Dr Alan Gilston

FRCS Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (FRCS) is a professional qualification to practise as a senior surgeon in Ireland or the United Kingdom. It is bestowed on an intercollegiate basis by the four Royal Colleges of Surgeons (the Royal ...

, FFARCS (1928-2005) was a British anaesthesiologist. He was one of the team who performed the first

heart transplant A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplant, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease when other medical or surgical treatments have failed. , the most common procedu ...

in the United Kingdom.

Early life

His grandfather was Israel Gitlesohn, Bradford's first

shohet In Judaism, ''shechita'' (anglicized: ; he, ; ; also transliterated ''shehitah, shechitah, shehita'') is slaughtering of certain mammals and birds for food according to ''kashrut''. Sources states that sheep and cattle should be slaughtered ...

, who was from Lithuania.

Career

Gilston was Senior Consultant Anaesthesiologist at the National Heart Hospital from 1967 to 1990. On 3 May 1968, he acted as anaesthetist for the first heart transplant in the United Kingdom, which was also only the eleventh in the world. A founder of the World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine, he also served as its president. He initiated the first World Congress on Intensive Care in 1974, and was its secretary-general. He was founder and chairman of the

Intensive Care Society The Intensive Care Society is the representative body in the United Kingdom for intensive care professionals and patients and the oldest society for critical care medicine in the world. The Society is dedicated to the delivery of the highest qualit ...

. He later gave the society's inaugural Gilston Lecture, named by the society in his honour, and received their silver Medal. He was a

Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (FRCS) is a professional qualification to practise as a senior surgeon in Ireland or the United Kingdom. It is bestowed on an intercollegiate basis by the four Royal Colleges of Surgeons (the Royal ...

(FRCS), and a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (FFARCS).

References

External links

* 1928 births Place of birth missing 2005 deaths Place of death missing British anaesthetists British people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England {{UK-med-bio-stub