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Geoffrey Molyneux Fitzgibbon, MD, FRCS 1903–1990
British Journal of Plastic Surgery (1991), 44.75-76 0 1991 The Trustees of British Association of Plastic Surgeons
Obituary Geoffrey Molyneux Fitzgibbon, MD, FRCS 1903-1990 Geoffrey
Fitzgibbon (Fitz) was born on 25 August 1903 and died on 25 May 1990. He received his early surgical training at St Thomas’s under Philip Mitchener, obtaining his Fellowship and an M.D. in Midwifery and Gynaecology by the age of 26. He came to Bristol as resident surgical officer at the Bristol General Hospital where he worked under Ernest HeyGroves. Three years later he was appointed to the staff as general surgeon at the BGH. These two teachers had a lasting influence on him, which, together with his natural boldness and surgical enterprise, subsequently led to the contributions he made to Plastic Surgery. At the BGH he met Priscilla Harrison, then house physician to Dr Carey Coombes, and they married in 1933. When the Bristol Royal Infirmary and General Hospital were amalgamated in 1940 he moved to the BRI and played a full part in the management of the Bristol air raid casualties. In 1942 he joined the RAMC and was seconded to Sir Harold Gillies’s Plastic Surgery Unit at Park Prewitt Hospital, a discipline he took to naturally. It was there he was given the responsibility of assembling the team for No. 5 Maxillo-facial and Surgical Unit which he took first to France and then to Belgium and Germany. He was a natural leader, inspiring trust and leading by example. He was at his best when the odds were loaded against him. He enjoyed challenge and was always cheerful, modest and good-humoured. He treated all staff, regardles of rank, with the same consideration. After victory in Europe and a brief spell in India he was demobilised in February 1946 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He returned as general surgeon to the BRI, where his interest in teaching was reflected in his appointment as the first clinical dean in that year. During the subsequent three years he gradually built up his practice in Plastic Surgery. As the last of the true general surgeons he was one of the first of the new generation of plastic surgeons. He was quick to recognise the role Plastic Surgery could play in the treatment of late cancer. He took on many patients abandoned by others, mostly complicated by radionecrosis, and with his wide experience he carried out both the excision and repair using the skills he had acquired in repairing major gunshot wounds. His pioneer work in this field, first at BRI and later at Frenchay, established for him a national and international reputation. It took over ten years for the full management of primary skin cancer and late cancer with radiation damage to the skin to become generally accepted as a routine procedure to be written into the requirements for training of plastic surgeons.
In 1949 he established the Department of Plastic Surgery at Frenchay Hospital which had been used during the War for the 295 American General Hospital and was then being brought back into use as a Regional Centre for Neuro-, Thoracic and Plastic Surgery. Under his guidance the unit developed a comradeship and team spirit which have endured. To be apprenticed to Fitz was, in all respects, an exhilarating experience. Never one to impose his ideas and practices, he encouraged his trainees to develop their own but always under his watchful and experienced eye. Many established plastic surgeons both in this country and abroad owe him a debt of gratitude which cannot be measured in words. He was a founder member of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons and its President in 1966. As President of the Bristol-Medico Chirurgical Society in 1965 he chose “Medicine and the Arts” as the subject for his Presidential Address. He enjoyed his research for this, travelling widely in quest of pictures and sculptures with a medical interest. As Gillies Memorial Lecturer in 1967 his subject was “The Commandments of Gillies”. A devoted family man, his wide interests covered the arts, travel and horticulture. He greatly enjoyed his beautiful gardens and collection of pictures. With
76
the constant support given by Priscilla, he regularly entertained visiting surgeons and friends until illness intervened. After retirement he was chairman of the North Nibley Parish Council and he also helped local general practitioners, taking on holiday duties for many years, when he earned the respect of patients by his willingness to listen at length to their problems,
British Journal of Plastic Suraerv dispensing his abundance of wisdom more often than drugs. He bore his terminal illness and its problems with fortitude, and died at home shortly before his 87th birthday. He is survived by his wife, four daughters, a son and 13 grandchildren. D. C. BODENHAM
Obituary Geoffrey Molyneux Fitzgibbon, MD, FRCS 1903-1990 Geoffrey
Fitzgibbon (Fitz) was born on 25 August 1903 and died on 25 May 1990. He received his early surgical training at St Thomas’s under Philip Mitchener, obtaining his Fellowship and an M.D. in Midwifery and Gynaecology by the age of 26. He came to Bristol as resident surgical officer at the Bristol General Hospital where he worked under Ernest HeyGroves. Three years later he was appointed to the staff as general surgeon at the BGH. These two teachers had a lasting influence on him, which, together with his natural boldness and surgical enterprise, subsequently led to the contributions he made to Plastic Surgery. At the BGH he met Priscilla Harrison, then house physician to Dr Carey Coombes, and they married in 1933. When the Bristol Royal Infirmary and General Hospital were amalgamated in 1940 he moved to the BRI and played a full part in the management of the Bristol air raid casualties. In 1942 he joined the RAMC and was seconded to Sir Harold Gillies’s Plastic Surgery Unit at Park Prewitt Hospital, a discipline he took to naturally. It was there he was given the responsibility of assembling the team for No. 5 Maxillo-facial and Surgical Unit which he took first to France and then to Belgium and Germany. He was a natural leader, inspiring trust and leading by example. He was at his best when the odds were loaded against him. He enjoyed challenge and was always cheerful, modest and good-humoured. He treated all staff, regardles of rank, with the same consideration. After victory in Europe and a brief spell in India he was demobilised in February 1946 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He returned as general surgeon to the BRI, where his interest in teaching was reflected in his appointment as the first clinical dean in that year. During the subsequent three years he gradually built up his practice in Plastic Surgery. As the last of the true general surgeons he was one of the first of the new generation of plastic surgeons. He was quick to recognise the role Plastic Surgery could play in the treatment of late cancer. He took on many patients abandoned by others, mostly complicated by radionecrosis, and with his wide experience he carried out both the excision and repair using the skills he had acquired in repairing major gunshot wounds. His pioneer work in this field, first at BRI and later at Frenchay, established for him a national and international reputation. It took over ten years for the full management of primary skin cancer and late cancer with radiation damage to the skin to become generally accepted as a routine procedure to be written into the requirements for training of plastic surgeons.
In 1949 he established the Department of Plastic Surgery at Frenchay Hospital which had been used during the War for the 295 American General Hospital and was then being brought back into use as a Regional Centre for Neuro-, Thoracic and Plastic Surgery. Under his guidance the unit developed a comradeship and team spirit which have endured. To be apprenticed to Fitz was, in all respects, an exhilarating experience. Never one to impose his ideas and practices, he encouraged his trainees to develop their own but always under his watchful and experienced eye. Many established plastic surgeons both in this country and abroad owe him a debt of gratitude which cannot be measured in words. He was a founder member of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons and its President in 1966. As President of the Bristol-Medico Chirurgical Society in 1965 he chose “Medicine and the Arts” as the subject for his Presidential Address. He enjoyed his research for this, travelling widely in quest of pictures and sculptures with a medical interest. As Gillies Memorial Lecturer in 1967 his subject was “The Commandments of Gillies”. A devoted family man, his wide interests covered the arts, travel and horticulture. He greatly enjoyed his beautiful gardens and collection of pictures. With
76
the constant support given by Priscilla, he regularly entertained visiting surgeons and friends until illness intervened. After retirement he was chairman of the North Nibley Parish Council and he also helped local general practitioners, taking on holiday duties for many years, when he earned the respect of patients by his willingness to listen at length to their problems,
British Journal of Plastic Suraerv dispensing his abundance of wisdom more often than drugs. He bore his terminal illness and its problems with fortitude, and died at home shortly before his 87th birthday. He is survived by his wife, four daughters, a son and 13 grandchildren. D. C. BODENHAM