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Donald Ross (surgeon)
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Donald Ross (surgeon)
Donald Nixon Ross, FRCS (4 October 1922 – 7 July 2014) was a South African-born British thoracic surgeon who was a pioneer of cardiac surgery and led the team that carried out the first heart transplantation in the United Kingdom in 1968. He developed the pulmonary autograft, known as the Ross procedure, for treatment of aortic valve disease.
Donald Ross was born in Kimberley, South Africa, on 4 October 1922. His parents were Scottish. He matriculated from Kimberley Boys' High School in 1939.
He began his medical career enrolling as a student at the University of Cape Town, training first as a dedicated scientist and subsequently as a doctor. He graduated (BSc, MB, ChB) in 1946 with first-class honours and the university gold medal. He had also received a two-year overseas scholarship which allowed him to further his studies in the United Kingdom.
Ross has recalled eagerly accepting the scholarship: once in England he took up a career in surgery and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (1949) within two years instead of the usual three. Working initially in Bristol he focused on chest and oesophageal surgery, and then began to include early cardiac surgery, such as on the ductus arteriosus. He was appointed Senior Registrar in Thoracic Surgery, Bristol, in 1952.
Ross acknowledges the particular influence on his career of two key figures: Ronald Belsey, MD, and Russell Claude Brock, FRCS, FRCP (later Lord Brock). Ross has recorded how Belsey, the oesophageal surgeon in Bristol with whom he was working, took him to Guy's Hospital in London to see Sir Russell Brock attempt to split open a calcified aortic valve. "There was no open-heart surgery in those days, and the operation was a dramatic failure. But the drama involved convinced me that I had to study new developments in cardiac surgery."
Ross had been a fellow student of Christiaan Barnard at the University of Cape Town, the man who carried out the world's first heart transplantation at Cape Town's Groote Schuur Hospital. Throughout his early training, moreover, he had felt a lure toward chest surgery and cardiology because they seemed to be the most active specialities in an era when very little could be done for a patient with heart disease of any type.
Dr Brock, in charge of surgery at Guy's Hospital, took on Mr Ross as a cardiovascular Research Fellow (1953) and later as Senior Thoracic Registrar (1954). Four years later, in 1958, Ross was appointed Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, and subsequently Consultant Surgeon, National Heart Hospital in London (1963), and Senior Surgeon there (1967). In 1970, he was made Director of the Department of Surgery at the Institute of Cardiology, London.
Ross retired in 1997.
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Donald Ross (surgeon)
Donald Nixon Ross, FRCS (4 October 1922 – 7 July 2014) was a South African-born British thoracic surgeon who was a pioneer of cardiac surgery and led the team that carried out the first heart transplantation in the United Kingdom in 1968. He developed the pulmonary autograft, known as the Ross procedure, for treatment of aortic valve disease.
Donald Ross was born in Kimberley, South Africa, on 4 October 1922. His parents were Scottish. He matriculated from Kimberley Boys' High School in 1939.
He began his medical career enrolling as a student at the University of Cape Town, training first as a dedicated scientist and subsequently as a doctor. He graduated (BSc, MB, ChB) in 1946 with first-class honours and the university gold medal. He had also received a two-year overseas scholarship which allowed him to further his studies in the United Kingdom.
Ross has recalled eagerly accepting the scholarship: once in England he took up a career in surgery and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (1949) within two years instead of the usual three. Working initially in Bristol he focused on chest and oesophageal surgery, and then began to include early cardiac surgery, such as on the ductus arteriosus. He was appointed Senior Registrar in Thoracic Surgery, Bristol, in 1952.
Ross acknowledges the particular influence on his career of two key figures: Ronald Belsey, MD, and Russell Claude Brock, FRCS, FRCP (later Lord Brock). Ross has recorded how Belsey, the oesophageal surgeon in Bristol with whom he was working, took him to Guy's Hospital in London to see Sir Russell Brock attempt to split open a calcified aortic valve. "There was no open-heart surgery in those days, and the operation was a dramatic failure. But the drama involved convinced me that I had to study new developments in cardiac surgery."
Ross had been a fellow student of Christiaan Barnard at the University of Cape Town, the man who carried out the world's first heart transplantation at Cape Town's Groote Schuur Hospital. Throughout his early training, moreover, he had felt a lure toward chest surgery and cardiology because they seemed to be the most active specialities in an era when very little could be done for a patient with heart disease of any type.
Dr Brock, in charge of surgery at Guy's Hospital, took on Mr Ross as a cardiovascular Research Fellow (1953) and later as Senior Thoracic Registrar (1954). Four years later, in 1958, Ross was appointed Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, and subsequently Consultant Surgeon, National Heart Hospital in London (1963), and Senior Surgeon there (1967). In 1970, he was made Director of the Department of Surgery at the Institute of Cardiology, London.
Ross retired in 1997.