Who’s Who in Orthopedics
It is as a teacher that McMurray will be remem- bered. He was forceful, dogmatic, and even intol- erant if the principles of Hugh Owen Thomas were denied. “You’ve read that in a book” he would say with reproof. He was not an orator, but his words will long be remembered: “Feel it laddie”; “I think you’re splendid”; “Get on with it laddie”; “You’re a credit to us.” The building up of a great postgraduate school of orthopedic studies, with the MChOrth degree of the Univer- sity of Liverpool, is the permanent contribution he made to the surgery of his generation. It is dif- ficult to know the full extent to which he main- tained and enhanced the Liverpool tradition of orthopedic surgery, but a measure of it is in the words of his old students, from the four quarters of the world, inscribed in a recent presentation volume:
This book is signed and presented by your old students as a symbol of their respect and affection and to record for ever the debt they and their country owe to you. By your skill and by your teaching you have enhanced a great tradition: this is now our treasured heritage and by our deeds we will preserve it.
Shortly before his death he was still teaching postgraduate students from Australia, Canada, South Africa and many other parts of the world, and only a few days before he died, when the Hugh Owen Thomas Lecture was delivered in Liverpool, he welcomed “a lost sheep” back to the fold. He died from a heart attack in London on November 16, 1949, while on his way to South Africa to visit his son.
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Walter MERCER
1891–1971
Sir Walter Mercer, Emeritus Professor of Ortho- pedic Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, Past President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the American College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Ireland and Canada, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of South Africa, Master of Orthopedic Surgery honoris causa in the University of Liverpool, Honorary Fellow of the American Orthopedic Association, the Asso- ciation of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, and Emeritus Fellow of the British Orthopedic Asso- ciation, died 1 month before his 81st birthday.
He was chairman of the British editorial board of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery for 7 years. On the occasion of his 80th birthday in March 1970, a special issue was published in his honor (Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, volume 52-B, no. 1, February 1970), with tributes from surgical colleagues, academic associates and former students, and appreciations of his incredi- ble skill as an operating surgeon, and of his ability as a great teacher and firm but kind examiner.
There were tributes also to his authorship of a wonderfully written and now standard textbook on orthopedic surgery, and to his strength of char- acter in organization. He was acclaimed, though he modestly disowned, as the greatest “general surgeon” within our memory. He was presented
with a leather-bound and gold-faced preparation of this issue at a ceremony in his home at Easter Belmont Road, Edinburgh, receiving representa- tives of the editorial board still with the sparkle in his eye, quick wit and warm-heartedness. We are grateful and honored to know from his wife Maisie, Lady Mercer, that often in his remaining months of life he thumbed it through and reflected on the allegiance, respect and friendships that were so dear to him.
Born at Stow, Midlothian, and educated at George Watson’s College and the University of Edinburgh, Walter Mercer graduated in medicine and surgery in 1912 with honors in practical anatomy, clinical surgery, systematic surgery and operative surgery. Already at this young age the destiny of a great surgeon was defined clearly.
After surgical house appointments in Carlisle, Berwick and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, he gained a commission in the army and served as regimental medical officer to the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and the Royal Scots Fusiliers.
There must be few who were able to serve their country in surgical military duties in both the great wars of 1914–1918 and 1939–1945; but he did. In the first he was in the trenches of the Messines Ridge, the desperate struggles of the Somme and the third battle of Ypres. He was invalided home but continued to work in the military hospital at Bangour and on problems of tuberculosis at East Fortune Hospital until demo- bilization in 1920. In the Second World War he was consultant orthopedic surgeon at Larbert base hospital and thoracic surgeon to Bangour hospital.
His success as a general surgeon was based not, as often it then was, on lists of gastroenterostomy, thyroidectomy and operations on the breast, with perhaps an occasional hemorrhoid, skin cyst or bunion just to give verisimilitude to the otherwise unconvincing title of “general.” He first concen- trated on traumatic surgery and during the years of war made important contributions, especially on the problems of amputation, later becoming chairman of the Ministry of Health advisory committee on artificial limbs. Then for some years his expert surgical technique was applied to oesophagogastric and abdominal surgery. He next engaged in neurosurgery and soon became a pioneer of thoracic surgery. After visiting Dr.
Blalock in Baltimore, he came home with suit- cases almost empty of clothes but full of special instruments with which to establish cardiac surgery in Scotland. He delighted to use a stetho-
scope with tubes 6 feet long, the distal part ster- ilized to go into the wound but with earphones available to surrounding students who would never forget the loud bruit of a patent ductus arte- riosus disappearing immediately after ligation.
Then finally he applied himself to orthopedic surgery and in 1948 accepted the first George Harrison Law Chair of Orthopedic Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, during the next 10 years developing the great school of orthopedics of which that capital city is now justly proud.
His skill in operative technique was phenome- nal, and Lady Mercer has given permission to reproduce the oil painting of him in theater dress.
With cool and calculating certainty, never with a wasted movement, never with apparent frustra- tion or tension, his speed was such that it is said that one visiting surgeon went out for a cup of coffee while the patient was prepared for arthro- plasty of the hip and returned soon to find with dismay that the wound was being stitched up. He did not practice a strict Lane technique, and in fact used the flexed and ankylosed terminal inter- phalangeal joint of his left index finger as the safest of all retractors. Yet with technique so speedy and atraumatic, the operative infection rate was far below average in a pre-antibiotic era.
Mercer’s presidency of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh marked a renaissance from what his successor Sir John Bruce described as previously “almost entirely an examining body and a parochial surgical society” to a live and inspiring College with vigorous postgraduate sur- gical training, teaching in basic sciences, restora- tion of buildings and museums, establishment of its own publication, the Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and re- establishment of Royal patronage. In reminding His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh that the last royal sponsor of the College had been King George III, and deciding to present a valu- able piece of Georgian silver from barber-surgeon days, Walter Mercer’s aura of kind benignity was reflected when having said: “Your Royal High- ness we wish to give you this . . . bleeding bowl,”
Prince Philip at once replied “I am bloody grateful.”
Perhaps the most happy of all our memories is the hospitality of his home. No matter whether he met us at the overnight train from London at a very early hour, driving himself to an already pre- pared bath and breakfast, or whether we shared or heard of his prowess in tennis or golf with his wife Maisie, we always felt welcome. We will 231
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
preserve these memories with Lady Mercer and her son David.
served as a prototype for many of the outpatient surgical centers that would come into being in the next decade, demonstrating that operations could be done rapidly, at a much reduced cost. This trend has had a major impact on surgery.
Dr. Metcalf joined the faculty at the University of Utah and was appointed Professor of Orthopedic Surgery in 1983. He gave hundreds of presentations on arthroscopy, nationally and internationally. Although he was not a prolific writer, Bob was responsible for several important publications in his field. He was a member of many societies, serving on many committees of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and as president, in 1984, of the Arthroscopy Association of North America, to name a few.
He contributed immensely to the Orthopedic Research and Education Foundation, serving as chairman for the State of Utah from 1980 to 1983.
He was also active in the Western Orthopedic Association and the Utah State Medical Associa- tion. One of the honors of which he was most proud was being named “Mr. Sports Medicine”
by the American Orthopedic Society of Sports Medicine in 1983.
Perhaps Bob Metcalf’s greatest professional achievements were the 26 national seminars on arthroscopic surgery that he organized and con- ducted between 1978 and 1991. His tremendous personal efforts and organizational skills were apparent each year. These seminars were amaz- ingly successful; with a total registration of 9,325 orthopedic surgeons, they represent a unique edu- cational effort in orthopedics. It was the continu- ing credibility of Bob Metcalf that brought new and returning registrants to the seminars.
In 1958, Bob married his friend and lifelong companion, Joyce Hawkes. They had ten chil- dren, to whom he devoted a major portion of his life. At his seminars, the children were apparent everywhere, helping him with details.
It might be that Robert Metcalf’s greatest legacy was not to orthopedics but rather to humanity. He was a devoutly religious man, having been a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Always eager to share the tenets in which he believed, he was continu- ously involved in missionary work throughout the world. Four of his sons also completed a 2-year, full-time mission for the Latter-Day Saints. The orthopedic community lost a true educator and a good friend when Robert William Metcalf died unexpectedly on June 2, 1991, in his beloved Salt Lake City, Utah. He was at a meeting of the Inter- 232
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Robert William METCALF
1936–1991
Bob Metcalf was born in Salt Lake City on Sep- tember 12, 1936. He received his undergraduate and graduate education at the University of Utah and received a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1962. After 2 years of postgraduate training in general surgery, he spent 2 years in the United States Army. He then returned to the University of Utah to complete his orthopedic residency, before entering a career that would ultimately affect many of us.
Dr. Metcalf entered private practice in Provo, Utah, and became very active in sports medicine as the team physician for Brigham Young Uni- versity, a position that he held for more than 10 years. During that time, he cared for and influ- enced many outstanding young athletes.
In the mid-1970s, Bob Metcalf became intensely interested in arthroscopy, and this pursuit profoundly affected the rest of his profes- sional life. After joining the individuals who were pioneering this adolescent discipline, his zeal became readily apparent, and his natural talent as an educator allowed him to have an influence on thousands of orthopedic surgeons.
In 1979, he moved his practice to Salt Lake City, where he became instrumental in develop- ing the Salt Lake Surgical Center. The center
