Rodney Smith, Baron Smith

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Edwin Rodney Smith, Baron Smith KBE FRCS ( May 10, 1914 - July 1, 1998 ) was a British doctor and Conservative Party politician . From 1973 to 1977 he was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS). As a life peer , he became a member of the House of Lords in 1978 under the Life Peerages Act 1958 .

Life

Studies and professional career

Smith, son of a coroner and a violinist , completed a medical training at St Thomas' Hospital after attending Westminster School , which he completed in 1937 and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (MRCS). At the same time he was awarded a licentiate from the Royal College of Physicians (LRCP) in 1937 . Due to the untimely death of his father, he did not subsequently take the position as an unpaid attending physician at St Thomas' Hospital, but worked as a general practitioner at Wimbledon . After graduating as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FRCS) in 1939 , he was appointed Registrar of Surgery at Middlesex Hospital , one of the colleagues of the well-known surgeon Alfred Webb-Johnson , who also worked between 1941 and 1949 Was President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

During the Second World War , Smith, who obtained a Master of Surgery (MS) from the University of London in 1941, began his military service as a surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in 1941 and served in North Africa , Yugoslavia and Italy , where he served during the operation Shingle was wounded himself in Anzio in 1944. During the war he gained the necessary practical experience as a surgeon until he left military service in 1946.

After the end of the war, Smith became a consulting surgeon at St George's Hospital in Wandsworth in 1946 and expanded the surgical department there into one of the most famous centers for biliary and pancreatic operations in Great Britain. Between 1947 and 1952 he lectured for the Hunterian Society and was awarded the Jacksonian Prize in 1951 for his medical services . In 1957 he became a Penrose May tutor and successfully organized the post-graduate study courses in clinical surgery.

In addition to his medical work, he was also active as an author of specialist books and articles in specialist journals and, together with Charles Rob , wrote Operative Surgery (1956), a standard textbook that has appeared in several subsequent editions. In addition, he held a visiting professorship at the University of Sydney and in 1957 received an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgery (FRACS). In 1962 a member of the examination board ( Court of Examiners ) for surgery and in 1965 also a member of the council ( Council ) was elected. In 1966 he was appointed dean of the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences operated by University College London (UCL) and the University of London .

President of the RCS and member of the House of Lords

After the unexpected death of Edward Muir in 1972, Smith became President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1973 and held this position until he was succeeded by Reginald Murley in 1977.

In this capacity, Smith, who was made Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1975 and henceforth the suffix "Sir", increasingly dealt with national health policy, especially after a moral crisis in the professional status of the state health system in 1975 NHS ( National Health Service ) came. The Minister of Health and Human Services ( the Secretary of State for Health and Social Services ) Barbara Castle in the government of the Labor Party under Prime Minister Harold Wilson was determined to introduce a paid full-time hospital services and to abolish the private beds in the hospitals of the NHS in 1948 by the then Minister of Health and founder of the NHS Aneurin Bevan were allowed to work with the attending physicians. The situation culminated in a strike by the unions of the permanent staff in the NHS hospitals with the aim of ousting private doctors from the NHS, while the medical organization BMA ( British Medical Association ) demanded a regulation for the work of the attending doctors. Due to the neutrality of the RCS between the NHS and the BMA, Smith used his function as president mainly to mediate between these two camps, but also between the government and the opposition of the Conservative Party.

During this time he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science (Hon.D.Sc.) in 1974 from the University of Exeter . He also became an honorary member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (Hon. FRCSEd.) And American College of Surgeons (Hon. FACS) in 1975 . In 1976 he received an Honorary Doctorate in Science from the University of Leeds and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the Royal College of Surgeons of South Africa.

By a letters patent dated July 13, 1978, Smith was raised to the nobility under the Life Peerages Act 1958 as a life peer with the title Baron Smith , of Marlow in the County of Buckinghamshire , and was a member of the House of Lords until his death on.

Its official launch ( House of Lords ) on 26 July 1978 supported by Elaine Burton, Baroness Burton of Coventry and Arthur Porritt, Baron Porritt .

Most recently, in 1979, the University of Zurich awarded him an honorary doctorate in medicine.

Publications

  • Acute intestinal obstruction. With a chapter on radiological diagnosis , co-author Eric Samuel, 1948
  • The Surgery of Pancreatic Neoplasms , London 1953
  • Progress in Clinical Surgery , Editor, London 1954
  • Operative Surgery , co-author Charles Rob, London 1956
  • Surgery of the Gall Bladder and Bile Ducts , co-author Sheila Sherlock , London 1964

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ London Gazette . No. 35345, HMSO, London, November 11, 1941, p. 6568 ( PDF , accessed February 5, 2014, English).
  2. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 47557, HMSO, London, June 2, 1978, p. 6285 ( PDF , accessed February 5, 2014, English).
  3. ↑ London Gazette . No. 47595, HMSO, London, July 18, 1978, p. 8631 ( PDF , accessed February 5, 2014, English).
  4. ↑ Entry in Hansard (July 26, 1978)
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Rodney, Baron Smith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, Edwin Rodney, Baron Smith (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British surgeon and medical officer
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1914
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1998