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DR. HUGH PLATT: A TRIBUTE NIGER DELTA MEDICAL JOURNAL TRIBUTE DR. HUGH SHUTER PLATT 1933 - 2019 BY Kelsey A Harrison, NNOM, FRCOG, DSc. Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Former Vice Chancellor of University of Port Harcourt Tuusula, Finland. Email: [email protected] he life of Hugh Platt was summed up by a In that priviledged environment, which UCH Ibadan former colleague in these memorable words: was in the 1960s, we often shared our thoughts on “A born organizer in that everything he many issues. As a trainee pathologist, under the Tengaged in turned out to be better for his input - be it respected Professor George M. Edington CBE, Hugh in the laboratories, in his deanships, in the army or in performed many autopsies on people. I, as a trainee his village shows. “ obstetrician and gynaecologist under the watchful Dr. Hugh Shuter Platt was born on 20 December eyes of Professor John Lawson and his colleagues on 1933 at Shanghai in China. Aged 5 the consultant staff saw many and already back in England with maternal deaths from simple his parents, he continued his early preventable causes, especially education at High Wycombe. e x t r e m e a n a e m i a i n l a t e Afterwards, he became an pregnancy. Hugh for his part, outstanding medical student never stopped stressing that for gaining first class honours in his him “the most difficult thing to BSc in Anatomy at University accept was all those autopsies on College London and then the people most of whom one could MBBS degree with honours and have saved even with the little distinction in Surgery from clinical knowledge” that he had at University College Hospital the time. Obviously he cared (UCH) London in 1958. In fact, we deeply. This interchange of ideas were course mates at UCH, with or 'gisting' as we called it, me having to go there from continued and it was how I got to University College Ibadan, know that his illustrious father, the Nigeria, where I had been a Professor B .S. Platt, CMG was one preclinical student. In London he of six doctors responsible for the and I met for the first time at UCH and became nutritional welfare of the whole of the United friends. We were both outdoor types. He was an Kingdom during World War II of 1939 - 1945, and enthusiastic Rugby Football player for the medical who soon afterwards, in 1947 “created, and built school team and I did the same but in Cricket. with largely ex-war service equipment the Medical After graduation, Hugh became house physician to Research Council of Great Britain (MRC) Professor Lord Max Rosenheim the awe-inspiring establishment at Fajara in the Gambia”. He was its President of the Royal College of Physicians, and first medical director. It still thrives. Hugh told me Chair of Medicine in University of London at UCH. how his father had said to him that “if someone in Later Hugh joined the one year residency Africa tells you that something does not occur in programme in Pathology. Meanwhile, I had Africa, do not believe him – LOOK.” Hugh did just returned home in 1960 to a junior residency post in that in Ibadan in his work on perinatal mortality and UCH Ibadan. Hugh while still in London must have maturity of the Nigerian newborn. It revealed that been inspired by many persons to come to UCH contrary to expert opinion widely held in those days, Ibadan as well, which he did in 1961. Nig Del Med J 2019; 3(2): 5-6 Page 5 DR. HUGH PLATT: A TRIBUTE NIGER DELTA MEDICAL JOURNAL Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS) or Hyaline administrative posts in the Wessex region (Post Membrane Disease is indeed seen in some preterm Graduate Clinical Tutor), in the Royal College of neonates in Nigeria. The work earned him the Pathologists (Director of Studies and Post Graduate degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of Medical Dean), in the military and many more London. besides in and outside the UK. Without exception, When the Nigerian Civil War threatened in the mid they all received the superb benefits of his - 1960s, Hugh left Ibadan with his young family, administrative reforms. Retirement from the and thereafter prospered in the United Kingdom. National Health Service had already come at 65 in In 1971, he became a consultant in chemical 1998 but he carried on for a few years. pathology at UCH, and immediately made his Honorary degrees bestowed on him were mark by designing with his boss, Professor F V Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Flynn, the first pathology Pathologists (1997), Honorary computer system there. Fellow of the Royal College of Interestingly the route he Ophthalmologists (2000), and took to become a consultant Honorary Fellow of the Royal was unusual in the sense that College of Physicians (2001). In “he refused to sit the Royal 1999 he was awarded the OBE College of Pathologists for services to Post Graduate examination because that Medical Education. The Royal college had never published C o l l e g e o f P a t h o l o g i s t s a curriculum to tell him what posthumously created in his he needed to know to pass h o n o u r t h e H u g h P l a t t the examination.” Foundation Training Essay From 1967 onwards he held Prize. a n e x t r a c u r r i c u l a r Troubled for long by a chronic appointment. It was with the illness, he died peacefully at Territorial Army. He rose home in Winchester on 4 steadily, won a Territorial February 2019. He was 85. He is Officer Decoration, then survived by his wife, Christine, b e c a m e a n H o n o r a r y his brother, his three sisters, and Colonel, and eventually an 3 grandchildren. Honorary Brigadier with A kind and generous man, a added responsibilities of great friend of Nigeria and Queen's Honorary Physician Nigerians, and indeed West with the Territorial Army Africans, he believed that his 4 and Technical Adviser to the years in Nigeria, were the most Surgeon General. formative and in many ways, the happiest in his In 1974, attracted by the chance of helping to set up life. He gave Nigerian names to his two daughters, a new hospital and working in a new medical Olusola meaning Thank The Lord and Ijeoma school in Southampton he moved to Basingstoke meaning Good Journey. I remember when Ijeoma District Hospital as a consultant in chemical was born in UCH Ibadan, delivered by the pathology and honorary senior lecturer with indomitable Sister Bisi Alalade. I shall always be University of Southampton. One of his many grateful for my long friendship with Hugh. There achievements was the pioneering of a hugely was never a drawback to it. He was the sort of successful multidisciplinary community diabetic person who would have done anything to help in service. times of trouble. We cherish his memory. Between 1992 and 2002, he held several top Nig Del Med J 2019; 3(2): 5-6 Page 6.