David Ritchie (surgeon)

Last updated

David Ritchie
Born
Horace David Ritchie

(1920-09-24)24 September 1920
Falkirk, Scotland
Died21 December 1993(1993-12-21) (aged 73)
Tenterden, Kent, England
Nationality Scottish
Alma mater University of Glasgow
Magdalene College, Cambridge
University of Edinburgh
OccupationSurgeon
Known forProfessor of surgery, the Royal London Hospital
Spouses
  • Jennifer Prentice
  • Elizabeth "Peggy" Thompson
Children3 sons, including Bruce Ritchie

Horace David Ritchie FRCS FRCSE (24 September 1920 - 21 December 1993) was a Scottish surgeon and professor of surgery.

Contents

Early life

David Ritchie was born on 24 September 1920 in Falkirk, Scotland, one of four children of a grocer in the town. [1]

He had planned to become a Presbyterian minister, and earned a master's degree in Latin, Greek, and theology from the University of Glasgow, but then studied medicine at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh, where he qualified in 1947. [1]

Career

In 1951, Ritchie passed the FRCS (Edinburgh), won the Crichton Research Scholarship and subsequently attempted to construct an artificial heart. In 1953, he received an MRC scholarship in Liverpool where he ultimately did perform a pig heart transplant. The pig survived for 30 days. In 1955, after lecturing in Dundee, he travelled to the Mayo clinic where he worked on surgical jaundice, for which he later won a gold medal. In 1958 he joined the Royal London Hospital as a senior lecturer. [2] Along with John Blandy, who he persuaded to take up transplant surgery, Ritchie used Kolff's twin coil for dialysis, a procedure he was appointed to set up three years earlier. [3] He was made reader in surgery in 1960 and on the retirement of Victor Dix in 1964 was appointed professor.

Ritchie pioneered the use of hyperbaric oxygen, which he used to save the frostbitten fingers of the climbers Chris Bonington and Dougal Haston, despite them managing to climb out of the tank and repair to a nearby pub. [2]

In 1968, Ritchie supervised Richard Earlam who had moved to the London Hospital as a lecturer. [4]

He was co-editor of Bailey and Love's Short Practice of Surgery for the editions of 1975 and 1981. [2] [5]

Personal life

In 1953, he married Jennifer Prentice, and they had three sons, Gordon, Andrew and Bruce. [1] That marriage ended in divorce in 1983, and in 1990, he married Elizabeth "Peggy" Thompson. [1] He died in Tenterden, Kent, on 21 December 1993. [1]

Related Research Articles

Barry O'Donnell was an Irish pediatric surgeon who worked at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin in Dublin, who along with Prem Puri pioneered the sub-ureteric Teflon injection (STING) procedure for vesico-ureteric reflux. He was awarded the Urology Medal by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the first pediatric surgeon working outside the USA to be so honored.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Woodruff</span> English surgeon and biologist; transplantation and cancer researcher (1911–2001)

Sir Michael Francis Addison Woodruff, was an English surgeon and scientist principally remembered for his research into organ transplantation. Though born in London, Woodruff spent his youth in Australia, where he earned degrees in electrical engineering and medicine. Having completed his studies shortly after the outbreak of World War II, he joined the Australian Army Medical Corps, but was soon captured by Japanese forces and imprisoned in the Changi Prison Camp. While there, he devised an ingenious method of extracting nutrients from agricultural wastes to prevent malnutrition among his fellow POWs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean P. F. Hughes</span>

Sean Patrick Francis Hughes is emeritus professor of orthopaedic surgery at Imperial College London where he was previously professor of orthopaedic surgery and head of the department of surgery, anaesthetics and intensive care. Earlier in his career he had been professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Edinburgh.

Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS, FMedSci, FRCP, FRCS was an Australian surgeon and Nuffield professor of surgery at the University of Oxford. Morris was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, founder of the Oxford Transplant Centre and director of the Centre for Evidence in Transplantation at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gordon Bell (surgeon)</span> New Zealand surgeon and academic

Sir Francis Gordon Bell, FRCS, FRCSEd, FRACS was a New Zealand surgeon who was professor of surgery at the University of Otago at Dunedin. He was a founder member of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and was elected its president in 1947. In the 1953 Coronation Honours, Bell was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Hugh Bentall FRCS was a British surgeon who pioneered open-heart surgery.

Donald Nixon Ross, FRCS was a South African-born British thoracic surgeon who was a pioneer of cardiac surgery and led the team that carried out the first heart transplantation in the United Kingdom in 1968. He developed the pulmonary autograft, known as the Ross procedure, for treatment of aortic valve disease.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Stiles</span> British surgeon

Sir Harold Jalland Stiles was an English surgeon who was known for his research into cancer and tuberculosis and for treatment of nerve injuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terence English</span> South African-born British retired surgeon

Sir Terence Alexander Hawthorne English is a South African-born British retired cardiac surgeon. He was Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Papworth Hospital and Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, 1973–1995. After starting a career in mining engineering, English switched to medicine and went on to lead the team that performed Britain's first successful heart transplant in August 1979 at Papworth, and soon established it as one of Europe's leading heart–lung transplant programmes.

Olivier James Garden, is a British surgeon and academic. He holds the Regius Chair of Clinical Surgery at the University of Edinburgh and the president of the International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association from 2012 to 2014. Garden performed Scotland's first liver transplant in Edinburgh in 1992 and founded the Scottish Liver Transplant Programme.

Geoffrey Duncan Chisholm, CBE, FRCS, MRCS was a New Zealand-born, British urologist. He made extensive advances in renal x-rays. He was also a strong advocate of kidney transplants, promoting the advantages of live donors.

Norman McOmish Dott, CBE FRCSE FRSE FRCSC was a Scottish neurosurgeon. He was the first holder of the Chair of Neurological Surgery at the University of Edinburgh.

Philip Caves (1940–1978) was an Irish cardiothoracic surgeon. In 1972, while at Stanford University, he pioneered the use of the bioptome and transvenous endomyocardial biopsy in the early diagnosis of heart transplant rejection. It was considered the most significant advance in antirejection therapy of the time. Awarded the British American Research Fellowship in 1971, Caves worked with pioneering cardiothoracic surgeon Norman Shumway at Stanford and became staff surgeon leading the transplant programme by 1973. A year later he went to Edinburgh as a senior lecturer in cardiac surgery, where he became particularly interested in pediatric cardiac surgery.

Maurice Rossie Ewing, CBE, FRCSEd, FRCS, FRACS was a Scottish surgeon who was the first professor of surgery at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His department established an early programme of renal transplantation in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Aird</span> Scottish surgeon (1905–1962)

Ian Aird was a Scottish surgeon who became Professor of Surgery at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. There he built up a large and productive research department which made particular contributions in cardiac surgery, renal transplantation and the association of blood groups with stomach cancer. He came to national and international prominence in 1953 when he led the teams which performed an operation to separate conjoined twins. His book A Companion in Surgical Studies was among the best selling surgical textbooks of its day. He died suddenly in 1962 at the age of 57.

Kenneth C. H. Fearon FRCSE FRCPSG was a 20th-century Scottish surgeon and cancer specialist. He was Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Edinburgh with a special interest in cachexia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Wood Wilkinson</span> British paediatrician

Andrew Wood Wilkinson was a British paediatrician of Scottish extraction and the first Professor of Paediatric Surgery in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Rob</span> British surgeon (1913–2001)

Charles Granville Rob was a British surgeon who pioneered techniques in the repair of damaged blood vessels, particularly the operation to unblock arteries of the neck, known as carotid endarterectomy and of the aorta when treating aortic aneurysms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Douglas (surgeon)</span> Scottish surgeon (1911–1993)

Sir Donald Macleod Douglas, was a Scottish academic surgeon. His schooling and medical undergraduate education were at St Andrews following which he embarked at an early stage on an academic career, winning a scholarship to pursue research at the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Logan (surgeon)</span> British cardio-thoracic surgeon

Andrew Logan, FRCS, FRCSEd was a British cardiothoracic surgeon. For most of his career he worked in Edinburgh where he established the specialty of cardio-thoracic surgery. He devised a mitral valve dilator to treat mitral stenosis and this technique, modified by Oswald Tubbs and by Russell Brock, became widely used to treat this condition. He assisted at the first pneumonectomy in the UK and performed the first lung transplant in the UK.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Wingate, David (8 January 1994). "Obituary: Professor David Ritchie". The Independent. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 "Ritchie, Horace David (1920 - 1993)". Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Online Lives of the Fellows Online. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
  3. "Renal Unit Histories - www.renhist.co.uk". www.renhist.co.uk. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  4. "Richard Earlam, top surgeon and air ambulance pioneer – obituary". The Telegraph. 8 September 2016. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  5. "Bailey and Love". www.baileyandlove.com. Retrieved 25 January 2018.