Michael Phelps Ward,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(26 March 1925 – 7 October 2005) was an English

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

and an expedition doctor on the

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito i ...

first ascent of

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow heig ...

with

Sir Edmund Hillary Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached t ...

. He argued that the conquest of the mountain was a victory for science since doctors had finally figured out how to cope with the physiological effects of high altitude. His discoveries a few years earlier in the Royal Geographical Society archives of the Milne-Hink map and unofficial RAF photos of the Everest area helped to make the summit ascent possible. He had been on the earlier 1951 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition which pioneered the route used by the 1953 expedition. He was asked by

Eric Shipton Eric Earle Shipton, CBE (1 August 1907 – 28 March 1977), was an English Himalayan mountaineer. Early years Shipton was born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1907 where his father, a tea planter, died before he was three years old. When he was eigh ...

to go on the 1952 British Cho Oyu expedition, but was completing his national military service and sitting an surgery examination. He was a pioneer in high altitude medicine, which he researched with

Griffith Pugh Lewis Griffith Cresswell Evans Pugh (29 October 1909 – 22 December 1994), generally known as Griffith Pugh, was a British physiologist and mountaineer. He was the expedition physiologist on the 1953 British expedition that made the first asce ...

on the 1960-61 Silver Hut expedition. He wrote numerous books including ''Everest: A Thousand Years of Exploration''. He was a supporter of the National Health Service and the East End of London rather than Harley Street. He was a lecturer in Clinical Surgery at the London Hospital Medical College 1975–93, and Consultant Surgeon at St Andrew's Hospital, Bow 1964-93 and Newham Hospital 1983–93. He was appointed a

in 1983. He was from London. He wrote an autobiography ''In'' ''This Short Span'' (1972).

References

*''Obituary'' in "The Times" (London) of 17 October 2005; Issue 68520 page 56.

References

Further reading