- Email: [email protected]
Garth Alfred Taylor
Peter Bregg
Obituary
Garth Alfred Taylor Ophthalmologist who spent more than two decades working as an international volunteer to save sight. He was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on April 29, 1944, and died of an aortic aneurysm at the Ottawa Heart Institute in Ottawa, ON, Canada, on Nov 19, 2005, aged 61 years. Garth Taylor was only 26 years old when he moved from Jamaica to Canada, in 1970, to complete his ophthalmology training, but it was already clear that he had a strong drive to make a difference, recalls his fellow trainee and life-long friend Brian Leonard. “He was driven by that. He was a very focused man, and very kind, even then.” Taylor would often quote a saying he attributed to his godfather, a surgeon: “I came into this world with nothing, and all I’m going to leave with is my conscience.” Over more than 20 years, Taylor made his contribution through volunteer work for ORBIS, a charity that uses an aeroplane fitted out with an operating theatre to bring modern sight-saving techniques to developing countries. The programme aims to combat world blindness by exchanging skills between ophthalmologists from developed countries and their colleagues in the developing world. Taylor joined ORBIS in 1981 after meeting the organisation’s Field Medical Director, Simon Holland, while doing charity work in Jamaica. Taylor had already completed his training in Canada and set up practice in Cornwall, ON, Canada, where he developed an expertise in microscopic eye surgery, cornea transplants, and laser eye surgery. Taylor would later say: “I found my nirvana 23 years ago aboard my first ORBIS flight . . . By treating avoidable blindness, people don’t just get back their sight, they get back their self-esteem and their respect through their ability to act as society expects . . . Nothing is more 204
important than what we are able to do for patients through our combined efforts as participants in the ORBIS sight-saving programme.” For the next two decades, Taylor devoted roughly 3 months of each year to volunteer work with ORBIS. “He would go out for a week or more at a time to follow a specific programme that had been developed for a specific setting”, Holland told The Lancet. “A lot of the programmes he did were arranged at the very last minute. They would give Garth a call and he was gone”, says Leonard, who is now professor of ophthalmology at the University of Ottawa Medical School, and president of ORBIS Canada’s board of directors. Taylor was ORBIS’s most active volunteer ophthalmologist, and completed more than 110 programmes around the world, lecturing and holding hands-on surgical training programmes in cornea, cataract, and refractive procedures in places such as Jamaica, China, India, East Africa, South America, Vietnam, Bangladesh, the Middle East, and Russia. “He made a lot of sacrifices to do what he did—sacrifices with his family, his finances, and his career and practice”, Leonard says. “It’s always been a mystery to those of us who have known him how he managed to run a very successful practice in Canada while spending so much time away”, Holland added. As well as running that practice, Taylor served as the chief of ophthalmology and vice-president of medical staff at Cornwall Community Hospital, where he had been an active staff member for the past 28 years. “He was a gifted surgeon, and was constantly going back to basics to learn new techniques,” Leonard told The Lancet. “He was always questioning the best way to do things, and was open to criticism and suggestion.” While volunteering for ORBIS, those surgical skills needed to be allied with an ability to teach under duress. “In the plane, its bedlam”, Leonard explains. “There are sometimes as many as 300 people watching as you teach, firing questions at you in foreign languages. Sometimes other aircraft take off nearby and the jet blasts can rock everything.” From 1984 to 1987, Taylor was president of ORBIS Canada. More recently, he had been vice-president of ORBIS Canada and volunteer medical director aboard the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital. For his contribution to international ophthalmology, Taylor received several awards, including the Meritorious Service Cross of Canada, the Paul Harris Fellow Medal from Rotary International, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Ophthalmic Education. In 2005, he was awarded the prestigious Order of Jamaica. Garth Taylor is survived by his wife Beverley, and his children, Leanne and Gregory.
Stephen Pincock [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 367 January 21, 2006
Obituary
Garth Alfred Taylor Ophthalmologist who spent more than two decades working as an international volunteer to save sight. He was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on April 29, 1944, and died of an aortic aneurysm at the Ottawa Heart Institute in Ottawa, ON, Canada, on Nov 19, 2005, aged 61 years. Garth Taylor was only 26 years old when he moved from Jamaica to Canada, in 1970, to complete his ophthalmology training, but it was already clear that he had a strong drive to make a difference, recalls his fellow trainee and life-long friend Brian Leonard. “He was driven by that. He was a very focused man, and very kind, even then.” Taylor would often quote a saying he attributed to his godfather, a surgeon: “I came into this world with nothing, and all I’m going to leave with is my conscience.” Over more than 20 years, Taylor made his contribution through volunteer work for ORBIS, a charity that uses an aeroplane fitted out with an operating theatre to bring modern sight-saving techniques to developing countries. The programme aims to combat world blindness by exchanging skills between ophthalmologists from developed countries and their colleagues in the developing world. Taylor joined ORBIS in 1981 after meeting the organisation’s Field Medical Director, Simon Holland, while doing charity work in Jamaica. Taylor had already completed his training in Canada and set up practice in Cornwall, ON, Canada, where he developed an expertise in microscopic eye surgery, cornea transplants, and laser eye surgery. Taylor would later say: “I found my nirvana 23 years ago aboard my first ORBIS flight . . . By treating avoidable blindness, people don’t just get back their sight, they get back their self-esteem and their respect through their ability to act as society expects . . . Nothing is more 204
important than what we are able to do for patients through our combined efforts as participants in the ORBIS sight-saving programme.” For the next two decades, Taylor devoted roughly 3 months of each year to volunteer work with ORBIS. “He would go out for a week or more at a time to follow a specific programme that had been developed for a specific setting”, Holland told The Lancet. “A lot of the programmes he did were arranged at the very last minute. They would give Garth a call and he was gone”, says Leonard, who is now professor of ophthalmology at the University of Ottawa Medical School, and president of ORBIS Canada’s board of directors. Taylor was ORBIS’s most active volunteer ophthalmologist, and completed more than 110 programmes around the world, lecturing and holding hands-on surgical training programmes in cornea, cataract, and refractive procedures in places such as Jamaica, China, India, East Africa, South America, Vietnam, Bangladesh, the Middle East, and Russia. “He made a lot of sacrifices to do what he did—sacrifices with his family, his finances, and his career and practice”, Leonard says. “It’s always been a mystery to those of us who have known him how he managed to run a very successful practice in Canada while spending so much time away”, Holland added. As well as running that practice, Taylor served as the chief of ophthalmology and vice-president of medical staff at Cornwall Community Hospital, where he had been an active staff member for the past 28 years. “He was a gifted surgeon, and was constantly going back to basics to learn new techniques,” Leonard told The Lancet. “He was always questioning the best way to do things, and was open to criticism and suggestion.” While volunteering for ORBIS, those surgical skills needed to be allied with an ability to teach under duress. “In the plane, its bedlam”, Leonard explains. “There are sometimes as many as 300 people watching as you teach, firing questions at you in foreign languages. Sometimes other aircraft take off nearby and the jet blasts can rock everything.” From 1984 to 1987, Taylor was president of ORBIS Canada. More recently, he had been vice-president of ORBIS Canada and volunteer medical director aboard the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital. For his contribution to international ophthalmology, Taylor received several awards, including the Meritorious Service Cross of Canada, the Paul Harris Fellow Medal from Rotary International, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Ophthalmic Education. In 2005, he was awarded the prestigious Order of Jamaica. Garth Taylor is survived by his wife Beverley, and his children, Leanne and Gregory.
Stephen Pincock [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 367 January 21, 2006