Professor Michael John Davies, MD, FRCPath, FRCP, FACC, FESC

Abstract

Cardiovascular medicine and science lost a leading light with the death in February of Prof Michael J. Davies. A leading exponent of the concept of plaque rupture, Michael Davies’ observations, thought, and articulate advocacy led a major shift in the concepts of the mechanisms of acute myocardial infarction that have transformed contemporary cardiology. Michael Davies’ career in medicine began in 1955 with his studies at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, from which he graduated in 1961. He developed a keen interest in pathology during his early postgraduate days, which solidified when he joined St George’s Hospital as a Registrar (Resident) in Pathology during 1963. When he began his association with this institution, which was to become his academic home, it occupied its original quarters near Buckingham Palace in central London, the site where John Hunter, Edward Jenner, and Sir Henry Gray had worked. Here his research began with work on the pathology of heart block, which led to the award of his academic MD degree …