OBITUARY: Professor Andrew Wilkinson
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Your support makes all the difference.Andrew Wilkinson, Emeritus Professor of Paediatric Surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, in London, and former President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, was a man who was large in every way - in his physique, in his enjoyment of life and in his contributions to surgery.
Wilkinson was a product of the Edinburgh University Medical School and the Edinburgh School of Surgery. After specialising in surgery he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1942 to 1946. He returned to Edinburgh to the Department of Surgery, and then moved to Aberdeen as Senior Lecturer in 1953.
In 1958, he was appointed the first Nuffield Professor of Paediatric Surgery at Great Ormond Street - the first chair of Paediatric Surgery in the United Kingdom. Wilkinson's paediatric surgical experience in Edinburgh and Aberdeen differed considerably from that of his new and highly specialised colleagues, but his extensive general experience and his contributions to research enabled him to establish firmly the reputation of his new department. He gathered round him trainees from Europe, Scandinavia, the Far East, Australia and North and South America.
Having served on the Executive Committee of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons, Wilkinson was elected President for 1971 and 1972, and played a leading part in the formation of the Specialist Advisory Committee for Paediatric Surgery in the Joint Committee for Higher Specialist Training.
He was an honorary member of many overseas Surgical Associations and a loyal supporter of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh: he was elected to Council in 1964 and served until 1973, when he became Vice- President, and in 1976 was elected President. His presidency was a time of important developments in the college, among them the introduction of a searching assessment at the end of specialist training and the expansion of the college's facilities for Education and Training.
Wilkinson is perhaps best remembered as a stimulating teacher, both at the bedside and in the operating theatre, of undergraduate and of postgraduate trainees. His formal lectures, like his after-dinner speeches, were meticulously prepared and delivered.
Alan C. B. Dean
and James Lister
Andrew Wood Wilkinson, surgeon: born 19 April 1914; Syme Surgical Fellowship, Edinburgh University 1946-49, Senior University Clinical Tutor in Surgery 1946-51, Lecturer in Surgery 1951-53; Senior Lecturer in Surgery, Aberdeen University, and Assistant Surgeon, Royal Infirmary and Royal Aberdeen Hospital for Sick Children 1953-58; Surgeon, Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street 1958-95; Nuffield Professor of Paediatric Surgery, Institute of Child Health 1958-79 (Emeritus); Hunterian Professor, Royal College of Surgeons 1965; President, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh 1976-79; CBE 1979; married 1941 Joan Sharp (deceased; two sons, two daughters); died Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbright 18 August 1995.
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