Hugh Phillips

Abstract

Orthopaedic surgeon and President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Born in London, on March 19, 1940, died of adenocarcinoma on June 24, 2005, in Norwich, aged 65 years. Hugh Phillips was a man with a phenomenal capacity for work “and an amazing tenacity for his views and how things should run”, recalls his friend and fellow orthopaedic surgeon Thomas Bucknill. Those attributes, which were evident in the 1950s and 1960s when Phillips was a young medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, also contributed to the important roles he played more recently in national policy and professional standards in the UK. Although Phillips was perhaps not a typical leader, says Bucknill, he rose to prominence in a number of leading positions—including the presidency of the British Orthopaedic Association and the orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine, the chairmanship of the Royal College of Surgeons' professional standards and regulation division, and the post of first secretary and, later, president of the British Hip Society. “He wasn't one of those people who jockeyed for position, but he was always willing to take things on”, says Keith Tucker, a surgeon colleague of Phillips' since the late 1970s. “People voted for him in those positions because he was a great guy, a good surgeon, and a good doctor.” Despite the increasing demands that leadership positions placed on his time and energy, Phillips remained dedicated to his surgical work, recalls Bucknill. “He was a very keen surgeon and spent a lot of time operating, more than many surgeons who in later life tend to give everything up and teach. He continued right up until he retired, which is pretty amazing considering the workload and the kind of work.” Phillips was the youngest of three children, and was brought up in London. He began his medical studies in 1958, although his training was briefly interrupted when, at aged 29 years, he developed Hodgkin's disease. He recovered thanks to a treatment regimen that was at the time revolutionary. After a series of junior posts, Phillips joined an orthopaedic training programme at St Bartholomew's, through which he was posted to several leading centres, including the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, Middlesex, Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, London, and the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. In 1975, he took a consultant's post at the hospital in Norwich, where the orthopaedic department was renowned for its pioneering work in hip surgery. Phillips himself estimated that he had carried out something like 6000 joint replacements while there. He was particularly interested in replacing joints destroyed by rheumatoid arthritis. Phillips co-authored several books on joint replacement, and lectured internationally on hip replacements. He also considered orthopaedic training and mentoring to be very important, says John Albert, an orthopaedic surgeon who met Phillips in the early 1980s while a senior registrar at Norwich. “He was very interested in the concept of mentoring”, Albert told The Lancet. “He wasn't just interested in teaching people trade-craft, as it were. It wasn't just a question of learning surgical techniques. Where Hugh Phillips' qualities were particularly strong was in teaching people how to communicate with patients.” His work in professional associations and at a national level was motivated by “a burning desire to improve the lot of patients”, recalls Tucker. “He was also very much into standards”, which led him to take leading roles in the development of the UK's National Joint Registry and to co-author a groundbreaking guide to best practice in hip replacement. Phillips was elected to the presidency of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in early 2004. Before he was inducted in July of that year, however, it became apparent that he had metastatic cancer. With characteristic tenacity, Albert recalls, he continued working and took up the presidency. “He was a tremendously determined person. Once he got something in his grasp, he would see it through.” Colleagues remember his sense of fun. “He had a fantastic sense for the ridiculous”, recalls Bucknill. “Ridiculous human scenarios were great entertainment to him, but he couldn't stand pomposity, and if someone was a bit pompous he would take them down in a fairly gently, charming way.” Phillips is survived by his wife Trish, whom he married in 1966, and their three daughters.