Edward Osmund Royle Reynolds CBE. 3 February 1933—24 April 2017

Abstract

Edward Osmund Royle Reynolds was the founding father of neonatal medicine in the United Kingdom and a major leader in the field worldwide; he was a key advisor to government for a decade. He was one of the first paediatricians to specialize in the care of the newborn. He brought to the field a new emphasis on scientific medicine and intellectual rigour with an adventurous investigative and collaborative spirit. Known as Os by his colleagues, he inspired a team of clinicians and scientists who contributed to major advances in our understanding of lung disease in preterm infants and of neurological insults arising in the perinatal period that have contributed to the markedly improved survival and developmental outcomes observed in the twenty-first century compared with those of the 1950s and 1960s. The whole-body cooling, now widely utilized in the management of perinatal asphyxia, owes its introduction to the ground-breaking research utilizing magnetic resonance spectroscopy in animal and newborn studies initiated by Os. His enthusiasm for new ideas was often in evidence as was the breadth of his interests, knowledge and support. His wider influence is his legacy of the reports to government in which he was involved and is seen today in the National Neonatal Audit Programme run by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health since 2006.