpool and to St Mark's Hospital in London. Rangabashyam returned to India and in 1964 was appointed as an honorary surgeon and clinical professor of surgery at Thanjavur Medical College and Hospital, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. Here he started laparoscopy as well as a gastrointestinal clinic. He also introduced selective vagotomy and carried out his first hepatic resection. In 1969 he became a consultant surgeon at Stanley Medical College and Hospital, Madras. From 1975, he was head of the department of surgical gastroenterology and honorary clinical professor of surgery at the Madras Medical College and Government General Hospital, Madras. The department was the first in India: he also started the first MCh course in surgical gastroenterology. He delivered lectures at national and international conferences, and was an examiner in India Malaysia, Nepal and in the UK (for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh). He was an honorary surgeon to the president of India, honorary secretary and then president (in 1987) of the Association of Surgeons of India and president of the Indian Society of Gastroenterology (in 1983). He was a fellow of the International College of Surgeons, of the International Academy of Proctology and the American College of Surgeons. He was presented with the Padma Bhushan (a civilian award in India) in 2002, and was given the prestigious B C Roy award on two occasions. He married Chitralekha in 1964, they had a son, Omprakash, and a daughter, Mahalakshmi. He died in his sleep on 13 July 2013. He was 79.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005470
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Amdrup, Erik (1923 - 1998)

2024-05-03T20:48:07Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-05-10 2014-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372527372527
Occupation Gastroenterological surgeon
Details Erik Amdrup was director of surgical gastro-enterology and professor of surgery at Aarus Kommune Hospital, Denmark. He was born on 21 February 1923. His PhD thesis in 1960 was on the dumping syndrome. Later he developed a method of 'precise antrectomy' to avoid that complication and carried out research into the effect of vagotomy on parietal cell function, work which led to the Arhus county vagotomy trial. This won him international fame, the Novo Nordisk prize in 1977 and the *Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology* Prize for 1987. As a supervisor of research he was an unpretentious and highly regarded teacher, and published (together with J F Rehfeld) *Gastrins and the vagus* (London, Academic Press, 1979). In addition he had another career as an author of detective novels, several of which were made into films. Some of his short stories made their way into anthologies alongside Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. Erik Amdrup died on 22 February 1998, the day after his 75th birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000341
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Ashby, William Bennett (1925 - 1989)

2024-05-03T20:48:07Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-04-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007000-E007099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379271379271
Occupation Gastroenterological surgeon General surgeon
Details William Ashby was born in Prenton, Birkenhead, on 17 May 1925, the son of Ernest William Ashby, a consultant electrical engineer and his wife Dorothy Margaret (née Bennett). He went to school at Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool and graduated in medicine at the University of Liverpool in 1948. Thereafter he was a demonstrator of anatomy in Sheffield before returning to Liverpool for his surgical training. He was influenced by Professor Charles Wells and JB Oldham and became a senior registrar at Liverpool Royal Infirmary before taking a year away as research fellow at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. On his return he was appointed consultant surgeon at Clatterbridge Hospital and continued his special interest in gastroenterology. His thesis on autotransplantation of the small bowel was accepted for a degree as a master of surgery at the University of Liverpool. William Ashby served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and later as a keen member of the Territorial Army where he reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was an enthusiastic motor-cyclist in his youth and a skilled angler. He also enjoyed skiing. In 1962 he married Iona Jones and they had one son. Sadly he had to retire early owing to a prolonged, distressing illness which he bore with great fortitude. He died on 3 June 1989 survived by his wife and son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007088
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Lahey, Frank Howard (1880 - 1953)

2024-05-03T20:48:07Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-04-02 2014-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005200-E005299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377385377385
Occupation Endocrine surgeon Gastroenterological surgeon
Details Born on 1 June 1880 at Haverhill, Massachusetts, son of Thomas Lahey and Honora Frances Powers, he qualified in 1904 and served as intern at Boston City Hospital and Long Island Hospital 1904-05 and resident surgeon at Haymarket Square Relief Station in 1908. He became surgeon to the New England Baptist Hospital and the New England Deaconess Hospital. During the war of 1914-18 he served as a Major in the US Medical Corps and was chief of surgery in an evacuation hospital in France. He was a pioneer in thyroid surgery, and after the war was appointed Professor of Surgery at Harvard. He founded the Lahey Clinic in Boston in 1922, which had a definite obligation to the poor and needy as well as to the wealthy and distinguished. The Lahey Clinic has published regularly since 1938 a small *Bulletin* of high quality and a series of volumes of *Surgical practice* 1942, 1951 and 1962. Lahey was President of the American Medical Association in 1940, having served on its councils on Scientific Assembly from 1927 to 1937 and on Medical Education and Hospitals from 1938 to 1940. He was a member of the governing body of the American College of Surgeons, and a member of the Société de Chirurgie of Paris. During the war of 1939-45 he was chairman of the US National Commission for the procurement of medical personnel for the armed forces and consultant to the Medical Department of the US Navy, in which capacity he inspected many hospitals in the United States and the Pacific. He was awarded in 1946 the Bigelow medal of the Boston Surgical Society and the Friedenwald medal of the American Gastroenterological Association. Expert in thyroid, biliary and gastroenterological surgery, he was an inspiring teacher both at Harvard and at Tuft's College. In 1940 he was presented with a *Sixtieth Birthday Volume* contributed to by fifty-four writers. His leisure recreations were dog field trials and golf. In 1909 he married Alice Wilcox who survived him. He died on 28 June 1953 aged 73.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005202
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Conyers, James Harold (1906 - 1970)

2024-05-03T20:48:07Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006200-E006299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378415378415
Occupation Gastroenterological surgeon
Details J H Conyers was born in British Guiana on 4 August 1906, son of the Surgeon-General. After leaving Cheltenham he received his university education at Cambridge where he obtained a BA honours degree in Natural Science in 1927 and an MA in November 1934. He completed his medical training at St Thomas's Hospital, London, where he qualified MRCS, LRCP in April and MB, Bchir Cantab in December 1930. In December 1932 he obtained the FRCS. After qualification he worked until April 1936 at St Thomas's Hospital, where he gained a wide experience in surgery, as casualty officer and then house surgeon to Sir Percy Sargent and B C Maybury on the Surgical Unit, senior casualty officer and house surgeon to the septic wards, demonstrator and lecturer in anatomy, and later surgical registrar and tutor in clinical and operative surgery. Following the custom of the time and the rules prevailing over hospital appointments in York he entered general practice there in 1936, and in 1937 was appointed honorary assistant surgeon to the York County Hospital. At the inception of the National Health Service in 1948 he became a consulting surgeon to the York group of hospitals and continued in active surgical practice until his final illness made it impossible for him to continue his work. He was a man of magnetic charm, with a quiet but strong personality which attracted friends wherever he went. Senior and junior colleagues, nurses and patients alike were devoted to him; his dry humour impressed all who knew him. He made a major contribution in gastric surgery to the Leeds -York peptic ulcer research. He was a keen member of the Grey Turner Surgical Club and of the Gastroenterology Society. In his younger days he had been a good athlete and excelled particularly at tennis and ski-ing and in later years became a keen golfer. He was a voracious reader especially of medical and historical biographies and was always interested and amused by the oddities of human nature. He died in June 1970 following an operation, and was survived by his wife and three sons, one of whom is in the medical profession.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006232
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Capper, William Melville (1908 - 1971)

2024-05-03T20:48:07Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-25 2015-09-04
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/378222378222
Occupation Gastroenterological surgeon
Details William Melville Capper was born on 25 January 1908 at Newport, Monmouthshire, and went to Canford School where he did well in classics. He came to St Bartholomew's Hospital for his medical course, where he also distinguished himself as a formidable rugby forward. He qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1932, and became house surgeon to Sir Girling Ball. He passed the FRCS in 1936, and then decided to specialize in obstetrics and gynaecology, obtained the MRCOG in 1938 and in 1939 was appointed consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist to the Bristol Royal Infirmary. In the second world war he joined the RAMC and was in command of the surgical division of a general hospital in North Africa and Italy with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. After demobilization he made a remarkable change in his career, abandoning obstetrics for general surgery. He served first as a surgical registrar, but in 1946 was appointed consultant surgeon to the Bristol Royal Hospital, and made significant contributions to gastroenterology. He also served as surgeon to Southmead Hospital. He was an excellent teacher, and with Harold Rodgers published a text-book of surgery. He served for some years as Clinical Dean of the Bristol Medical School. As a leader in his chosen specialty he was made president of the Society of Gastroenterology in 1965, and in 1969 was President of the Section of Surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine. Bill Capper, as he was known to his many friends, will long be remembered as a Christian whose religion inspired his whole life. He was Chairman and President of the Christian Medical Fellowship, and was a popular preacher at the Alma Road Chapel in Bristol. But the outstanding feature was the generous and loving manner in which he helped all, and especially the younger people, who appealed to him for advice and assistance. He had a wonderful home life with his wife May and their two sons and daughter, who survived him when he died suddenly, though after prolonged illness, in the Bristol Royal Hospital on 10 December 1971, aged 63.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006039
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Clark, Charles Grant (1926 - 1988)

2024-05-03T20:48:07Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007100-E007199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379378379378
Occupation Gastroenterological surgeon General surgeon
Details Charles Grant Clark was born in 1926 and attended the academy at Fraserburgh, Scotland. On leaving school during the war he was initially accepted for the RAFVR but transferred to the Army serving in Bristol and India with the Blood Transfusion Service. He returned to Aberdeen for his medical training where he achieved a number of academic prizes. He moved to London for a year of research with Professor John Vane in the pharmacology department at the College but soon returned to Aberdeen as a senior registrar and later as a senior lecturer. In 1964 he was made a reader in surgery in Leeds where he developed his interest in inflammatory diseases of the bowel as a result of his work with Professor John Goligher. He was also influenced and encouraged by Sir Charles Illingworth, Sir James Learmonth and William Wilson. It was in this exciting era of new developments in gastrointestinal surgery that he was foremost in the field, and he was able to develop many of his ideas within the British Society of Gastroenterology. It was no surprise that he became not only treasurer but also President of that Society. In 1967 he was appointed to the Chair of Surgery at University College Hospital where he continued to influence research particularly on the H2 receptor antagonists and in addition he was actively guiding research into colonic cancer and the use of laser techniques. A long-standing interest in surgical oncology led to a breast clinic being set up. He was a tireless worker and entered with enthusiasm into writing, examining, lecturing, medical school management and travel. A member of the executive and international committees of the International Society of Surgery for several years he was also an assistant editor of the *World journal of surgery*. He was a compassionate person and well liked by his patients. His main hobby was gardening and he always had a flower in his office. Not content with simple horticulture he also cultivated rare varieties of orchid. He was survived by his wife, Nita, and two children Hugh and Yvonne when he died on 8 August 1988 aged 62 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007195
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Alexander-Williams, John (1927 - 2015)

2024-05-03T20:48:07Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2015-10-22 2017-03-23
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/380709380709
Occupation Gastroenterological surgeon
Details John Alexander-Williams was one of the country's best known gastroenterological surgeons noted not only for his surgical skill, teaching and many research contributions, but also for his *bonhomie* and *joie de vivre*, making him the life and soul of any meeting. John, often affectionately known by his initials as 'JAWS', was born in 1927 to Herbert Williams, a draftsman and newspaper distributor, and Gertrude Dora (née Alexander). He attended Dudley Grammar School and Sebright School in Wolverley, where he was made head boy in 1944 despite having sold stink bombs to the younger boys and organised a still in the rafters for the benefit of those a little older! In 1945 he proceeded to Birmingham University Medical School, where he won a prize for surgery in 1948. While a student he showed early dramatic promise being an enthusiastic member of the drama society and in 1950, the year he qualified, auditioned for a part in the new BBC radio series *The Archers*. Had he been successful in this audition perhaps he would have gone on to be a distinguished actor rather than a surgeon! National Service (from 1952 to 1954) was spent largely in Austria as a captain in the RAMC, but he was recalled at the time of the Suez Crisis and in 1956 was awarded the Suez Campaign medal. He became an FRCS in 1955. In 1959/60, while a senior registrar in Birmingham, he spent a year overseas as a research fellow to Owen Wangensteen in the Mayo Foundation, Minnesota, returning to become lecturer in surgery at the University of Birmingham in 1961 in the department headed by F A R Stammers. He was subsequently appointed consultant surgeon to Birmingham General Hospital in 1964, where he practiced for the rest of his career, being appointed professor of surgery in 1989. A lifelong socialist, he shunned private practice in favour of clinical surgery and research. Throughout his stellar career John was known for his work in the whole gamut of gastroenterology. A superb technical surgeon and an outstanding teacher, his research was initially in the field of peptic ulceration, notably in the development of selective, then highly selective, vagotomy as the preferred surgical option at a time when partial gastrectomy was the standard surgical treatment. But within a few years of his consultant appointment the need for any form of surgery for peptic ulceration virtually disappeared with the development of effective acid suppressants. He then made major contributions in the management of inflammatory bowel disease, especially Crohn's disease, in which he showed that conservative surgery was often to be preferred over major resection of the affected intestine. Nor did he neglect the anus! Haemorrhoids, fistulas, fissures and pruritis were all grist to his mill and a stream of publications on these often neglected subjects flowed from his pen. He was a prolific writer; as well as numerous original papers, chapters in textbooks and editorials, his books/monographs included *Partial gastrectomy. Complications and metabolic consequences* (London, Butterworths, 1963), *Vagotomy on trial* (London, William Heinemann Medical Books, 1973), *Intestinal fistulas* (Bristol, John Wright, 1982), *Vagotomy in modern surgical practice* (London, Butterworths, 1982) and *Inflammatory bowel diseases* (New York, Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1997). He was twice a Hunterian professor at the College, in 1963 and 1973, the first presentation titled 'The effects of upper gastrointestinal surgery on blood formation and bone metabolism' and the second titled 'Gastric reconstructive surgery'. Needless to say, he was in great demand as a lecturer both at home and overseas, and became noted for his skills of oratory and his dramatic flair. Before the days of the digital revolution, the author remembers him giving a stunning presentation using two projectors directed to a single screen each working alternately and without pause showing some 200 linked slides in 10 minutes or so. To the audience it was like watching a moving film with John providing the voiceover - the applause was deafening. The time spent in preparation must have been enormous. In 1983 he was elected to the council of the College, where he served diligently for 12 years, becoming vice president in 1994. In 1991 he delivered both the Zachery Cope lecture and the Bradshaw lecture. He was often the after dinner speaker at College dinners given his wit and lucidity. He gave the prestigious Hunterian Oration in 1995, his last year on Council, with the intriguing title of 'Accentuate the positive - eliminate the negative'. It was no surprise to gastroenterologists everywhere when he was elected president of the British Society of Gastroenterology for their 50th anniversary year in 1986. He was president of the section of coloproctology at the Royal Society of Medicine in 1988. Outside of surgery, John was a keen skier and gardener (his garden was open to charity each year) and he was notably talented in painting, drawing and sculpture, the latter giving him special pleasure in his years of retirement. In his early years he was also a mountaineer. He led a well-known colourful social life, but was devoted to his wife Betty (née Brain), a fellow medical student, whom he married in 1951. Betty predeceased him in 2014. There were five children. Sadly, his later years were marred by troublesome heart disease, which he bore stoically. He died on 14 October 2015 aged 88.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008526
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Visick, Arthur Hedley Clarence (1897 - 1949)

2024-05-03T20:48:07Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-09 2014-08-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377039377039
Occupation Gastroenterological surgeon
Details Born at Hampstead on 26 June 1897, second child and only son of Charles Hedley Clarence Visick, MRCS 1892, and Katherine Mary Cook, his wife. His father practised as an anaesthetist in North London; his grandfather and great-grandfather had also been medical men. His mother was related to Sir Albert Cook, CMG, MD, a prominent medical missionary in Uganda, and his sister, E M Griffith, MRCS, wife of J R Griffith, FRCS, is a gynaecological surgeon. He was educated at Epsom College and at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he won an entrance scholarship in 1915. He served during the war as a combatant soldier, and began his medical training in 1918. He won a succession of prizes and scholarships: the Treasurer's anatomy prize 1919, the Foster anatomy prize 1920, the Walsham pathology prize 1922, and the Willett operative surgery prize and Brackenbury surgical scholarship the same year. He then served as demonstrator of anatomy, house surgeon in the ear, nose, and throat department, house surgeon to Sir Holburt Waring, and chief assistant to Sir Charles Gordon-Watson in the surgical unit. After a period as clinical assistant at St Peter's Hospital for Stone, he went in 1926, as a Rockefeller scholar, to Michigan University where he served as instructor in orthopaedic surgery and assistant surgeon to Max M Peet, FACS, and became particularly interested in thyroid surgery. He also reorganized the clinical record-keeping methods. He came back from America and settled at York in 1927, and was elected surgeon to the York County Hospital in 1928. He was also surgeon to the North Riding Mental Hospital, and consulting surgeon to the hospitals at Malton and Easingwold, and to the York City General Hospital, which was opened in 1942. He was surgical specialist to York Military Hospital, and to the Northern Command. His chief interest was at first in thyroid surgery, but from 1914 he became more interested in gastric surgery, especially the treatment of peptic ulcer. He discussed 500 cases of gastrectomy in his Hunterian lecture at the College in 1948. He had a large private practice, first at 25 High Petergate and latterly at The Old House, Fulford; every Wednesday he held a follow-up clinic, keeping personally in touch with every patient, and bringing in all his assistants, with a model system of detailed records. Visick was a member of the Leeds and West Riding Medico-Chirurgical Society, and was chairman of the York division of the British Medical Association 1938-43; the association awarded him the Bishop Harman prize in 1948. He was chairman of the house committee of the County Hospital, and a member of the York Hospital Management Committee. Though always ready to speak his mind, Visick was an appreciative and understanding colleague. At the time of his early death he was one of the most outstanding surgeons in the north. Visick married in 1929 Christine Ruegg, who survived him with two sons and a daughter. He died in the County Hospital, York, on 4 April 1949, aged 51. A memorial service was held in York Minster. He was devoted to country pursuits, which he enjoyed at a cottage outside York. Publications: Anatomy of tendon-sheaths of the hand in relation to suppurating tenosynovitis. *St Bart's Hosp J* 1925, 32, 184. Conservative treatment of acute perforated peptic ulcer. *Brit med J* 1946, 2, 941. Five hundred cases of gastrectomy, Hunterian lecture. *Ann Roy Coll Surg Engl* 1948, 3, 266.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004856
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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