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Citation for BAOMS Down Prize 2014 – Professor R T Woodwards
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 897–898
Citation for BAOMS Down Prize 2014 – Professor R T Woodwards Available online 28 August 2015
Mr President Colleagues and Friends, it is always a great pleasure and honour to be asked to provide a citation for a colleague, and on this occasion someone who I have known as a friend for over 30 years. The Maurice Down Surgical Prize was established in 1972 and renamed in 1975 the Down Surgical Prize. It is believed that Maurice Down was persuaded by the late Sir Terence Ward to endow the prize whilst he was on a visit to East Grinstead. Down Brothers Ltd. of South London were at that time and until their incorporation into Braun in the latter part of the 20th century one of the two major surgical instrument manufacturers in the UK. The Down Surgical Prize is considered the highest honour which the association can award to a person adjudged to have made a major contribution to Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the widest sense. Bob was born in Birmingham, his father was a medical student at the outbreak of WW2 and joined the RAF as a pilot in 1942 flying spitfires and hurricanes. After the war he was one of the “few” who returned to complete his medical training, qualifying in 1952, and becoming a GP. Bob’s oldest brother Jamie is a retired occupational physician, and he also has two older retired sisters. Bob’s family background in medicine and aviation may have helped define both his career and interests. Bob was educated initially at Solihull School where he was in the CCF and did voluntary service. In the sixth form he moved to board at Ratcliffe College in Leicester, a Roman Catholic College of the Rosminian Order (currently sponsoring a project to build a replica of a spitfire crashed by one of its former pupils). Bob was a member of the school rowing team, and sadly this may have distracted him from the primary objective of A levels, the results of which were not adequate to allow him to gain entry to read medicine. He attributes this brief and atypical academic failure to having capsized the boat during a sewer workers strike, the unpleasantness of which affected his learning capacity, although not sadly his long term memory of the event! He went on to repeat “A” 0266-4356/$ – see front matter
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjoms.2015.08.004
levels at Mathew Boulton technical College, and eventually got sufficiently good results to get into dentistry. Bob modestly describes himself as an undistinguished student, who enjoyed socialising and partying, but he did meet Claire his future wife who was in the year above, and did start to develop a refined taste in food and drink. After dental graduation at Birmingham, he did a house job in Wolverhampton. This reinvigorated him to apply for medicine, but it took him 5 years to get in; during this time he did SHO posts at Wordsley, with Maurice Jones and Colin Brady. He also went to Hereford to do some plastic surgery but thankfully was not tempted to jump ship. He then went on to Bath and Bristol dental school as a registrar, with Sandy Young and Mick Sharp, during which time he obtained his FDS. Whilst a registrar he wrote a paper on Löfgren syndrome and in consequence was invited to present at a meeting in Cardiff. This was fortuitous, because the Prof of Pathology was so impressed that he asked him if there was anything he could do to help him, Bob said “yes get me into your medical school”! He duly obliged! He paid his way through medical school at Cardiff by working in dental practice with Claire his wife, a test surely of any marriage? He qualified MB ChB in 1987. He returned to Bath to do medical house jobs, followed by an SHO job in orthopaedics. Then on to Cheltenham and Gloucester, working with John Harrison and Rob Hensher as a registrar, during which time he obtained the FRCS (Max Fac) in Edinburgh. After 18 months he was appointed senior registrar, on the Guy’s/Roehampton rotation, under Dick Haskell, Brett Day and Pat O’Driscoll. Whist a senior registrar he became Secretary General of IAOMFST, organising a highly successful congress in Guildford. Bob was appointed as a consultant to North Manchester in 1994 where he joined Murray Foster, Peter White and Tony Addy. At that time, there was no major cancer surgery being undertaken in the unit. His first case needed a fibular
898
/ British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 897–898
flap, which he had never done, but undeterred, he went to the dissection room at the medical school with his then senior registrar (one Austin Smith), where a lower limb was obligingly produced for them to practice on. 23 years later, that first patient remains alive and well, and attended together with his fibular reconstruction one of Bob’s many recent retirement dinners, which he was able to eat! Shortly after Bob arrived in Manchester the then chair of SAC closed down the training programme (this I am assured was nothing to do with Bob!), but for a while it meant that Bob could exploit this to his advantage and accommodate overseas trainees. The first of these was Sanjiv Nair, who obviously did OK as he is currently the president of the Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons of India. After 10 years building a busy cancer service, he was eventually joined by another maxillofacial cancer surgeon Andy Baldwin. As clinical director he increased the size of the department to 7 consultants, and established extended session operating lists with dual theatres and two team operating. As TPD he reconfigured training in the region, and under the auspices of the unit he also ran the acclaimed annual Manchester course with Kursheed Moos for many years. Remarkably he also managed to fit in a major research project into the effects of catecholamines on free flaps, for which he was awarded an MD by Victoria University Manchester in 2002. He has examined at all levels and was only the second Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon to become an MRCS examiner. He was elected to BAOMS council in 1998 later becoming a member of SAC and rising to VC and then chair. During a turbulent period of change he established a very close working relationship and personal friendship with Davinda Sandhu, a urologist who was the lead postgraduate dean for OMFS. That relationship has yielded enormous benefit to our specialty training programmes. He became chair of the interface SAC in H&N oncology. Initially sceptical about the wisdom of this, he came to be a keen advocate of the progamme, witnessing at first hand the benefits of enhanced training in head and neck oncology and microvascular reconstruction.
In 2011, Bob became President of our association and together with Claire, Sarah and Sue, organised the most memorable congress in Nice. One of his most proud achievements as president was to initiate and see through to completion a complete upgrade of our website, to make it fit for purpose. Bob has also held the position of Treasurer of the International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial surgeons since 2009 and organised the 50th anniversary meeting in London. He was also honoured by the French Association, being made an honorary fellow. He has also been an active member of BAHNO council, and was inaugural appointee to the Chair of surgical simulation at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, a position which he still holds. His objective was to get surgical simulation embedded within the curricula of all of the ten surgical specialties. This has proved more difficult than anticipated because of GMC bureaucracy; but he remains optimistic that within the next year simulation training will become mandatory. Bob has an almost fatal and expensive attraction to classic cars, a small selection of which you see here. He not only likes driving them but cannot resist tinkering with them. His favourite is probably the Daimler SP250 with its Turner 2.5 litre V8 engine, essentially he tells me made of 2 four cylinder engines stuck together, but makes a wonderful noise. But perhaps more understandable (to me at least) he also has a passion for flying. He gained his PPL in 17 days over in the States, and then later went on to get his multi-engine and instrument ratings. He continues to fly both in the UK and in the USA, where he has an apartment on the end of Cape Cod. In addition to Cape Cod and his main home in Lancashire, he has a house in Suffolk, and apartments on the Cote D’azur and London. Despite Bob’s incredible achievements, he enjoys life, travel, gourmet food and fine wines and most of all, he enjoys sharing that joy with others. His generosity is legendary, as those of us fortunate to join him in Roquebrune after his Nice meeting can testify. Mr President, it is with enormous pleasure that I commend Professor Woodwards to you, as a most worthy recipient of the BAOMS Down Surgical Prize. Ian C Martin
British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 897–898
Citation for BAOMS Down Prize 2014 – Professor R T Woodwards Available online 28 August 2015
Mr President Colleagues and Friends, it is always a great pleasure and honour to be asked to provide a citation for a colleague, and on this occasion someone who I have known as a friend for over 30 years. The Maurice Down Surgical Prize was established in 1972 and renamed in 1975 the Down Surgical Prize. It is believed that Maurice Down was persuaded by the late Sir Terence Ward to endow the prize whilst he was on a visit to East Grinstead. Down Brothers Ltd. of South London were at that time and until their incorporation into Braun in the latter part of the 20th century one of the two major surgical instrument manufacturers in the UK. The Down Surgical Prize is considered the highest honour which the association can award to a person adjudged to have made a major contribution to Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the widest sense. Bob was born in Birmingham, his father was a medical student at the outbreak of WW2 and joined the RAF as a pilot in 1942 flying spitfires and hurricanes. After the war he was one of the “few” who returned to complete his medical training, qualifying in 1952, and becoming a GP. Bob’s oldest brother Jamie is a retired occupational physician, and he also has two older retired sisters. Bob’s family background in medicine and aviation may have helped define both his career and interests. Bob was educated initially at Solihull School where he was in the CCF and did voluntary service. In the sixth form he moved to board at Ratcliffe College in Leicester, a Roman Catholic College of the Rosminian Order (currently sponsoring a project to build a replica of a spitfire crashed by one of its former pupils). Bob was a member of the school rowing team, and sadly this may have distracted him from the primary objective of A levels, the results of which were not adequate to allow him to gain entry to read medicine. He attributes this brief and atypical academic failure to having capsized the boat during a sewer workers strike, the unpleasantness of which affected his learning capacity, although not sadly his long term memory of the event! He went on to repeat “A” 0266-4356/$ – see front matter
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjoms.2015.08.004
levels at Mathew Boulton technical College, and eventually got sufficiently good results to get into dentistry. Bob modestly describes himself as an undistinguished student, who enjoyed socialising and partying, but he did meet Claire his future wife who was in the year above, and did start to develop a refined taste in food and drink. After dental graduation at Birmingham, he did a house job in Wolverhampton. This reinvigorated him to apply for medicine, but it took him 5 years to get in; during this time he did SHO posts at Wordsley, with Maurice Jones and Colin Brady. He also went to Hereford to do some plastic surgery but thankfully was not tempted to jump ship. He then went on to Bath and Bristol dental school as a registrar, with Sandy Young and Mick Sharp, during which time he obtained his FDS. Whilst a registrar he wrote a paper on Löfgren syndrome and in consequence was invited to present at a meeting in Cardiff. This was fortuitous, because the Prof of Pathology was so impressed that he asked him if there was anything he could do to help him, Bob said “yes get me into your medical school”! He duly obliged! He paid his way through medical school at Cardiff by working in dental practice with Claire his wife, a test surely of any marriage? He qualified MB ChB in 1987. He returned to Bath to do medical house jobs, followed by an SHO job in orthopaedics. Then on to Cheltenham and Gloucester, working with John Harrison and Rob Hensher as a registrar, during which time he obtained the FRCS (Max Fac) in Edinburgh. After 18 months he was appointed senior registrar, on the Guy’s/Roehampton rotation, under Dick Haskell, Brett Day and Pat O’Driscoll. Whist a senior registrar he became Secretary General of IAOMFST, organising a highly successful congress in Guildford. Bob was appointed as a consultant to North Manchester in 1994 where he joined Murray Foster, Peter White and Tony Addy. At that time, there was no major cancer surgery being undertaken in the unit. His first case needed a fibular
898
/ British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 897–898
flap, which he had never done, but undeterred, he went to the dissection room at the medical school with his then senior registrar (one Austin Smith), where a lower limb was obligingly produced for them to practice on. 23 years later, that first patient remains alive and well, and attended together with his fibular reconstruction one of Bob’s many recent retirement dinners, which he was able to eat! Shortly after Bob arrived in Manchester the then chair of SAC closed down the training programme (this I am assured was nothing to do with Bob!), but for a while it meant that Bob could exploit this to his advantage and accommodate overseas trainees. The first of these was Sanjiv Nair, who obviously did OK as he is currently the president of the Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons of India. After 10 years building a busy cancer service, he was eventually joined by another maxillofacial cancer surgeon Andy Baldwin. As clinical director he increased the size of the department to 7 consultants, and established extended session operating lists with dual theatres and two team operating. As TPD he reconfigured training in the region, and under the auspices of the unit he also ran the acclaimed annual Manchester course with Kursheed Moos for many years. Remarkably he also managed to fit in a major research project into the effects of catecholamines on free flaps, for which he was awarded an MD by Victoria University Manchester in 2002. He has examined at all levels and was only the second Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon to become an MRCS examiner. He was elected to BAOMS council in 1998 later becoming a member of SAC and rising to VC and then chair. During a turbulent period of change he established a very close working relationship and personal friendship with Davinda Sandhu, a urologist who was the lead postgraduate dean for OMFS. That relationship has yielded enormous benefit to our specialty training programmes. He became chair of the interface SAC in H&N oncology. Initially sceptical about the wisdom of this, he came to be a keen advocate of the progamme, witnessing at first hand the benefits of enhanced training in head and neck oncology and microvascular reconstruction.
In 2011, Bob became President of our association and together with Claire, Sarah and Sue, organised the most memorable congress in Nice. One of his most proud achievements as president was to initiate and see through to completion a complete upgrade of our website, to make it fit for purpose. Bob has also held the position of Treasurer of the International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial surgeons since 2009 and organised the 50th anniversary meeting in London. He was also honoured by the French Association, being made an honorary fellow. He has also been an active member of BAHNO council, and was inaugural appointee to the Chair of surgical simulation at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, a position which he still holds. His objective was to get surgical simulation embedded within the curricula of all of the ten surgical specialties. This has proved more difficult than anticipated because of GMC bureaucracy; but he remains optimistic that within the next year simulation training will become mandatory. Bob has an almost fatal and expensive attraction to classic cars, a small selection of which you see here. He not only likes driving them but cannot resist tinkering with them. His favourite is probably the Daimler SP250 with its Turner 2.5 litre V8 engine, essentially he tells me made of 2 four cylinder engines stuck together, but makes a wonderful noise. But perhaps more understandable (to me at least) he also has a passion for flying. He gained his PPL in 17 days over in the States, and then later went on to get his multi-engine and instrument ratings. He continues to fly both in the UK and in the USA, where he has an apartment on the end of Cape Cod. In addition to Cape Cod and his main home in Lancashire, he has a house in Suffolk, and apartments on the Cote D’azur and London. Despite Bob’s incredible achievements, he enjoys life, travel, gourmet food and fine wines and most of all, he enjoys sharing that joy with others. His generosity is legendary, as those of us fortunate to join him in Roquebrune after his Nice meeting can testify. Mr President, it is with enormous pleasure that I commend Professor Woodwards to you, as a most worthy recipient of the BAOMS Down Surgical Prize. Ian C Martin