First Title value, for Searching Evans, Gwyn Amman (1944 - 2022)

2024-05-17T21:41:16Z

by Clive Inman
Publication Date 2022-08-26
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010100-E010199
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Paediatric orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Gwyn Amman Evans was a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon at Oswestry. He was born in Denbigh, in the Vale of Clwyd, on 24 March 1944, the son of Owen John Evans, a presbyterian minister, and Annie Gwyneth Evans née Edwards, the daughter of a farmer. At the age of three the family moved to Bon-y-maen in Swansea, and he attended Bishop Gore Grammar School. He was keen on music and an accomplished pianist, accompanying school assemblies. He passed the associate of the London College of Music exam before leaving Swansea in 1962 to study medicine at Barts. In London he joined the London Welsh Youth Choir and continued to accompany services, his father taking on a church in Clapham. When he qualified in 1967, the dean, Ellison Nash, chose Gwyn to be his surgical house officer. In 1969 he worked at Birmingham Accident Hospital, where he was impressed by the humility of his boss. Returning to Barts to do surgical and anatomy demonstration jobs, he passed his FRCS. He joined a surgical rotation in Cardiff, where he wrote a paper on an incentivising spirometer for postoperative pulmonary complications, for which he won the Moynihan medal at the age of 30 (‘The evaluation of the incentive spirometer in the management of postoperative pulmonary complications’ *Br J Surg* 1974 Oct;61[10]:793-7). In 1974, he went to Oswestry, where he joined the orthopaedic rotation: to Hereford, Stoke-on-Trent for trauma, and then children’s orthopaedics under Rowland Hughes. He also gained a fellowship at Newington Children’s Hospital in Connecticut. The new Australian professor at Oswestry, Brian T O’Connor, asked him to write a job description for an ideal paediatric orthopaedic surgeon and six months later he was appointed to the job. He also worked at Wrexham Maelor in trauma and elective orthopaedics until 1999. Contributing enormously to the teaching of paediatric orthopaedics, he was the regional specialty adviser in north Wales and postgraduate tutor for the West Midlands. He served on the councils of the British Orthopaedic Association and the European Paediatric Orthopaedic Society. He received the Sharrard medal for children’s services and the British Society for Children’s Orthopaedic Surgery named its travel fellowship in his honour. He retired in 2004 and during his retirement, for nine months a year, he worked as a volunteer at the Dr H G Roberts Hospital in Shillong, Meghalaya, in northeast India, where he arranged for a generator to be installed and, with the help of funding from the Presbyterian Church of Wales, an intensive care unit was established at the hospital. At home he helped at the citizen’s advice bureau in Wrexham. He was strongly supported by his wife, Mary (née Tudor), his three children and seven grandchildren, and was strengthened by his deep faith which sustained him throughout his life. He died on 20 July 2022 at the age of 78.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010152
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching May, Peter Cameron (1947 - 2008)

2024-05-17T21:41:16Z

by Sir Barry Jackson
Publication Date 2012-02-13 2016-02-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002000-E002099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374197374197
Occupation Orthopaedic surgeon Paediatric orthopaedic surgeon Trauma surgeon
Details Peter May was a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Princess Royal Hospital, Telford. He specialised in children's orthopaedics, foot and ankle surgery, the shoulder and rheumatoid arthritis. He hailed from the West Country, where he attended Torquay Boys' Grammar School and then studied medicine at King's College London and Westminster Medical School, qualifying in 1971. He was good at sports, particularly rugby and hurdling, and in his youth had won a gold Duke of Edinburgh's Award. After early jobs in Southampton and Plymouth, he passed the primary fellowship and moved into orthopaedics, always his first love, first at the Prince of Wales Orthopaedic Hospital in Cardiff, where he passed the final FRCS in 1977, and then in Southampton and Bath. In 1975 he spent some months in the Middle East to gain extra experience, and in 1984 won a travel and research scholarship to study paediatric surgery at the Toronto Sick Children's Hospital. This stimulated his special interest in paediatric orthopaedics, which remained throughout his life. He was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon in 1989 to the new Princess Royal Hospital in Telford before it had officially opened and enthusiastically set about developing a new unit with the help of two other newly appointed colleagues. Owing to the effects of reduced hours of work for trainees, he lacked the support of junior staff for much of the time and therefore worked extraordinarily long hours. He initiated a trauma rota with his two colleagues, such that every third week he covered trauma exclusively, leaving the elective orthopaedics to others. This was an early example of a practice which has now become commonplace. In Telford he was known for his desire to maintain high standards, for he cared deeply about the welfare of his patients. He abhorred bureaucracy; Government targets, performance indicators, and especially joint waiting lists, which were anathema to him. His concern for high standards of care and good outcomes did not make him an enthusiast for day surgery, as can be surmised from the title of one of his papers 'Is day care good care?' Robust in argument and with strongly held views, he did not always endear himself. He loved writing lengthy provocative letters (known as 'Petergrams'), which were sometimes thought exasperating, but they always highlighted genuine concerns about patient care. When the Internet arrived, he took to it with enthusiasm and loved experimenting with different colours and multiple typefaces and sizes such that some of his lengthy emails appeared to be modern works of art! Jargon was another dislike; he considered blue-sky thinking should be restricted to walks in his beloved West Country! In his early 40s, against fierce competition from others more senior, Peter was comfortably elected to the Royal College of Surgeons' council in 1993 and served diligently for two terms, demitting office in 2005. He was especially active on the RCS training board, becoming chairman of the hospital recognition committee and making many visits of inspection at hospitals throughout the country. He was ahead of his time in arguing for regionalisation of RCS activities at a time when its activities were exclusively London- based. Indeed, he argued that the College building itself would be better based in Birmingham or Manchester, but in this he failed to persuade council. Peter was blessed with a loving and supportive family. Married to Jan, they had three sons Jonathan, Daniel and Nathan. He died suddenly at home on 7 July 2008, aged 61.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002014
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Paediatric orthopaedic surgeon - Trauma surgeon

First Title value, for Searching Evans, Gwyn Amman (1944 - 2022)

First Title value, for Searching May, Peter Cameron (1947 - 2008)