Tony was an undergraduate from Cambridge and undertook his clinical training at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. After SHO training he was appointed as an ENT Registrar at the Royal Free Hospital and then Senior Registrar at the Royal Marsden and St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, now part of Imperial College London. He undertook research at St Mary’s before being appointed consultant ENT surgeon at Wexham Park Hospital in Berkshire.
Tony set up and built a fantastic ENT department at Wexham Park by appointing bright young surgeons and mentoring them with a culture of patient centred care and education at its heart. He was also instrumental in getting the funding for the excellent postgraduate training facilities built at Wexham Park Hospital and for many years the finest such facilities within the Thames Valley.
Tony was also very interested in surgical education and worked initially as one of the Associate Deans for postgraduate medical and dental education in what was then called the Oxford Deanery. He started many initiatives, including faculty training as well as training for all specialty trainees in NHS management, such as the 'Nuts and bolts of NHS management' courses and the 'Lead or be led' course.
He was visionary in setting up a shadow board for the School of Surgery ahead of the Royal Surgical Colleges and Health Education England setting up the postgraduate schools of surgery across the United Kingdom. He was appointed as the inaugural Head of the Health Education Thames Valley Postgraduate School of Surgery and also led many of the initiatives of the joint committee of the Heads of School of Surgery nationally.
He went on to undertake a Master's in Surgical Education at Imperial College passing with a distinction and was then appointed as Deputy Dean of Health Education Thames Valley.
Tony also had a long-standing interest in global surgery and in particular had provided leadership training in Kenya. He was also instrumental in helping to set up the annual Oxford University Global Surgery credit-bearing course over eight years ago. Tony carried on teaching on the course for some years and then mentored newer faculty for this extremely successful course with over 150 applicants worldwide in 2025 for its 32 places.
Tony has been a force of nature in developing postgraduate surgical education in the Thames Valley and many people that he has mentored have gone on to take up surgical educator roles across England and Wales. Throughout the last three decades, Tony has been known in the Thames Valley and Oxford for his amiability, affability and his abilities as an educator and trainer himself. We know that he has been strongly supported in this work by his wife Jane, his family of medics and his strong Christian faith.
Tony was a remarkable man and has made a huge impact in both surgical education in the UK and globally through the Global Surgery Group. He leaves a strong legacy of surgical education in the Thames Valley and in the global surgery work from Oxford.
He will be missed greatly, but remembered very fondly for his attributes and legacy in surgical education.
| Ashok Handa Professor of Vascular Surgery Clinical Tutor in Surgery Co-PI Global Surgery Group |
Kokila Lakhoo Professor of Global Paediatric Surgery Consultant Paediatric Surgeon Head and PI Global Surgery Group |