17th August 2015

As I was away last week, this post is a little generalised so I apologise. I hope Changeover Day nerves have given way a little bit to excitement and interest in the challenges your new posts bring.

This week, rather than a Surgeon of the Week, I though I'd hit you with a whole department: the Rowley Bristow Unit.

Before I left we welcomed our new cohort to the Unit, and I gave them a little background to the legacy of Orthopaedic training that lies with our Unit's name.

Walter Rowley Bristow (1882 - 1947) was a St Thomas's graduate who seems to have spent most of his undergraduate life playing water polo, golf and driving fast cars supplied by the Bank of Dad. He passed his exams "with an apparent absence of effort" http://www.bjj.boneandjoint.org.uk/content/30-B/1/200 and by the start of WW1 he had a private practice in problems of the Locomotor System. He served as a Medical Officer at Gallipoli and on return joined the Military Orthopaedic Centre where he came to the notice of that giant of Orthopaedics, Sir Robert Jones, who became Director at the very first Orthopaedic Centre set up at St Thomas's in 1919. Strange that less than 100 years ago an Orthopaedic Specialist Centre was a novelty: a seemingly young speciality but to date the largest speciality group of surgeons on the Royal College register.

He was a founding member of the British Orthopaedic Association (@BritOrthopaedic) and past President, but his connection with Surrey is his appointment as Honorary Orthopaedic Consultants to two Childrens' Homes moved form Tooting and Surbiton to Pyrford, looking after 130 patients with surgical tuberculosis, infantile paralysis (polio), congenital deformities and ricketts. Rowley Bristow brough his entire team down there for two days a week, and was a legendary teacher http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/rowleybristow.html

Whilst the Hospital partially burned down, and then was formally closed in 1990, the reputation for Orthopaedic training continues and remains the name of our peninsula next to A&E.

Next week I'll be back on track with what's  up to date and happening @ASPHFT but for now it's 'ciao!' from sunny Italy