Professor Richard Wood

Surgeon with a special interest in kidney transplantation

Richard Frederick Marshall Wood, surgeon: born Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire 6 January 1943; Lecturer in Surgery, Leicester University 1974-77, Senior Lecturer 1977-81; Senior Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School 1980; Clinical Reader in Surgery and Fellow of Green College, Oxford University 1981-84; Professor of Surgery, St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College 1984-94, Professor of Surgery, Sheffield University 1994-2002; married 1968 Christine Jamieson (two sons); died Sheffield 11 April 2003.

Richard Wood was a committed surgeon-scientist who was recognised internationally in the fields of transplantation and vascular surgery.

Although kidney transplants had been performed for a number of years before he became involved in the field in 1968, Wood was one of the group of surgeons responsible for the establishment of the effective co-ordinated transplantation programmes from which so many patients now benefit. He served as a member of the Management Committee of the UK Transplant Service (the national co-ordinating organisation for transplantation) and was also Vice-President of the International Transplantation Society. He was elected a Foundation Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998.

In the early years, the potent immunosuppressant drugs that provide the mainstay of current anti-rejection treatment for transplanted organs had yet to be introduced, as did better techniques for identifying the development of rejection. This initiated an interest in the immunology of the rejection response and Wood presented some of his work as a founder member of the British Transplantation Society at its inaugural meeting in 1972. He was awarded an MD for his research work in 1975.

His passion for academic surgery was boundless and his enthusiasm infectious. An accomplished surgeon, he was totally committed to the care and welfare of patients in his charge. As a teacher, he was a great source of inspiration and motivation for clinical trainees, taking great pride in the progression of his former protégés, and following their developing careers with great interest.

Wood was born in 1943 in Cheshire, but spent the majority of his formative years in Scotland which became his adopted country. Having attended Glasgow Academy, he studied Medicine at Glasgow University where he was also a front-row forward in the university rugby team. The award of the Medical News essay prize for the design of his own medical curriculum in 1966 set the scene for his lifelong commitment to the teaching of medical undergraduates. A series of hospital appointments in Glasgow followed, during the last of which he worked as part of a team in setting up one of the first clinical kidney transplantation programmes in the the UK in a department headed by Professor Sir Andrew Watt Kay.

Wood's opportunity to further his interests in transplantation and teaching arose when another colleague from Glasgow, Professor (now Sir) Peter Bell went to Leicester in 1974 to establish the academic department of surgery as part of the newly founded Leicester University Medical School. Now, as a lecturer in Leicester, Wood once again helped to set up a kidney transplantation programme, for which he assumed day-to-day responsibility on his appointment to a Senior Lectureship in 1978.

His special interest in kidney transplantation was further developed following a six-month Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, following which he was appointed a Fellow of Green College, Oxford, and Clinical Reader in Surgery with Professor (now Sir) Peter Morris at Oxford University in 1981.

His interests in transplantation immunology continued throughout his career, and whilst in Oxford he conducted research which facilitated the clinical introduction of what was to become the first widely used immunosuppresant, Cyclosporin A. He also helped to introduce the technique of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology to study cells infiltrating transplanted kidneys.

Wood was appointed to the Chair of Surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1984. He expanded the vascular surgical practice and introduced innovative clinical work on the use of lasers for unblocking blood vessels in patients with atherosclerosis. He also assumed directorship of the renal transplantation programme.

It was during this time that he became interested in the field of small bowel transplantation. He conceived and organised the first international symposium on the subject in 1989. This biennial series of symposia continues to thrive, and the next meeting (the eighth) which is to be held in Miami in September is to be dedicated to his memory. He was involved in the first isolated small bowel transplantation from a live- related donor performed in the UK, at Leeds in February 1995.

The proposed reorganisation of the Medical Schools in London with its attendant uncertainty prompted him to move to Sheffield University in 1994 as Professor of Surgery. Here he focused on vascular surgery, being responsible for coordinating the introduction of a unified vascular service for the city. He was Director of the Sheffield Vascular Institute, the largest vascular service in Britain, until his untimely retirement due to ill-health in 2002. His approach to the delivery of clinical services was holistic: every member of the team, clinical and non-clinical, was valued, each having a vital role in delivering optimum patient care. This was recognised in 1997 when the institute was the first winner of the Hospital Doctor Surgical Team of the Year competition.

Wood was a prolific writer who published more than 200 papers, as well as numerous chapters in medical and scientific books. His clinical handbook Renal Transplantation, published in 1983, is always at hand and he co-edited the first comprehensive text on small bowel transplantation which was published in 1993.

Despite his demanding career, he served in the Royal Naval Reserve both as a Seaman Officer and a Medical Officer, achieving the rank of surgeon lieutenant-commander with a Reserve Decoration. He was a devoted husband and father and as a passionate sailor, spent many holidays cruising in the Western Isles with his wife, Christine, and their two sons, Douglas and Alastair.

Graham Pockley