Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Transplant surgeon

First Title value, for Searching Bengoechea Gonzales, Eufrasio ( - 2007)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by John Blandy
Publication Date 2012-02-06 2012-11-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001900-E001999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374154374154
Occupation Transplant surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Eufrasio Bengoechea Gonzalez was a vascular and transplant surgeon from Toledo, Spain. He specialised in surgery in the UK, becoming a fellow of the Edinburgh college in 1961 and of the English college in 1962. For the next 10 years he worked in Northampton, Nottingham, Chester, Liverpool and Tulane Hospital, New Orleans, before returning to Spain as chief of surgery at the Hospital Virgen de la Salud in Toledo. He was also a consultant in surgery to the US Air Force at Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid. He published some 30 papers, mostly in English-speaking journals, on vascular and transplant surgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001971
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Golinger, Donald (1930 - 2014)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2020-10-19
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009800-E009899
Occupation Transplant surgeon General surgeon
Details Donald Golinger was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Perth Hospital. 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: E009829
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Calne, Sir Roy Yorke (1930 - 2024)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2024-02-23
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010500-E010599
Occupation Transplant surgeon General surgeon
Details Sir Roy Calne was a professor of surgery at the University of Cambridge and a pioneering transplant surgeon.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010593
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Najarian, John Sarkis (1927 - 2020)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2023-09-20
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010400-E010499
Occupation Transplant surgeon General surgeon
Details John Sarkis Najarian was a clinical professor of transplant surgery at the University of Minnesota, USA. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk
Resource Identifier RCS: E010457
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Monaco, Anthony P (1932 - 2022)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2022-12-09
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010100-E010199
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Anthony P Monaco was the Peter Medawar professor of transplantation surgery at Harvard University. 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: E010188
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Griffin, Peter John Anthony (1946 - 2009)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-12-15 2015-03-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373941373941
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Peter John Anthony Griffin was a transplant surgeon at Cardiff Royal Infirmary. He was born on 19 July 1946 and studied medicine in Cardiff, gaining his MB BCh in 1970. He was a house surgeon at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, and a senior house officer in the accident department at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. He then became a surgical registrar in Cardiff and was later a specialist there in transplant surgery. He was involved in the World Transplant Games Federation and, after his death on 31 May 2009 at the age of 62, the Peter Griffin award was introduced for the winning team of the men's swimming freestyle relay.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001758
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nielubowicz, Jan (1915 - 2000)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-02-17 2014-08-22
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/374221374221
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Jan Nielubowicz was professor of surgery at the Insitute of Surgery at the Hospital of the Infant Jesus in Warsaw. He was born in German-occupied Warsaw during the First World War on 28 October 1915, the son of Kazimierz and Wanda Nielubowicz. He came from a medical family: his father was a surgeon and urologist in Warsaw, and his grandfather, Wlayslaw Nielubowicz, was a surgeon and director of a hospital in Kremenchuk in Ukraine. Jan Nielubowicz attended high school in Warsaw, but in 1929 his father died and his mother decided to move to Vilnius, Lithuania. In Vilnius Nielubowicz graduated from high school and enrolled at the University of Vilnius. In 1936 he returned to Warsaw, and continued his studies at the Jozef Pilsudski University. He graduated in March 1939, and during the Second World War worked as a doctor, first in Vilnius and Kaunas, and then, from 1943, as the only doctor in a small hospital in Valozhyn, in what is now Belarus. When the Second World War ended, he returned to Warsaw and started working in the department of surgery at the Hospital of the Infant Jesus, where his father had worked. He became an associate professor of surgery in April 1962 and a professor in July 1970. From 1974 to 1986 he was director of the Institute of Surgery at the Hospital of the Infant Jesus. From 1981 to 1986 he was president of the Medical University of Warsaw. In 1947 he defended his doctoral thesis on phlegmon of the stomach and intestines. His post-doctoral research was on acute necrosis of the liver. From 1958, thanks to a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, he spent a year in the department of surgery at Harvard. Back in Warsaw, he helped reform Polish surgery, introducing new techniques and encouraging scientific research. In 1966 he carried out the first sucessful tranplantation (a kidney transplant) in Poland. Jan Nielubowicz was a member of 14 international scientific socieities, and in 1980 became an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He gained honorary degrees from six Polish medical schools. In 1997 he received the Commander with Star of the Order of St Pope Sylvester from the Pope, and in 1990 the Grand Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland. Jan Nielubowicz died on 2 February 2000, aged 84.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002038
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bakran, Ali (1949 - 2010)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2012-02-03 2013-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001900-E001999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374148374148
Occupation Transplant surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Ali Bakran was a consultant and vascular surgeon at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital when he drowned while on holiday in the Maldives. He was born in Hyderabad on 15 January 1949 but his family moved to the UK and settled in Salford when he was a small boy. He attended primary school in Salford and then went to Manchester Grammar School. He studied for his BSc in anatomy at Bristol University and qualified MB ChB at Leeds University in 1973. He held surgical posts at Hull and Leeds and joined the higher surgical rotation in Manchester in 1980, moving to Liverpool nine years later as a consultant. He developed a close relationship with the biomedical engineering department at the university and was involved with research projects on vascular access. Another major interest was the study of opportunistic viral infections in transplant patients. In all, he contributed 86 research papers to the literature on a range of clinical and laboratory based topics. In the mid 1990s he helped set up the European Vascular Access Society (EVAS) and was treasurer of the British Transplant Society. He was the founder president of the VASBI (Vascular Access Society of Great Britain and Ireland) which he established in 2009 because of the need to have a multidisciplinary organisation committed to the promotion of vascular access for haemodialysis. The membership was to include vascular surgeons, transplant surgeons, nephrologists, radiologists, dialysis nurses, sonographers and vascular scientists; the inaugural meeting was, tragically, the month after he died. VASBI are now holding annual meetings and training sessions; their current president, Steve Powell, is an interventional radiologist who had been Bakran's partner in developing the excellent outcomes achieved by Liverpool's vascular access service. A member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh he became an ambassador for the College in Africa, visiting various countries to promote co-ordination in surgical training. He was a passionate supporter of Manchester United and enjoyed playing tennis, listening to classical music and eating Indian cuisine. He was remembered for his enthusiastic participation in the annual Snowden hike to promote organ donation. Having fought to overcome his own impoverished background he was keen to improve access to medical education for those from similar backgrounds and set up the charity Aequitas which he was hoping to make his second career after retirement. He was on a two week holiday in the Maldives with his wife and daughter when he drowned while snorkelling. He died on 27 August 2010 aged 61, survived by his wife, Diane, son Adam and daughter Miriam, mourned by his colleagues and by his patients to whose care he had been devoted. His registrar remarked "In transplant surgery we follow the patients throughout life…..he would bulldoze his way for [them]".
Resource Identifier RCS: E001965
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nolan, Bernard (1926 - 2013)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2013-12-16 2015-12-14
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004700-E004799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376973376973
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Bernard Nolan was a consultant surgeon at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary who took part in the first kidney transplantation in the UK. He was born on 17 August 1926 in Eccles, Lancashire, the son of Edward Nolan, an engineer, and Mary Nolan née Howarth, a teacher. His brother John would also go on to study medicine, becoming a consultant ophthalmologist, also at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Bernard Nolan was educated at St Joseph's College, Blackpool, and then went on to Edinburgh University Medical School. At university he was a member of the air squadron and the athletics club, played rugby and participated in student union activities. He graduated MB ChB in 1949. Until October 1950 he worked as a house surgeon to (later Sir) Walter Mercer, whose operative versatility influenced his decision to pursue a career in surgery. From 1950 to 1951 he was a senior house officer in surgery at Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle. He then carried out his National Service in the RAMC in Egypt and Libya, as a junior specialist in surgery. Leaving the Army with the rank of captain, he returned to Edinburgh, as a demonstrator in anatomy and then as a surgical registrar at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children. In 1956, at the start of the Suez Crisis, he was recalled to the Army as a surgical specialist with the rank of major. From 1957 to 1959 he was a surgical registrar on the rotational training scheme at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. In February 1959 he became a senior registrar on the professorial surgical unit, under (later Sir) Michael Woodruff, and in May of the same year he was appointed as a lecturer in the department, with involvement in the transplantation research programme and the Edinburgh-based Medical Research Council's group on transplantation. On 30 October 1960 he assisted Michael Woodruff in carrying out the first ever kidney transplantation in the UK, between identical twins, and was largely responsible for the pre- and post-operative care of both donor and recipient. The recipient, who had end-stage kidney failure, did not need immune-suppressive medication and lived another ten years. Over the next two years, Bernard Nolan greatly increased his experience of transplantation. In 1962 he was a research fellow at Harvard University Medical School, where he worked with Joseph Murray, 'the father of transplant surgery'. Also in 1962, he was appointed as a senior lecturer in surgery at Edinburgh University with honorary consultant status at the Royal Infirmary. In 1965 he transferred to the NHS as a consultant general surgeon, but, in close association with Michael Woodruff, continued to run the Edinburgh transplant service. As an NHS consultant surgeon, Nolan became increasingly committed to vascular surgery and pressed for the establishment of a surgical unit devoted to this specialty. In 1982 this was achieved, when the Edinburgh Specialist Vascular Surgery Service was set up at the Royal Infirmary. Nolan headed the unit and, with two other dedicated vascular surgeons, provided an exceptional emergency service. He was an examiner for both the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and of England. Nolan retired in February 1989. In retirement he and his wife indulged their love of travel, but unfortunately this was curtailed by the effects of serious road accident Nolan suffered while walking near their home. Recovery proved long and difficult. He then developed pulmonary fibrosis, which led to increasing disability. Bernard Nolan died on 18 October 2013 in Edinburgh. He was 87. He was survived by his widow, Margaret Winifred Nolan née Coleman, known as 'Peggy', a former dermatologist at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, whom he married in September 1958, and their two sons, Geoffrey and John.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004790
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Chang, Rene Wen Suen (1944 - 2019)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2019-08-05
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Rene Wen Suen Chang studied medicine at London University and trained at the Westminster Hospital Medical School. In London he worked as a house surgeon at the Whittington Hospital and registrar at St Stephen’s Hospital, before gaining his fellowship of the college and moving to Saudi Arabia as senior consultant surgeon to the Riyadh Armed Forces Hospital from 1979 to 1989. During his time there he was able to practice in a state of the art hospital and was to fully develop his skills in renal transplantation as he was later to write in an autobiography of these years *Scalpel in the sand; memoirs of a surgeon in Saudi Arabia * (UFT Press, 2011). In 1994 he was appointed the first renal transplant surgeon at St George’s Hospital in London. Aware that other London hospitals had had transplant units for ten or even twenty years, he was keen to catch up fast. He recruited Mr Bewick and Sue Snowden from the Dulwich Hospital in 1995 and initiated an annual public audit which, unusually, could be freely attended. He was the first transplantation practitioner to successfully use tacrolimus as an immunosuppressive agent and, due to the lack of suitably qualified staff, he began a training programme for transplantation surgical trainees. Needing experts in access and laparoscopic surgery, he encouraged surgeons from France and the Czech Republic to join his team. He also established a research laboratory to further investigate preservation of donor organs. The expertise of his department was such that for four consecutive years there was no transplant related death and the success rate was 100%. He retired in 2009 and, during his last year, the unit performed 157 kidney transplants, the highest ever number. Heavily involved in the international transplantation scene, he was to be found speaking at conferences around the world, developing instructional videos and even wrote his own software programmes. During retirement he wrote the autobiography mentioned above and published, on the 40th anniversary of the break in, a political thriller titled *Watergate – the political assassination* (UFT Press, 2012) in which he explored his long held theories that President Nixon was the victim of a right wing plot. He was also hoping to write about his Hakka family origins and the family’s migration from Southern China and he developed a health education board game. He died on 26 April 2019 aged 84.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009632
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Digard, Nicholas John (1951 - 1998)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-23
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/380758380758
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Nick Digard, a native of the Channel Islands, was born on 7 April 1951. His father, Joseph Claude Digard, was a civil servant. His mother, Jean née Hadfield, was a financial administrator. He was educated at Pierre Du Bois School and Elizabeth College, Guernsey, and studied medicine at University College Hospital. He completed junior posts at the Whittington and Basingstoke General Hospitals, before joining the UCH registrar training rotation, which included a stint at Stoke Mandeville and Portsmouth. He was appointed as a renal research fellow and senior registrar in renal replacement therapy, and later as an associate specialist, on the transplant unit under Maurice Slapak at St Mary's Hospital, Portsmouth, where he carried out a number of useful research projects, though seldom writing them up. He married Patricia Mary Ryan in 1974. They had two children, a girl, Helen Agnes, and a boy, Jean-Paul Marcus. He suffered from an alcohol addiction and, in the course of rehabilitation, developed cardiac ischaemia. He committed suicide on 11 November 1998.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008575
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Groth, Carl Gustav (1933 - 2014)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Olle Ringdén
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/377994377994
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Carl-Gustav Groth was a pioneering transplant surgeon at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden. He was born in Helsinki, Finland, on 15 October 1933. His father, Carl-Johan Groth, was a businessman; his mother, Margareta Groth née Sonkin, was a housewife. Carl-Gustav's elder brother, Carl-Johan, went on to become a high-ranking diplomat and the Swedish ambassador of Denmark. Carl-Gustav moved with his parents to Stockholm at the age of 11 during the Second World War. He went to school in Stockholm and studied at the Karolinska Institute, where he gained his MD in 1961. He trained in surgery at the Serafimer Hospital in Stockholm, and in 1965 was awarded a PhD for his work on rheology in trauma. Groth then received a post-doctoral research fellowship from the National Institutes of Health, USA, to study transplantation surgery at the University of Colorado from 1966 to 1968. His knowledge of blood flow proved to be extremely useful when Thomas E Starzl, together with Groth, performed the first successful liver transplantation in man in 1967. Groth returned to Colorado in 1971 as an associate professor of surgery. In 1972 he returned to Sweden and became an associate professor at the Karolinska Institute and chief of transplantation surgery at the new teaching hospital, Huddinge Hospital. Here he built up an excellent, perfectly organised, transplantation ward. In 1983 he was made professor of surgery. Groth performed the first pancreas transplantation in Sweden 1974, and pancreas transplantation became one of his main research and clinical interests. He pioneered bone marrow transplantation in Sweden 1975 and paved the way for establishing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Groth also performed the first liver transplantation in Sweden in 1984 and the first pancreatic islet cell transplantation in 1996. He was the first in the world to cure Gaucher disease by bone marrow transplantation and to use porcine pancreatic islet transplants in humans. He was a skilled writer and wrote more than 600 scientific publications, which have been cited more than 17,000 times. He was a member of the Nobel Assembly from 1986 to 1999 and chairman in 1998. He was president of the Transplantation Society from 2001 to 2002. Groth was presented with many honours, including the Medawar Prize (in 2006), His Majesty the King of Sweden's medal (in 1998), the American Society of Transplant Surgeons pioneer award and the Maharshi Sushruta Award. A transplantation ward has been named after him at a clinic in Ahmedabad, India, and a Carl-Gustav Groth lecture, prize in transplantation research and a conference hall have also been established in his honour. For those of us who worked with Carl-Gustav, he was an inspiring mentor, teacher, example, pioneer and dear friend. He cared for his family and his employees. He had a great sense of humour and read a great deal. He was extremely good company. One of his major interests was offshore sail racing. On his sailboat he gathered many of his friends and colleagues. I had the privilege to serve as crew member on his yacht *Supernova*. Among other things, Groth won the Baltic Race and many other offshore races. In 1959, he married Birgit Hammargren, a Montessori teacher. They had three children. The oldest son, Johan, works in IT technology. Magnus, their second son, is an economist. Their daughter Helena is also an economist and works as a copywriter. There are nine grandchildren. In 2008, Carl-Gustav underwent a coronary bypass operation. Two stents were also later inserted. He was on anticoagulation medication and had problems with haemorrhages. He also fell and fractured his pelvis. With time, he became increasingly frail, but could occasionally keep up a scientific discussion on a high level. In the end, he had a calicii infection and during this he fell asleep on 16 February 2014 and never woke up. He was 80.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005811
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Luke, Josephus Corbus (1907 - 1982)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

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/380932380932
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Born on 18 April 1907, Joe Luke was the son of Edward Barker Luke, a nurseryman in Ottawa, and Jane née Corbus, the daughter of J R Corbus, a doctor in Chicago. Joe was educated at Montreal West High School and entered McGill University in 1924. After qualifying in 1931, he did a number of junior jobs, including serving as a demonstrator in anatomy and then in surgery, before completing his surgical training at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal. This included a year when he visited England to take the FRCS. He joined the RCAMC in 1940, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was awarded the MBE on 23 December 1944 for "gallant and distinguished services in North West Europe". After the war, he returned to McGill, rising to Associate Professor of Surgery in 1961 and senior surgeon. He performed Canada's first kidney transplant operation. He was a prolific author, contributing three chapters to H F Moseley's *Textbook of surgery* (London, Henry Kimpton, 1952) and more than 50 articles. He died in November 1982 aged 75, survived by his wife Eleanore née Wallace, and a son, Anthony, and daughter, Roslyn (Mrs Favey).
Resource Identifier RCS: E008749
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sampson, Derek (1937 - 1984)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-07-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007600-E007699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379823379823
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Derek Sampson was born in London in 1937 and went to medical school in Birmingham where he obtained a BSc in physiology in 1959. After graduating MB, ChB in 1962 he trained in general surgery passing both the English and Edinburgh fellowship examinations. He had developed an interest in transplantation and was able to spend two years at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, New York. He returned as senior registrar in the department of surgery at Cambridge University with Professor (Sir) Roy Caine where he became experienced in both clinical transplantation and research. In 1974 he was appointed to the surgical staff at the University of Wisconsin and in 1979 he moved to take charge of the transplant service at the Presbyterian Hospital at Pacific Medical Centre in California. There he continued his researches into the control of rejection without the need for maintenance immunosuppression. His early results of total lymphoid irradiation obtained in conjunction with the Stanford group were most encouraging but sadly he became seriously ill and was unable to see the long term results although his last paper on the subject was dictated from his sickbed a week before he died on 15 May 1984. He is survived by his wife and four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007640
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jacobson, Jack ( - 1995)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

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/380209380209
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Jack Jacobson qualified MB BCh Cape Town in 1942. After completing his internship at Groote Schuur Hospital, he served as a captain in the South African Medical Corps between 1943 and 1946. He then made the decision to embark on a career in surgery and after a period of postgraduate training at Guy's Hospital in London and the Peace Memorial Hospital in Watford, he obtained his FRCS in 1952. His love of southern Africa brought him back in 1953 and after a short period as senior registrar in surgery at Groote Schuur Hospital, he entered into surgical practice in south west Africa, now Namibia. While in Namibia (1957 and 1975) he achieved prominence as the consultant surgeon in the Namibian State Hospitals and as a founder member of the Namibian Blood Transfusion Service, and he was elected President of the Namibian Medical Association. He returned to Cape Town in 1976 and worked in the Clinical Science and Immunology Department at the University of Cape Town. He then turned to renal transplantation - which he continued to do until he retired at the end of 1991. Jacobson was responsible for the establishment of the Transplant Unit at Groote Schuur Hospital as it is today. The unit is one of the foremost transplant centres in the country, and Jacobson's contribution to transplantation in South Africa was acknowledged in 1984 when he was elected as President of the Southern African Transplantation Society. An obituary compiled by members of Cape Town University's Renal Unit states that: 'Jack was dearly loved by his patients. Nothing was too much for him when it came to caring for his patients and he always went that extra mile to help them. He was mentor to many an aspirant surgeon, giving sound advice and guidance. His quiet and unassuming manner was a comfort to all who worked with him. He epitomised all the qualities of a gentleman.' He died on 6 October 1995 in Vancouver, survived by his wife Marjorie and children, Lewis and Michele.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008026
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Salaman, John Redcliffe (1937 - 2018)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by David Webster
Publication Date 2018-05-18 2019-04-03
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381852381852
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details John Redcliffe Salaman was a general surgeon and professor of transplant surgery in Cardiff. The first transplant in Cardiff had been done by David Crosby in 1967. By 1970 it was clear that a dedicated transplant surgeon with an academic interest was required and John Salaman was appointed to this post. As well as being a transplant surgeon, he formed a general surgical firm with David Crosby and Hilary Wade. He later formed a general firm with Malcolm Wheeler, but continued for many years as the sole transplant surgeon as he gradually built up the unit. He moved up the academic ladder, being promoted from senior lecturer, to reader and then, in 1983, to professor of transplant surgery. He continued throughout his career to pursue a general surgical interest and remained on the general on-call rota. Not content with a heavy clinical load in general and transplantation surgery, he continued to run a research programme. Although he published clinical papers related to his general surgical practice, the main thrust of his research was into the immunosuppressive regimes used to prevent rejection. He was born in Wenden, Essex on 14 October 1937. The second of four children, his father was Arthur Gabriel Salaman, a GP in Stanstead, Essex. His mother was Nancy Adelaide Salaman née Samuel, a psychologist, and the daughter of Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, who was Home Secretary in 1916 and again from 1931 to 1932. His paternal grandfather, Redcliffe Salaman, was medically qualified, a distinguished scientist and a fellow of the Royal Society. John Salaman was educated at Bedales School near Petersfield, Clare College, Cambridge and the London Hospital Medical School. In 1961, while still a student, he married a fellow medical student, Patricia Burkett, who later became a consultant clinical oncologist. After graduation in 1963, he became a house surgeon to John Blandy and Douglas Eadie. He then returned to Cambridge as an anatomy demonstrator. His surgical training was based in Cambridge, where he gained the FRCS (in 1967) during a surgical training rotation. His mentor was Roy Calne, recently appointed to the chair of surgery and a pioneer in transplant surgery in Britain. John became involved in transplant research and assisted at the first liver transplant in the UK. He returned to the London as a lecturer in the academic department of surgery before his appointment to Cardiff in 1970. His work in transplantation was nationally regarded and was reflected by his appointment as chairman of the British Transplantation Society, chairman of the Transplant Training Advisory Committee and treasurer of the International Transplantation Society. He also took a full role in local organisations and, among other appointments, was chairman of the division of surgery in Cardiff, clinical director of surgical services and medical director, University Hospital of Wales/Cardiff Royal Infirmary executive board. A diagnosis of leukaemia precipitated his retirement in 1994, but he continued to be active in retirement. He took on a number of roles in the community, including director of the management board of Lightship 2000, secretary and president of Cardiff North Probus Club, secretary of the Rhiwbina Bowls Club and president of the Welsh Kidney Patients’ Association. He continued to be active despite considerable physical disability caused by complications of his treatment for leukaemia and remained good company to the end. In retirement, he developed the woodworking skills that had begun at school and created many elegant pieces. He also kept a yacht in Cardiff with which he explored the Severn Estuary, along with longer trips to Ireland and Brittany. Of all his publications, he was proudest of one in a yachting magazine. In retirement, he turned his attention to canals and had many happy times on his narrowboat. A devoted family man whose deep Christian faith informed his private life and his work, John played a full role in his local Methodist church, where he was chief steward to the local Methodist council. A lasting tribute to his woodworking may be found in his church, where the church furniture is a testament to his skills. John died on 16 February 2018 in Cardiff at the age of 80. He was survived by his widow Pat, their four children – Robert (a consultant surgeon in Blackburn), Janet, Mary and Paul – and seven grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009448
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching White, Humphrey James Oakley (1932 - 1997)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-08
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/381174381174
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details The son of Herbert Oakley White, a general practitioner-anaesthetist, Humphrey was born in Southampton on 2 September 1932. His mother was Alice F S Tait, the daughter of a general practitioner in Highbury, London. Humphrey was educated at Marlborough and St John's College, Cambridge, from which he went to St Bartholomew's. He was house surgeon to John Hosford and, after a series of junior surgical posts, went to Roy (Sir Roy) Calne's department at Cambridge during the early days of transplantation and specialised in transplant surgery. He spent two years with David Hume at the Medical College of Virginia and was appointed consultant and senior lecturer in surgery at the University of Bristol and Southmead Hospital, where he set up a renal transplant service. In 1957, he married Ann Rigby Russell, a nurse from New Zealand and they had two daughters, Carol and Diana. There are four grandchildren - James, Thomas, Emily and Georgina. He took early retirement and died on 4 February 1997.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008991
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Starzl, Thomas Earl (1926 - 2017)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2017-04-21 2020-09-01
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/381526381526
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Thomas Earl Starzl was a pioneering transplant surgeon. Known as the *Father of transplantation* he carried out the first successful human liver transplant in 1967. Born on 11 March 1926 in LeMars, Iowa, he was the second son of Roman (Rome) Frederick Starzl and his wife Anna Laura née Fitzgerald. His father was the editor, publisher and owner of the local newspaper and as he grew up he turned his hand to helping him with varied tasks from delivery boy to reporting. After attending Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri to obtain a bachelor’s degree in biology and serving for a year and a half with the US Navy, at the age of 21 he decided to study medicine, influenced by his mother who was a nurse. At the Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago he received a master’s degree in anatomy in 1950 and a doctorate in neurophysiology in 1952. His interest then shifted away from neuroscience and he began developing his skills in vascular and thoracic surgery with residencies and a fellowship at Johns Hopkins (from 1952 to 1956), the University of Miami (from 1959 to 1961), and the Northwestern Universities (1959 to 1961). On the research front he explored heart block and epicardial pacemaking. He was given the Markle scholarship in medical science which was awarded annually to exceptional students and served on the faculty of Northwestern University from 1958 to 1961. At this time he worried that he would not find a specialty that engaged him and wrote that he was *a missile searching for a trajectory*. But gradually his interest in other subjects faded and he began to focus on the liver. He joined the Denver Veterans Administration Hospital in 1962 and then, at the University of Colorado, became associate professor of surgery in 1962, professor in 1964 and chairman of the department from 1972 to 1980. He resigned from this post and moved to University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as professor of surgery in 1981, stipulating that he would be free of administrative duties and able to concentrate on his transplantation programme. For ten years he was chief of transplantation services at the University of Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian Hospital, the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the Veterans Administration Hospital – in all the largest and busiest transplantation programme in the world. Finally he became director of the University of Pittsburgh Transplantation Institute which, in 1996, was renamed in his honour. Beginning in 1963 his first attempts at liver transplantation were a failure and a colleague noted that *nobody thought that you could get transplantation across immune barriers to work ......but Tom never gave up when others did*. He called a halt to proceedings while he investigated effective immunosuppressive drugs and the first successful human liver transplantation took place in 1967 in Colorado. From then on he led the research that led to huge advances in transplantation including investigating the possibility of xeno-transplantation – in 1992 and 1993 his team made medical history when surgeons performed two baboon-to-human liver transplants. Although he gave up clinical work in 1991 he never really retired and spent long days on campus until shortly before his death. He claimed that he did not miss surgery as he was not emotionally equipped to deal with the loss of a patient. Haunted by the tragic outcomes of his early transplant experiences, he formed lasting bonds with his surviving patients remaining in touch with then for the rest of their lives. Even after retirement he somehow never found much time to devote to his other interests – notably his dogs, who accompanied him everywhere, music and the cinema. The recipient of over 225 awards and honours, he was also a member of over 58 professional and scientific organisations. President of the International Transplantation Society, he was also founding president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and founding president of the Transplant Recipients International Organisation. On the editorial boards of 22 professional publications he wrote or co-authored more than 2250 scientific articles, four books and over 300 chapters in books. During his most productive period it was said that he published a paper every 7.3 days thus making him one of the most prolific scientists in the world. In 1954 he married Barbara June née Brothers, and they had three children: Timothy Wakefield (born 1955), Rebecca (born 1956) and Thomas Fitzgerald (born 1958). The marriage ended in divorce in 1976 and he married Joy Denise née Congar in 1981. She was an African-American research technician who later developed a career as a social worker. When he died on 4 March 2017 aged 90 years, he was survived by Joy to whom he had been married for 36 years, his son, Timothy and grandson Ravi. His daughter Rebecca predeceased him in 2008 and his son Thomas died in 2016.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009343
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dempster, William James (1918 - 2008)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by John Hopewell
Publication Date 2009-02-20 2009-02-26
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372775372775
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details William James Dempster, known as ‘Jim’, was a transplant researcher and surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital, London. He was born on the island of Ibo, north of Madagascar, on 15 March 1918, although his birth was not registered until 28 April and his birth certificate was not issued until 9 August of that year. He had malaria in infancy, but made a complete recovery. Such an exotic entry into the world is in keeping with his colourful personality and career, and it demands a word of explanation. His father, James, had been raising cattle in Portuguese East Africa, but the enterprise was defeated by the tsetse fly. Sadly, Jim’s father died and his mother, Jessie, brought her young family back to Edinburgh some time after August 1919. Jim went to George Heriot’s School, shining at both work and play. At rugby he was in the school first XV for three seasons as a fly-half, and played for the first XI at cricket. He won a place to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where a contemporary was Sheila Sherlock (later a professor and a dame). The pair of them were prominent tennis players at the university. On qualification he spent a short time as a locum GP, before joining the RAF, serving in India and Burma. On demobilisation in 1946, like many contemporaries, he had difficulty finding a job which would lead on to further training. Meeting Sheila Sherlock again, she suggested he try the Postgraduate Hospital, Hammersmith. He followed her advice and was accepted into Ian Aird’s surgical unit. With his own wry humour, he described the task allotted to him as “the worst job in the hospital”. He was to undertake research into the problem of organ transplantation, working at the Buckston Browne Farm of the Royal College of Surgeons with Sir Arthur Keith, the famous anatomist and anthropologist of Piltdown man fame. His contribution to the nature of the rejection reaction in canine renal allografts can rightly be called unique. He published more than a 100 reviews and papers on the subject between 1951 and 1957, gaining him worldwide recognition as a pioneer. His macro- and microscopic observations confirmed that rejection was an example of immune response, mediated by serum antibodies. He travelled widely and enjoyed the company of fellow pioneers of transplantation, particularly that of Georges Mathé of Paris, with whom he shared esteem for Milan Hasek of Prague, as the first to demonstrate induced tolerance, so leading to the understanding that graft rejection was an immunological reaction. Jim and his colleagues were also the first to show that not only delayed type hypersensitivity reactions but also the response to skin allografts could be suppressed in animals by whole-body x-irradiation. He also anticipated the concept of graft-versus-host responses. Asked if his department was keen to develop the clinical application of transplantation, he replied that Ian Aird’s enthusiasm was for research. Jim’s participation in clinical work was at St Mary’s Hospital, where he joined Charles Rob in a renal transplant in 1956, generally regarded as the first in the UK. Jim’s typically outspoken comments on the procedure were that it was a disaster, performed inappropriately on a patient with acute renal failure. However, it had the virtue of starting an interest in transplantation at St Mary’s Hospital, which remains a leader in the field. Later in the early 1960s, he cooperated with Shackman in the earliest transplants conducted in his department. It has been commented that Jim’s early retirement from his professional field was regrettable. At that time he was a reader at the University of London. It would appear that, like many another in the academic field, he was discouraged by what he felt to be his prospects of advancement. He retired to his home in Twickenham. His marriage had been a romantic affair. Cherry Clark was a ballet dancer with several distinguished companies, and Jim had seen her dance in London. Cherry suffered an injury and, whilst recovering took a job as a radiotherapy nurse at the Hammersmith. They met there and subsequently enjoyed a very happy marriage. In retirement Jim lost none of his enthusiasm, which he now devoted to painting and gardening, specialising in the propagation of fuchsias. A continuing interest was the defence of John Hunter and the promotion of a little-known Scot, Patrick Matthew, as one of the rightful pioneers of evolutionary theory. In 1988 the family moved to Lockerley near Romsey in Hampshire. Cherry sadly died in 2005. Afterwards Jim was cared for by his daughter Soula, who lived nearby. He leaves two sons and a daughter, all them well-versed, from meal-time conversation, in the achievements of Hunter and Matthew. He died on 27 July 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000592
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Barnes, Anthony David (1934 - 2016)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by John Buckels
Publication Date 2016-07-25 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/381341381341
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Anthony ('Tony') Barnes, a consultant surgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, was in the vanguard of renal transplantation in the UK and made major contributions to the establishment of the specialty. He was born on 19 June 1934 in Brighton and as a teenager during the Second World War was evacuated to the East Grinstead area, where airmen who had suffered severe burns were benefiting from pioneering plastic surgery. This influenced his choice of skin allograft rejection for a BSc project during his medical undergraduate training at Birmingham University. He won the Bertram Windle prize in anatomy and gained his BSc with first class honours, subsequently winning the prize in surgery for three successive years before graduating in 1958. After house jobs, he again studied graft rejection at East Grinstead with Sir Peter Medawar, encouraged by Sir Solly Zuckerman, then professor of anatomy in Birmingham. Both encouraged a scientific career, but Tony was committed to surgical training and progressed rapidly to a lectureship in the department of surgery at Birmingham University under Alphonsus ('Pon') d'Abreu at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Experiments in renal transplantation had progressed through the 1950's, but did not become a practical solution to the problem of kidney failure until the introduction of immunosuppressive drugs in 1964. At that time haemodialysis remained the only treatment option for kidney patients in most parts of the UK including the Midlands. After visits to Boston and later Cambridge and St Mary's, Tony resolved to introduce a transplantation programme to Birmingham. In 1968, whilst still a lecturer, having identified a potential first recipient, he was called to a recently deceased donor at a local hospital and duly returned to Queen Elizabeth Hospital with two kidneys. With d'Abreu away, he had to persuade his consultant seniors to proceed with the transplant. Ultimately this was a team effort with Geoffrey Slaney performing the arterial anastomosis, Frank Ashton the venous and Paul Dawson-Edwards the ureteric, leaving Tony to sew up the skin. A substantive consultant appointment soon followed and Tony rapidly built up one of the most active renal programmes in the UK. Like many of his contemporaries in the newly-established transplant units, he was single-handed for the first 14 years and relied on his trainee registrar to share the busy workload on a full-time on-call basis, regarded by all as character-building rather than unsafe. Tony often stated that working for him on the kidney unit was the ideal contraceptive. Nevertheless, the outstanding training he provided meant that the transplant registrar post was much sought after. All Tony's trainees carried their experience on to successful independent careers as consultant surgeons, several of them in transplantation. Developments in tissue typing showed that recipient-matched kidneys were less prone to rejection, thus sharing kidneys between centres had clear advantages. The first national matching and sharing scheme, the National Organ Matching and Distribution Service, was set up in 1972 and Tony chaired this for several years. This later merged with the National Tissue Typing and Reference Laboratory to become the UK Transplant Service. In conjunction with the Birmingham local newspapers, he was instrumental in establishing the first donor card programme in the UK, as well as contributing to the acceptance of brain death criteria. He was a founder member of the British Transplantation Society and was elected meetings secretary at the inaugural gathering in 1972. He also supported the transplant sports movement and managed the British team to success at the first International Transplant Games in 1980, the year in which he was nominated Midlander of the Year. He later assumed responsibility for surgical training in the West Midlands when serving as a regional adviser for the Royal College of Surgeons of England, introducing an element of devolution to the process of placing senior registrars in the posts most likely to help complete their training and so become consultants themselves. Throughout his career he published widely, an early highlight being his delivery of an Arris and Gale lecture at the College in 1969 entitled 'Genetic studies of the transplantation antigens'. In addition to renal transplantation, Tony was accomplished in all aspects of general surgery. His surgical skills were legendary. On one occasion, when evening social events for consultants still took place in the NHS, he was called to repair a ruptured aortic aneurysm. He left during the dinner main course, but was back in time for the cheese course, the aneurysm safely repaired. His experience in the renal failure population helped him establish the principles of parathyroid surgery and he served as president of the British Association of Endocrine and Thyroid Surgeons from 1995 to 1997. Whilst postgraduate tutor, he led a successful appeal for the funding of a purpose-built postgraduate centre for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital; a building that was eminently fit for purpose and attracted architectural plaudits was rapidly built and commissioned. With his combination of surgical pragmatism and modernising zeal, Tony was unafraid to challenge the medical establishment and his numerous innovations were accomplished regardless of personal ambition. He retired to his beloved cottage in Pembrokeshire, where, with his wife's help, he became a plantsman, establishing a six-acre arboretum, which included the second most significant national collection of *Ilex* (holly) in the UK. This was featured in a an edition of BBC Radio's Gardener's Question Time, broadcast in October 2011. Other lifetime interests included fishing and opera. After the nature of his final illness was known, he died peacefully at home on 30 April 2016 with family around him. He was 81. He was survived by his widow Pat and three children Simon, Louise and Joanna.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009158
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Shumway, Norman (1923 - 2006)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-11-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372473372473
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Norman Shumway was the father of cardiac transplantation and performed the world’s first heart-lung transplant. Unlike some of his contemporaries who sought the limelight, Shumway spent a decade carrying out research into cardiac transplantation before he was ready to do the operation on a live recipient. It was ironic that he was scooped by his pupil, Christiaan Barnard, in 1967. Born on 9 February 1923 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where his father kept a creamery, Shumway enrolled at Michigan University to study law. He was then drafted into the Army, where he was found to have an aptitude for medicine, and was sent off to Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, where he qualified in 1949. At first he set up in private surgical practice in a cottage hospital in Santa Barbara, but was invited to join Owen Wangensteen’s research programme at Minnesota. There he gained a PhD for his work on the effect of cooling on the electrical activity of the heart. His work was interrupted by two years in the US Air Force, after which he moved to Stanford University in California, where he started his work on transplantation. He became chief of cardiothoracic surgery there in 1965. While others enjoyed the brief publicity of carrying out cardiac transplantation, which was soon followed by notoriety as rejection almost inevitably took place, Shumway quietly spent his time methodically trying to improve the selection of donors, organ preservation, the technique of heart biopsy and the development of anti-rejection drugs. He was one of the first to use cyclosporine. By 1991 his department had performed nearly 700 transplants with 80 per cent survival for more than five years. A modest man, dressed scruffily, and driving a battered old car, he trained cardiac surgeons from all over the world, He published extensively and received innumerable honours, including our FRCS. Divorced from Mary Lou Stuurmans in 1951, he leaves a son and three daughters, one of whom, Sara, is a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Minnesota. He died from lung cancer on 10 February 2006.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000286
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Murray, Joseph Edward (1919 - 2012)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Sir Roy Calne
Publication Date 2012-12-21 2013-12-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003300-E003399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375508375508
Occupation Plastic and reconstructive surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Joseph Murray had an illustrious career as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, but his unique achievement was to perform the first successful kidney transplant, on identical twins, in 1954, for which he was awarded a Nobel prize in physiology or medicine in 1990. He was born in Milford, Massachusetts, the son of William A Murray and Mary Murray née DePasquale. He was educated at Milford High School and the College of Holy Cross, earning a degree in the humanities in 1940. He then attended Harvard Medical School and, after graduating, began his internship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. He then joined the Army and was sent to Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania, where he worked with James Barrett Brown, the chief of plastic surgery. Here he developed his interest in plastic surgery, in particular the possibilities of skin transplantation. Murray was finally discharged from the Army in November 1947, completed his general surgical training, and joined the surgical staff at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. He then went to New York to train in plastic surgery at New York and Memorial hospitals, returning to Brigham in 1951. At Boston there was a confluence of interest in the possibility of organ transplantation. The team were fortunate in having outstandingly qualified experts in the relevant disciplines. Francis D Moore's surgical clinical academic department was pre-eminent in experimental surgery and George Widmer Thorn's department of medicine was also of premier status, where the research was spearheaded by John Merrill. The surgical team had demonstrated their confidence in performing autologous kidney transplants in the dog and, when a patient in renal failure was referred to Merrill, the doctor's letter pointed out that the patient was one of identical twins. By this time Murray had taken over the kidney transplant research laboratory, which had previously flourished under David Hume, who had moved to a surgical chair in Richmond, Virginia. Murray's technical skills gave him and the whole team confidence to proceed with the clinical transplant, which was a spectacular success. It showed that surgeons could do the operation and the kidney could withstand the trauma of the procedure. Sadly, when transplants were performed between individuals who were not twins the results were disastrous and the attempts to prevent rejection using irradiation were toxic and ineffective. The introduction and development of chemical immunosuppression using 6-mercaptopurine and its derivative, azathioprine, enabled tolerable clinical results to be obtained between non-twin transplants. Improvements followed the addition of corticosteroids to the regimen, and the whole field changed dramatically with the introduction of cyclosporine, which altered the perception of organ grafting from a risky experiment to a much sought after therapy. Murray established a clinical programme of kidney transplantation at the Peter Bent Brigham and then returned to his first love, reconstructive surgery, but he continued to take an interest in organ transplantation for the rest of his life. Murray was a meticulous surgeon with his techniques honed in plastic surgery. He was devotedly religious and wrestled with the ethical dilemmas of transplantation in order to clarify the issues and proceed in the best interests of the patient. He was a kind and very generous man, whose philosophy centred on the paramount importance of the patient's needs. His traditional approach to medical care was a wonderful example to all who had the privilege to work with him. He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1990 for demonstrating that the surgery of organ transplantation was possible, which gave heart to everyone interested in the immunology of rejection. Organ transplantation has been an extraordinary success story, with more than a million recipients of organ grafts, some still functioning 40 years after transplantation. This success followed Murray's pioneering efforts, which led the field from an uncertain wish, to one of the most important new life-saving therapies. Murray married Virginia 'Bobby' Link in June 1945 and they had a large, happy family, with a huge circle of friends and admirers, especially the surgical fellows who had the privilege to learn from him. He died on 26 November 2012, in Boston, aged 93.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003325
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Myburgh, Johannes Albertus (1928 - 2010)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Peter J Morris
Publication Date 2012-09-07 2013-11-25
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/375035375035
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Bert Myburgh was professor of surgery at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. A charismatic and talented surgeon, he was, in his time, South Africa's most renowned surgeon. He was highly regarded throughout the surgical world, and especially within the transplant community. Bert Myburgh was born in the Free State village of Linley, where his father was a bank manager. He matriculated from Parys High School in 1944 at the age of 16 and then became a medical student at the University of Cape Town. Throughout his medical course he achieved distinctions in every subject he undertook, except pathology, and graduated with a gold medal for best student. Perhaps as a result of his failure to get a distinction in pathology, he spent a year as a registrar in pathology after graduation, which stood him in very good stead in his subsequent clinical and research career. At university he was a hurdler and a member of the first rugby 15. No doubt his sporting prowess and his academic performance led to the award of a Rhodes scholarship and he spent three years at New College in Oxford (from 1952 to 1955). After his time in Oxford, he returned to Witwatersrand University to complete his surgical training. After spending some time on the staff there, he was appointed professor of surgery in 1967 and chief of surgery in 1977. On retirement in 1994, he was appointed an emeritus professor of surgery in his old department. He was an inspiring teacher and intellectually powerful. Cryptic crossword puzzles he disposed of in minutes. He was responsible for establishing a transplant programme in South Africa, performing the first renal transplant at the Johannesburg General Hospital in 1967 and carrying out research, not only in the field of transplantation but also in pancreatic and biliary surgery. His work on induction of tolerance in baboons to an organ transplant using total lymphoid irradiation was in the international forefront of work in this field, and indeed led to a clinical trial of this approach in humans some years later at Stanford University. His one failure was his inability to establish a successful liver transplant programme. Although he carried out the first liver transplant in South Africa in 1973, based on a successful liver transplant programme in baboons, the human programme was never really successful and indeed some years later he closed it down. He was an inspiring teacher and an excellent lecturer. He was president of the College of Medicine of South Africa for three years from 1986 to 1989, and president of the Transplant Society of South Africa and of the Surgical Research Society of South Africa. He received numerous honorary awards and fellowships, including fellowships of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, the American College of Surgeons and the American Surgical Association. He also had honorary DSc and MD degrees from several South African universities. One obituary states that: 'He had such a God like status it was difficult to argue with him, let alone tell him he was wrong'. This may explain in some way why he remained a chain smoker until late in his life, despite what must have been an enormous amount of advice to the contrary. Indeed this contributed to his death for, after a fall and fracture, he died of respiratory complications at the age of 82, on 7 April 2010. Without question Bert Myburgh was a towering figure in surgery in South Africa, both in the academic and clinical spheres. He married twice. His first wife, Teddy, a nurse he met at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, died in 1988. He was survived by his second wife Marie Louise, whom he married in 1993, and by his three children, John, Jacqui and Sandy.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002852
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Pichlmayr, Rudolf (1932 - 1997)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-19 2012-03-13
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/372299372299
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Rudolf Pichlmayr was a pioneering German transplant surgeon. He was born on 16 May 1932 in Munich, Germany. He graduated from the University of Munich Medical School in 1956, and in 1959 started his career in medicine at the same university. He qualified as a surgeon in 1964. In 1967, he presented his postdoctoral thesis to the medical faculty of the University of Munich for qualification as a privatdozent, and in the same year became an assistant professor. In 1968 he and Hans George Borst moved to the Medizinische Hochschule in Hanover to develop the new department of surgery. A year later, Pichlmayr was appointed as professor of transplantation and special surgery, and in 1973 he was endowed with the first chair of abdominal and transplantation surgery. He served his faculty as dean for education from 1974 to 1978, as deputy head for research from 1989 to 1991, and as chairman of the ethical committee from 1984. Pichlmayr carried out the first kidney transplantation in Hanover in 1968, and the first liver transplantation in 1972. He subsequently initiated and supervised a large number of experimental and clinical research programmes in the field of transplantation surgery and biology. Together with his wife Ina Pichlmayr he established the Foundation for Rehabilitation following Organtransplantation in Dolsach, Austria. Aside from transplantation, Rudolf Pichlmayr was an internationally recognised expert on abdominal surgery, particularly liver surgery and surgical oncology. He was President of numerous national and international scientific societies and organisations, including the German Medical Association and the department of health of the federal government in Bonn. As President of the German Association for Surgery, Rudolf Pichalmyr organised the 113th annual congress in Berlin in 1996. He was a member of many surgical societies, including the European Society for Surgical Research and received prestigious awards and honours, including honorary Fellowships of the College and of American College of Surgeons. He published a number of books and was also on the editorial boards of several surgical and transplantation journals. Pichlmayr died on 29 August 1997, during the 37th World Congress of Surgery in Acapulco, Mexico, while taking a morning swim. He had five children with his wife Ina.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000112
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Nield, Alexander Cowell (1931 - 1996)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008200-E008299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380414380414
Occupation General practitioner General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Sandy Nield was born in Adelaide on 16 September 1931, the son of Hugh Kingsley Nield, a grain merchant, and Dorothy Hammond, née Cowell. He attended St Peter's College, Adelaide, whence he won a university bursarship to Adelaide University Medical School. There he won the Dr Davies Thomas scholarship, played for the University 'A' team at football, was a formidable hurdler and was active in the University Regiment. After qualification he spent a year at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and then entered general practice in Elizabeth, a suburb of Adelaide, where he spent seven years before returning to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital as a registrar. He married Rosemary Piper, a physiotherapist, in 1957 and took his wife and young family to England in 1965. There he held a number of junior posts at the Mayday Hospital in Croydon and King George's Hospital in Ilford, and passed the FRCS. He returned to Adelaide as senior registrar in 1968, spent three months at St Mark's Hospital in London and then joined the Australian Civilian Surgical Team at Bien-Hoa during the Vietnam war in 1970. On returning to Adelaide he continued in private practice, but served the Queen Elizabeth Hospital as part of the renal transplant team, specialising in donor retrieval. Before any surgical procedure patients would receive detailed instructions on all aspects of management, often including diagrams and caricatures of patients in various poses. 'Informed consent' was simply a way of life for him. Although plagued by heart disease since 1980 and undergoing bypass surgery, Sandy Nield kept up his love of sport until the end, and it was while playing in a golf competition that he died of an acute myocardial infarction (on the tenth tee) on 1 February 1996. He was survived by his wife, daughter Susan, a general practitioner, and son Simon, a hydrologist, their son Peter having predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008231
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Abouna, George Jirges Mansour (1933 - 2016)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Andrew Abouna
Publication Date 2016-05-12 2017-01-26
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/381295381295
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details George J M Abouna was a pioneering transplant surgeon who worked in the United States, Canada and the Middle East. He created many firsts in organ transplantation and, over the course of a career which spanned more than 50 years, saved thousands of lives across the world. Abouna was a true master of surgery, a scientist who created many innovations and advancements, a medical educator of the highest calibre, and a doctor who always put patient care first. In 2000, he was awarded the Albert Schweitzer gold medal for his humanitarian work, and twice had audiences with Pope John Paul II. Abouna was born on 5 April 1933 in Al Kosh, Mosul, Iraq, of Chaldean heritage. His father was Mansour Abouna and his mother was Rachel Safar. Abouna also had one sister, Warda. After receiving a scholarship from the government of Iraq, he moved to London at the age of 16 to study engineering. After receiving a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, he convinced the University of Durham to accept his application to medical school. Becoming a doctor was Abouna's lifelong dream. After one year of proving his exceptional ability and maintaining top grades in medical school, while also supporting himself through three part-time jobs, the university gave him a full scholarship to continue in the medical programme. After qualifying in 1961, Abouna soon began to concentrate on organ transplantation. In the late 1960s, he developed the world's first and only liver perfusion machine, helping extend the lives of patients with liver failure. In 1969 he was invited to relocate to the United States. He held academic and clinical appointments in Denver, Colorado, Richmond, Virginia and Augusta, Georgia. In 1973, Abouna returned to the UK, to Edinburgh, for advanced research and clinical work. Then in 1974 he accepted an academic and clinical position in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It was here that he performed the first liver transplant in western Canada. In 1978, he moved to Kuwait City, Kuwait, after accepting the position of professor and chairman of surgery at Kuwait University, and for the next 12 years he became the leader of organ transplantation in the Middle East. Patients from across the Arab world and from as far away as Canada would travel to Kuwait to receive life-saving care by Abouna and his team. He established the country's first transplant programme and led the initiative which created the living donor law, as well as serving as the second president of the Middle East Society for Organ Transplantation. During this time, Abouna tirelessly shared and advanced medical knowledge, both in Kuwait and as a visiting professor of surgery at the University of Minnesota and later as clinical professor of surgery, University of Iowa. After the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Abouna became a professor of surgery in the division of transplantation at Hahnemann University, Philadelphia, until he was invited to become dean of medical sciences and professor and chairman in the department of surgery, Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain. In 2000, he was a clinical professor at Drexel University Medical College in Philadelphia. And in 2002 Abouna accepted the position of dean of medicine in Tripoli, Libya, where he established a transplant programme. He held this position for several years. Abouna was recognised throughout the world for his expertise in, among other areas, medical education, organ preservation and transplantation (kidney, liver and pancreas), transplantation immunology and immunosuppression, endocrine, hepatobiliary surgery and portal hypertension, fluid and electrolyte therapy and hyperalimentation, organ preservation, and ethical issues in organ donation and transplantation. During his career, he received numerous awards, including ten degrees and fellowships. He was a member of 33 professional societies and held 19 committee posts. Abouna edited three journals, sat on seven professional editorial boards, authored or edited four books, published 141 contributions to journals and wrote 33 chapters in books. He presented 181 papers and abstracts at national and international meetings. After he retired, he made his home in Radnor, Pennsylvania, but made many visits to Calgary, Alberta to visit some of his children and to visit Kananaskis and Banff, where he always said the mountains reminded him of his home in Mosul, Iraq. San Diego, California, where one of his sons lived, was another favourite destination; the hot weather and palm trees also reminded him of the Middle East. Abouna was a member of the Mainline YMCA in Wayne, Pennsylvania, where he liked to swim and exercise, and was a member of the choir at St Katharine of Siena in Wayne, where his memorial services were held. He was an avid reader and enjoyed listening to classical music. George Abouna died on 28 September 2016 at the age of 83 and was survived by his wife Cathy, his former wife, Jennifer, his children, Linda, Judy, Andrew, Ben, Sarah and Adam, and two step-children, Wade and Carla. He also had seven grandchildren (Angela, Gayle, Allison, Andrea, Nate, Lena and Alexander) and nine great-grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009112
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hopewell, John Prince (1920 - 2015)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Robert Morgan
Publication Date 2015-02-16 2015-05-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006700-E006799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378972378972
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon Urological surgeon Urologist
Details John Prince Hopewell, a consultant urological surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital, London, was a pioneer in the introduction of dialysis into the UK and the development of kidney transplantation. He was born on 1 December 1920, the fourth child and only son of Samuel Hopewell and Wilhelmina ('Daisy') Hopewell née Edwards. His father was a south London general practitioner who had come to London in order to study medicine from the island of St Helena. In later life John Hopewell was able to trace the history of the family by reference to his family Bible, a second edition (1540) of the *Great Bible* published for the first time in English under the direction of Henry VIII. Until the early 18th century the family had been textile workers in Nottinghamshire, but with the Industrial Revolution overseas trade opened up new possibilities and in 1813 a family member, Richard Prince, was dispatched to St Helena, ostensibly to collect an outstanding debt. Realising the trading potential of the island in the days of sail, he stayed and established a chandlery business which flourished for three generations. Thereafter all male offspring of the family continued to incorporate the name Prince. The coming of steam ships and the opening of the Suez Canal caused a diminution in trade, something that may have encouraged the family to support his father in seeking a medical education at the London Hospital, eventually settling in family practice in Brixton, where John was born. He had a happy childhood and from a prep school in Dulwich won an exhibition to Bradfield College, where he continued to succeed academically. Although lightly built and not, by his own reckoning, good at ball games, he succeeded in representing his school in fencing and cross country running. During those years he developed a puckish sense of humour (he was cast as Puck in the school play) and this amiable quality stayed with him throughout his long life. In 1938 he won a place to study medicine at King's College Hospital, the preclinical school of which was evacuated to Glasgow in the early years of the war. He qualified in 1943 and was appointed to surgical house jobs at King's and Horton, where he dealt with Londoners injured in bombing raids and then, in large numbers, the casualties from the Normandy landings. He was called up in 1945, serving in the RAMC in India, latterly as a captain who was sometimes the sole surgeon in isolated hospitals in Cochin and Deolali in the south of the country. He returned to King's in 1948 as a surgical registrar, working again for the orthopaedic surgeon H L C Wood, whose house surgeon he had been and who became a role model for his future professional career. During this time he also worked for J G Yates Bell, who stimulated his interest in urological surgery and took an interest in his future training. He qualified FRCS in 1950 and after a period of research at the Buxton Browne Farm at Downe, which resulted in him giving a Hunterian Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons, he was appointed as a senior registrar in 1955 on a rotation between King's and Brighton. During the winter of 1955 to 1956 Yates Bell arranged for him a secondment to a leading urological department in San Francisco. It was there, at Stanford, that he first saw haemodialysis in action, where patients with polycystic renal disease were being dialysed with beneficial success, something which helped to influence the course of his future career. In 1957 he was appointed as a consultant surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital with the intention of setting up a department of urology, his vision being also to establish a programme for the treatment of end stage renal failure by maintenance dialysis and renal transplantation. At that time dialysis was being used only for acute renal failure and renal transplantation was also in its infancy. He persuaded the hospital to purchase one of the first dialysis machines from America in 1958 and, with the help of newly appointed medical colleagues, the first maintenance dialysis service in the UK was started in 1961. Shortly after he was appointed at the Royal Free, Roy Calne joined as a registrar and expressed an interest in researching methods of controlling the rejection response. John Hopewell encouraged him to do so and arranged animal research facilities for him at Downe. Calne's success with 6-mercaptopurine was thought sufficiently convincing for the team to feel justified in embarking on a trial of human renal transplantation. Three transplants were performed between 1959 and 1960. The first two grafts from cadaveric donors failed to function, but the third, taken from a live donor (the recipient's father) functioned for seven weeks before the patient's death from miliary tuberculosis, thought to have emanated from the donor kidney. It was, nevertheless, the first British live donor, non-sibling kidney transplant using an immunosuppressant that had been shown to be effective in animal trials. At first the success of maintenance dialysis persuaded Hopewell to take the decision to delay the further use of renal transplantation until 1968, by which time Calne, working in America, had modified and improved the immunosuppression regime with the introduction of azathioprine. Meanwhile at home the team had been expanded by an accumulation of clinical and laboratory experts and the appointment of A N Fernando as an assisting consultant transplant surgeon. The subsequent success of the transplant programme at the Royal Free was helped by Hopewell's meticulous surgical technique and acute surgical judgement, attributes that led to him having an extensive surgical practice, attracting referrals from colleagues throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. In the wider world of medicine he banded together the centres in London interested in developing renal transplantation to form the London Transplant Group and was instrumental in joining them with the British Society for Immunology to form the British Transplantation Society in 1972, when he was elected as its first treasurer. He was president of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, of the section of urology of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the Chelsea Clinical Society. Quietly formidable in committee, he was elected as chairman of the Hampstead District Health Authority, of the medical committee of the Royal Free, of the Camden District medical committee and the medical committee of the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth. He was a member of the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1969 to 1975 and was elected as an honorary member of the New York section of the American Urological Association. In 1959 John Hopewell had married Natalie Bogdan, a Russian émigré who had won a scholarship to come to Britain to study medicine at the Royal Free. They met when she was appointed as a houseman on the surgical firm that he shared with George Qvist. During a very happy marriage they subsequently had a daughter, Valentina Ellen, and a son, Richard Alexei Prince, the latter being tragically killed in a car crash in 2008. In 1974 the Royal Free had just moved from the Gray's Inn Road to its present site in Hampstead, when his life took a sad and dramatic turn as Natalie was diagnosed as having metastatic cancer. She died in the following year at the age of 41. He eventually retired from the Royal Free in 1986. Two years before that he had married again, his second wife being Rosemary Radley-Smith, the daughter of the consultant surgeon Eric Radley-Smith who John had worked for as a young house surgeon. Rosemary had also trained at the Royal Free and had become a distinguished paediatric cardiologist, working closely with Magdi Yacoub at Harefield Hospital. On retirement he and Rosemary sailed to St Helena to research the history of the Hopewell family. He returned again in 1992 when the Foreign Office sent him to work there for a few months as the island's first urological surgeon. He was also can active member of the *Lives* committee at the Royal College of Surgeons for more than ten years. In 1995 the Hopewells moved to a Victorian vicarage in Langrish, near Petersfield in Hampshire, where they immersed themselves in the life of the community, taking on the editorship of the local paper, *The Langrish Squeaker*. He became a member of the Society of Ornamental Turners and procured a 19th century turning lathe, which he installed in his home workshop. Thereafter organisations of which he approved often found themselves the recipient of a Hopewell gavel of his own manufacture. He continued to write and in his 90th year produced a history of the treatment of renal failure in the UK by dialysis and transplantation. A convivial man, he always enjoyed a party and in his retirement was responsible for founding a retired consultants luncheon club at the Royal Free, an equally convivial summer reunion of urological consultants of the past (meeting under the soubriquet of the 'Urohasbeens') and also a popular annual past presidents dinner of the section of urology of the Royal Society of Medicine. John Hopewell died at home on 14 January 2015 at the age of 94. At a memorial service in the nearby village of East Meon some 250 friends and colleagues assembled to celebrate a man who had not only made a great contribution to the development of renal transplantation, but also had enriched the lives of those who had known him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006789
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Blamey, Roger Wallas (1935 - 2014)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Christopher W Elston
Publication Date 2014-11-25 2015-02-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006400-E006499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378606378606
Occupation Breast Surgeon General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Roger Blamey was professor of surgical science at Nottingham and a pioneering breast surgeon who developed the world-famous Nottingham prognostic index (NPI). He was born in London on 16 March 1935, the son of John and Cara Blamey. From Highgate School he went to Downing College, Cambridge, where he played rugby and was secretary of the boat club, followed by the Middlesex Hospital Medical School. He graduated BChir in 1960 and MB in 1961, and obtained his FRCS five years later. He became a research fellow under Pat Forrest in Cardiff and was awarded an MD from Cambridge University in 1970 for his thesis 'Immunological aspects of tumour growth'. He spent two happy years from 1970 to 1972 in Australia as a senior lecturer under Dick Bennett in Melbourne. He subsequently undertook further postgraduate surgical training in Cambridge, where he was involved in both renal transplantation and breast surgery, which stood him in good stead when he was appointed senior lecturer in Nottingham in 1973 in Jack Hardcastle's department. He was appointed professor of surgical science in 1980. Although he became an internationally-known breast surgeon, an early achievement was the introduction of renal transplantation to Nottingham. In 1974 the regional service for transplant surgery was too busy to cope with demand. Blamey felt that Nottingham patients were dying unnecessarily, so against the Regional Health Authority's wishes and inducing panic in his hospital administrators, he simply went ahead and laid the foundation for Nottingham to become a major renal centre. Roger Blamey became one of the foremost breast surgeons of his generation and established at the City Hospital the Nottingham Breast Institute, a beacon for teaching and research. His main objective was to find a way to tailor the treatment of patients with breast cancer so that each individual received the most appropriate therapy for them, rather than the broad based standard of the day. To this end he set up in 1973 the Nottingham Tenovus breast cancer study, in collaboration with the Cardiff Tenovus Research Institute. A range of potential prognostic and predictive factors was studied in a large group of closely followed-up patients, leading in 1982 to the Nottingham prognostic index, based on pathological (not clinical) tumour size, histological grade (the Nottingham method evolved by his colleagues Elston and Ellis) and lymph node stage. It proved, with oestrogen receptor status, to be a reproducible tool for the stratification of patients into therapeutic groups. Combined with newer molecular markers, such as HER2, the NPI still remains relevant. The collaboration with Tenovus was typical of Blamey's approach to research. From small beginnings he built a team of cellular pathologists, research fellows, oncologists, radiologists, plastic surgeons, geneticists and many others. Although clearly the leader of the team, Blamey took pains to develop the potential of every member. He was one of the first surgeons to introduce preoperative diagnosis of breast lesions, using needle core biopsy and fine needle aspiration cytology. This replaced the then standard practice of intraoperative frozen section, after which a woman would awake from surgery not knowing whether or not her breast had been removed. He also pioneered the concept of breast conserving surgery, despite opposition from more traditionally minded colleagues. Multidisciplinary team working is now standard practice for all patients with cancer and Blamey led the way. His weekly meetings with pathologists evolved into full-blown patient management conferences, including oncologists, radiologists and specialist breast care nurses, especially after the introduction of the National Breast Screening Programme, of which he was a key protagonist as project leader of the UK trial for early breast cancer detection (1980 to 1987) and the UK Coordinating Committee on Cancer Research trial of the frequency of breast cancer screening (1990 to 1996). Blamey published over 350 articles, 30 book chapters and eight books, and was in considerable demand all over the world as a teacher, lecturer and debater, even after retirement. He established the Nottingham international breast conference in 1990, one of the most important events in the breast research calendar, and it is hardly surprising that Nottingham breast service was selected as a national training centre for the screening programme. Many young surgeons from the UK and abroad trained under his supervision, with no fewer than 25 completing a doctoral thesis. He also had a major influence in establishing standards for the training of breast surgeons and the setting of national targets for the operation of breast units. At the British Association of Surgical Oncology he was chairman of the breast surgeons group from 1989 to 1996 and president (1998 to 1999). He was chairman of the British Breast Group from 1993 to 1995, and vice president and accreditation co-ordinator of the European Society of Mastology. He was an honorary fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Roger Blamey was charismatic, a great motivator and possessed of a high intellect, but he was not noted for administrative efficiency and could be intolerant of those not in tune with his ambitions. Once on a lecture tour in the USA he telephoned his long-suffering secretary saying he was in Philadelphia, but where should he be? He was notorious for making extensive revisions to research papers before they were submitted for publication. His research fellows quickly realised that by the third or fourth redraft the paper bore an uncanny resemblance to the original, so they would agree with all his amendments and send off the original version! It is not known if he ever found out. Apparently this also happened when he helped his children with their homework. He had wide interests outside medicine, including music, theatre, art and sport, particularly cricket. He was a regular attender at the Edinburgh Festival. He had a very happy home life with Norma (née Kelly), his wife for 55 years, and they were very proud of their three children, Eleanor, Sarah and Edmund, and six grandchildren. Towards the end of his life he was admitted to hospital with acute symptoms, which turned out to be due to a cerebral abscess. This was successfully drained, but he never really recovered and died on 1 September 2014, aged 79.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006423
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Morris, Sir Peter John (1934 - 2022)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by David Cranston
Publication Date 2022-12-09
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010100-E010199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/386259386259
Occupation Transplant surgeon Vascular surgeon General surgeon
Details Sir Peter Morris was the Nuffield professor of surgery, chairman of the department of surgery and director of the Oxford transplant centre at the University of Oxford and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 2001 to 2004. He was born in Horsham in the state of Victoria, Australia on 17 April 1934. His father, Stanley Morris, was a civil engineer, and a twice medal winner in the Premier Australian Football League. His mother, Mary Morris née Hennessy, was a pharmacist. His father died suddenly at the age of 49 from a heart attack, when Peter was 14, and tragedy hit again a year later when his younger brother, Stan, was killed in a car accident. At Melbourne University, Peter switched from engineering to medicine and was first introduced to immunology by Macfarlane Burnett, who later shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Peter Medawar. He excelled at sport, representing Australia in university baseball and cricket. He graduated in 1957, started his surgical training in Melbourne, and married Jocelyn Gorman. They then travelled to England, working their passage on a cargo ship. He continued his surgical training in Southampton and was a surgical registrar at the Hammersmith Hospital when the first living non-related kidney transplant was performed. In 1964, he moved to a surgical resident post at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The following years were spent as a research fellow while continuing his surgical training under the direction of Claude Welch, who had been president of the American College of Surgeons. He worked 120 hours a week, lucky to get two hours sleep when on call. The day began at 5am to see all the patients before the formal ward round at 6.15am. Not only was Welch a superb technical surgeon, but he remained calm and polite in theatre, however difficult the situation. Due to return to Melbourne in 1967, Morris received a phone call to say that the university was going through a financial crisis and his post had been frozen. On hearing this, David Hume, head of surgery at the Medical College of Virginia, invited him to set up a tissue typing laboratory in what was then the biggest transplant unit in the world. Attracted by a freezer full of samples taken before and after every transplant, Morris accepted. He tested all those sera for antibodies with Paul Terasaki, who gave him his new micro assay trays. Together they discovered that, contrary to popular opinion, lymphocytotoxic antibodies did appear after transplantation and their presence at the time of transplantation imposed a high risk of hyper-acute rejection. The importance of humoral immunity was then gradually accepted by the transplant community. He returned to Melbourne in 1968 to work as a transplant surgeon and to set up and direct the tissue transplantation laboratories, working with Priscilla Kincaid-Smith, a nephrologist and renal pathologist, and a surgeon, Vernon Marshall, who had started the transplant unit. There were often long nights as he was involved not only in the tissue typing of the donor and recipient, which was slow and tedious in those days, but also the donor nephrectomy and the subsequent renal transplant, being performed continuously over a 15-hour time span. He was appointed as first assistant in the department of surgery and became director of the Australian Kidney Foundation. From data of transplant outcomes, he showed that blood transfusion before transplantation, which could ‘sensitise’ patients, was associated with improved survival of donor kidneys, rather than making it worse, which was the prevailing opinion. This conundrum has never been satisfactorily explained. In 1973, Peter Morris was on the point of accepting the chair of surgery at Adelaide University in South Australia when a phone call from Sir Richard Doll, regius professor of medicine in Oxford, led a path to the Nuffield chair of surgery in Oxford in 1974 and a professorial fellow at Balliol College. Arriving at the old Radcliffe Infirmary on 4 August, he found a note from Sir Hans Krebs, who had won the 1953 Nobel Prize for the discovery of the citric acid cycle. Morris had no idea he was still alive and working! In Oxford he established the transplantation programme with the support of Desmond Oliver, a New Zealander and former All Black, who was running one the biggest home haemodialysis units in Europe at the nearby Churchill Hospital. To that date the UK survival figures for renal transplantation were very poor: 40% of patients died within one year, and the graft survival rate was only 50%. The first two patients were transplanted on 29 and 30 January 1975 before and after midnight. Both kidney transplants were successful, and the patients lived for many years. Soon there were more than 100 patients on the waiting list. For the first few years he did most of the transplants himself, but gradually he trained up a team of surgeons. He insisted on doing the living donor transplants himself as the consequences of technical failure involved both donor and recipient. He followed the example of his mentor Claude Welch in always being courteous and unflappable. He was also a vascular surgeon and set up an academic department of vascular surgery that provided an excellent service to the region and for a time he was the only surgeon to perform carotid endarterectomies for stroke prevention. He developed an internationally renowned research programme in transplant immunology and made pioneering discoveries in the fields of tissue typing and cross matching, which led to longer kidney graft survival and more organs being suitable for transplantation. He also started the successful Oxford pancreatic islet research programme for the treatment of diabetes. He retired from the Nuffield Chair in 2001, with a three-day festschrift delivered by leading surgeons and scientists from around the globe, ending with a cricket match and banquet at Blenheim Palace. He was elected president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, serving from 2001 until 2004, and was extremely energetic in this role. He visited five to six hospitals each month, to see how surgical services and training were being delivered. He would meet the CEOs, medical directors, consultants and trainees separately, listening to the views of clinicians as to how improvements might be made and follow up on the actions taken. He would ignore artificial health service boundaries if he felt these were detrimental to patient services and safety. Despite his workload, he enjoyed life with a fondness for fine wines, food and sport. He was the first president of the College to have Sky Sports put into the presidential office and lodge and would often walk into meetings late rattling out the latest test match score. As chairman of the RCS research board, he drove the implementation of the research fellowship scheme, which has led to the appointment of more than 900 research fellows. He established and chaired a working party on transplantation in the UK, which led to the rationalisation and improvements in the way organ transplant services were run. While president he realised that there were 19th century human remains that had been taken from Aboriginal graves in Australasia and some of this material had ended up in the museums of the Royal College of Surgeons. Morris understood the Aboriginal spiritual belief that the body should be intact and repatriated more than 75 sets of remains to Australia and New Zealand. He also invited Sir Richard Doll to lead a working party to advise on the future of surgical audit, which led to the establishment of the clinical effectiveness unit, bringing systematic methods to the collection and interpretation of surgical outcomes data. In 2005 he established the centre for evidence in transplantation at the Royal College of Surgeons and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to evaluate the quality of evidence in the field of organ transplantation. He was responsible for the development of an electronic library of all randomised controlled trials in organ transplantation. He later served as chairman of the British Heart Foundation and president of the Medical Protection Society, which provides medical indemnity for some 250,000 physicians worldwide. He was editor of the journal *Transplantation* and author of 800 papers. His book *Kidney transplantation: principles and practice* (London, Academic Press, 1979), regarded as a classic, is now in its seventh edition. He was a founding editor of the*Oxford textbook of surgery* (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994). He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1994 and was a foundation fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1997. Also in 1997, he was awarded the Lister Prize for his contributions to surgical science and the Medawar Prize in 2006 for his contributions to transplantation. He was knighted for services to medicine in 1996 and he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia for services to medical sciences in 2004. His family was an important part of his life and their home in Oxford was always welcoming. Jocelyn, herself an accomplished chest physician, would host the families of new arrivals to the Nuffield department of surgery for coffee mornings. An assortment of people was regularly welcomed to the family dinner table, where quality Australian wine would be consumed. Sir Peter Morris died on 29 October 2022 at the age of 88.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010190
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Taylor, Robert Murray Ross (1932 - 2003)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-10-26
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/372322372322
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Ross Taylor was a consultant surgeon, director of the transplantation unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, and a pioneer of kidney transplantation. He was born in Calcutta, India, on 10 December 1932, the son of George Ross, a medical practitioner, and Helen Baillie Murray. The family had a strong medical tradition: a grandfather and three uncles were also doctors. Ross was educated at Coatbridge Secondary School, Lanarkshire, and the University of Glasgow. After house officer posts in Ballochmyle Hospital and Kilmarnock Infirmary, he served for two years in the Parachute Regiment in Cyprus and Jordan, treasuring his red beret for the rest of his life. On demobilisation, he trained in surgery in Bishop Auckland. He was part of the team in Newcastle that did their first transplant in 1967. He was appointed as a consultant at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, in 1970, and remained in the north east until 1995. He was also a visiting consultant surgeon at Berwick Infirmary. Although he did not limit himself to transplant surgery, also performing a range of other operations, it was in the field of transplantation that Ross distinguished himself. He personally performed more than 2,000 transplants, including four in one period of 24 hours. He was President of the British Transplantation Society from 1986 to 1989, of the North of England Surgical Society from 1990 to 1991, the UK Transplant Multi-Organ Sharing Group from 1987 to 1990, and was Chairman of the British Transplantation Society Transplant training committee from 1986 to 1993. He campaigned hard for a policy of legislation for ‘required request’, which would oblige emergency room doctors to broach the sensitive subject of organ donation to grieving families. He was also involved in drafting the Human Organ Transplant Act, which made commercialisation of human tissue illegal. He took an active part in fundraising, for which he ran four marathons and ran the Great North Run no less than 13 times, raising more than £500,000 from these activities. He was Chairman of the Transplant Games for 15 years, and chaired the Transplant Patients Trust, which seeks to support families in financial hardship as a result of renal failure, for which he was appointed CBE in 1997. As a trainer, he was patient and encouraging, and many of his research fellows went on to win Hunterian professorships and other surgical prizes. Five of his trainees went on to lead major transplant centres in the UK. Ross had a passion for sports, especially tennis, golf and cricket, and loved the music, from Gilbert and Sullivan to jazz. He died on 24 October 2003, and is survived by his wife Margaret née Cutland, whom he married in 1959, and four children, Linda, Jill, Bill and Anne, who is a medical practitioner.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000135
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Giles, Geoffrey Reginald (1936 - 1992)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007900-E007999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380138380138
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Geoff Giles was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, on 17 December 1936. He was educated at Bablake School and then obtained a major scholarship to enter the University of Manchester Medical School, qualifying from there MB ChB in 1960. After spending two years in junior appointments he commenced his initial academic studies as a demonstrator in physiology and enjoyed the experience of teaching undergraduates. This was followed by a series of training posts as a surgical registrar during which he obtained the FRCS in 1964. He was then appointed lecturer in surgery at the Leeds General Infirmary under the tutelage of that doyen of British surgery, Professor J C Goligher. In 1966 he married Patricia Hoey and they had three sons, Mathew, Benjamin and Simon, one of whom was a medical student when his father died. Giles was awarded an MD Manchester in 1968 for a thesis describing the relationship between gastric secretion and the lower oesophagus. He then decided to pursue his interest in hepatic disorders by studying for two and a half years in the United States. Initially in Boston with Professor W V McDermott of the Harvard Medical School, he became well versed in the management of portal hypertension, and he later went to work in the transplantation unit in Colorado under the supervision of Dr Tom Starzl, the then leading proponent of liver transplantation in the USA. This was an extremely active and successful unit and Giles gained extensive experience in both the clinical and research aspects of renal, hepatic, cardiac and pancreatic transplantation. Following his return to the UK in 1971, Giles was appointed senior lecturer in surgery in the University department and played a leading role in establishing the renal transplant unit at St James' Hospital in Leeds, followed shortly by the liver transplant unit, only the third such centre in Britain at that time. It rapidly became evident that both these ventures were very successful and Giles was appointed as the first Professor of Surgery based at St James' Hospital in 1973. His remarkable capacity for leadership, organisation and hard work, combined with the quality of his teaching, ensured that the reputation of the department became very high in a short period of time. Hitherto St James' had dwelt in the shadow if its prestigious neighbour, the General Infirmary, but following Giles' appointment this situation was almost reversed and his department achieved an international reputation as a centre of excellence, widely respected especially in America and Europe. He wrote more than 180 surgical papers and was co-author of a popular textbook, *Essential surgical practice*, published in 1982. Although extremely modest and initially somewhat reserved, Giles had a keen sense of humour and was a staunch and valued friend. He was a popular member of the Moynihan Chirurgical Club, the members of which rapidly appreciated his sterling qualities. He was a keen fisherman of trout and salmon and a great supporter of both the Medics' and Dentists' Football Club and the Student Rugby Club. When time permitted he was a knowledgeable gardener and an avid reader. His able and commonsense approach to problems was well recognised and he was a member of many influential committees, including the Central Research and Development Committee of the Department of Health. The premature death of Geoff Giles in mid-career on 2 April 1992 at the age of 55 deprived British surgery of one of its leaders, Leeds University of an outstanding Professor and St James' Hospital of a pioneering surgeon who had contributed so much to its reputation. At his memorial service in a crowded St Edmund's Church on 9 May several close friends and colleagues, including the Vice-Chancellor of the University, paid moving and eloquent tributes to the qualities of this remarkable man.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007955
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Orr, Wilbert McNeill (1930 - 2008)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-02-26
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372781372781
Occupation General surgeon Transplant surgeon
Details Wilbert McNeill Orr, known as ‘Willie’, was a renal transplant researcher and surgeon, and later a general surgeon in Manchester. He was born on 3 April 1930 in Trim, County Meath, Ireland, the son of David Orr, a bank manager, and Wilamena McNeill, a teacher. He attended Sligo Grammar School and entered Trinity College, Dublin, for his medical studies. In addition to his scholastic work, he became an enthusiastic oarsman and was captain of the senior eight rowing team that came third in the head of the river race at Putney and made the final of the Ladies’ Plate at Henley. In the last year of his studies he was a demonstrator in physiology at Trinity College Dublin Medical School and took a house physician’s post at Steeven’s Hospital, Dublin, under the watchful eye of P B B Gatenby. Wilbert Orr then went to the England for a house surgeon post, working at the Birmingham Accident Centre, before undertaking his first senior house officer post at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford in 1956. Deciding on a surgical career, he studied for the primary FRCS at the College on the basic sciences course. He passed this examination, before becoming senior house officer to Sir Stanford Cade at the Westminster Hospital, London. Going further north to gain more experience, he undertook a senior house officer post at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) and showed his teaching skills shortly afterwards as tutor in surgery at the MRI. During two years’ of National Service in the RAMC, he was a junior specialist in surgery with the rank of captain, serving with the Cameroon Force in West Africa. Returning as tutor in clinical surgery at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Willie spent a year in this post in 1962, before becoming assistant lecturer. An early joint publication with Kenneth Bloor was a case report on ‘haemorrhage from ileal varices due to portal hypertension’: this was the forerunner of many joint papers and lectures over the years. In 1964 he was research fellow at the Paterson Laboratories of the Christie Hospital and Holt Radium Institute, the first of many academic posts with a research interest in surgery. Senior registrar training was undertaken at a combined post at the Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London, with Ralph Shackman, before he returned to Manchester as a lecturer in surgery. Some research work on renal function with Geoffrey Chisholm, then in London, led to other publications, as did his later stay in Manchester with Athol G Riddell on such diverse subjects as ‘the management of arterial emboli’ and ‘chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer’. Riddell was later translated to the chair in Bristol. During this lectureship he worked in the research laboratories of the Harvard Medical School under Francis D Moore, Moseley professor of surgery and surgeon-in-chief at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. Willie became involved in the dog liver transplantation work, or the ‘Sputnik’ programme, as did so many other research fellows. Some of this work was later submitted for the degree of master of surgery at the University of Manchester. He also worked with Joseph E Murray, who in 1990 received a Nobel prize for his pioneering renal transplantation work. Some joint publications and lectures followed on the survival of both liver and kidney transplants from this one year stay in the USA. Returning to Manchester as lecturer in surgery with honorary consultant status in 1967, he was promoted to senior lecturer and became director of the renal transplantation unit. He was a founder member of the British Transplantation Society and, from 1969 to 1985, an elected non-professorial member of Senate, sub-dean of clinical studies at the University of Manchester and for 10 years Royal College of Surgeons of England tutor at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. His last 16 years, from 1974 until retirement in 1990, were spent as a consultant in general surgery, where he was happy to display the diverse range of ‘specialties’ in which he had been trained. He remained a member of the Vascular Society, the Surgical Research Society and the British Society for Immunology. As a fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland he served on its council. Wilbert McNeill Orr married Ann Fullerton, a physiotherapist, in 1955. They had five children: Jane became a nurse, Michael an orthopaedic surgeon and a fellow of the College, Anthony a general practitioner, Robert an actor and Susan a speech therapist. Willie Orr maintained a balanced lifestyle with outside interests in fly fishing, clock making and gardening. He died on 30 June 2008.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000598
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Woodruff, Sir Michael Francis Addison (1911 - 2001)

2024-05-07T14:48:56Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-08
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/381186381186
Occupation Transplant surgeon
Details Michael Woodruff was a pioneering surgeon and researcher in the specialty of transplantation. He was born in Mill Hill, London, on 3 April 1911, where his father, Harold Addison Woodruff, was the Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the Royal Veterinary College. His mother was Margaret Ada née Cooper. He was two years old when his father was appointed to the directorship of the veterinary institute at the University of Melbourne. Two years later, his father went off to the first world war, and the family went back to London, remaining there until 1917. In 1923, while his father was on sabbatical leave at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, Michael and his brother went to school in Taunton for a year, returning to complete his education in Melbourne at Wesley College, riding on horseback each morning to school with his brother. He won a senior government scholarship to the University of Melbourne, where he studied electrical engineering, gaining his degree in 1932 with first class honours. He was an accomplished organist and played in the chapel at Queen's College, Melbourne, when he was resident there. At the same time as studying electrical engineering, he also took the first two years of an honours mathematics course, where he was tutored by Harrie (later Sir Harrie) Massie. He would subsequently explain that mathematics gave him something of the same pleasure as music. By now his father had become Professor of Bacteriology and his younger brother was a medical student, so Woodruff decided to be a doctor. He went on to graduate MB BS with honours in 1937, along with the Ryan gold medal of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the Beaney prize in surgery. As was then possible, he passed the primary FRCS as a student. After being a house surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, he decided to enlist and, as it was by then not possible to take the final FRCS, he took leave to take the master of surgery degree in Melbourne in 1941, before being posted to the 10th Australian Army General Hospital in Malacca. With the swift Japanese advance down the Malayan peninsula, Woodruff found himself in Singapore, where he was interned in Changi, along with 50,000 other British and Australian troops, including Julian Taylor and Sir Edward ('Weary') Dunlop. He realised that nutritional deficiency was going to be a major problem facing the prisoners and developed means of supplementing the diet with essential ingredients and vitamins - work which was written up at the end of the war with Dean Abbott Smith, but only published by the MRC in 1951 as *Deficiency diseases in Japanese prison camps* (London, Medical Council Special Report Series, no 274). It was by chance in Changi that he came across a textbook on abdominal surgery that mentioned that skin grafts from unrelated individuals were rejected by the recipient, a topic then being studied by Peter Medawar. After the war, Woodruff returned to Melbourne to continue his surgical training, and in 1946 met and married Hazel Ashby, a young science graduate from the University of Adelaide. Having applied unsuccessfully for a post at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, he decided to go to London to complete his FRCS, and to his surprise was at once appointed to the post of surgical tutor at Sheffield University. His interest in the rejection of skin grafts remained alive, and he visited Medawar, then Professor of Zoology in Birmingham. Meanwhile, he passed his FRCS, one of his examiners being a former chief medical officer in Changi, Colonel Julian Taylor. In 1948, he moved to Aberdeen to become senior lecturer and honorary consultant surgeon. There he tried (unsuccessfully) to produce tolerance to skin grafts *in utero* in rats, though Medawar later succeeding in doing this in mice. In 1953, he accepted the Chair of Surgery at the University of Otago in New Zealand. There his research continued to be very productive: he described runt disease, the use of the anterior chamber of the eye as an immunologically privileged site for foreign grafts, and the use of frozen skin banks in the management of burns. In 1957, he applied for the vacant Chair of Surgery at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and was accepted without interview. There for the next two decades he built up an outstanding department of surgical science, established the first transplant unit in the United Kingdom, and carried out the first successful kidney transplant between identical twins in 1960. The MRC funded a research group under Woodruff's direction, and the Nuffield Foundation built him a transplant unit, specially designed to protect patients from cross infection while their immune system was suppressed. Michael Woodruff received many honours. He was elected FRS in 1968 for his scientific achievements. He was knighted in 1969 for services to medicine, and in 1970 he received the St Peter's medal of the British Association of Urological Surgeons. He was President of the Transplantation Society from 1972 to 1974. He died on 10 March 2001. He left a widow, Hazel, two sons and one daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009003
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset