Humphrey Kay; pioneering haematologist and oncologist
Hyfler/Rosner
November 24, 2009
Professor Humphrey Kay: haematologist and oncologist
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6928778.ece
The haematologist, pathologist and oncologist Humphrey Kay
was best known for pioneering a scientific approach to the
diagnosis and treatment of leukaemia. It is the most common
form of childhood cancer although it affects three times as
many adults as children. In the UK, it is diagnosed in about
7,000 people every year.
Forty years ago leukaemia was usually fatal, killing the
patient within weeks. It was, after accidents, the most
frequent cause of childhood death. The treatment of
leukaemia is one of the great successes of modern medicine.
Today three out of four children, and increasing numbers of
adults, with leukaemia can be cured.
In 1963 Kay and his colleagues introduced a radical approach
to the treatment of leukaemia. They designed a new ward at
the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, for the protective
isolation of bone-marrow depleted or immuno-suppressed
patients. Kay was in administrative charge of the ward,
evolving procedures and assessing its benefits and cost.
The first patients were admitted to the ward at the end of
1965. In 1971 an important paper was published in the
Lancet, describing the five-year experience of the ward.
This led to the construction of an improved ward, the Bud
Flanagan Ward, equipped for intensive treatment of acute
leukaemia, to facilitate the transplantation of bone marrow.
(Money for the ward was bequeathed by the comedian Bud
Flanagan, whose son had died of leukaemia.) The first
successful bone marrow transplant was performed in the ward
in 1973.
Humphrey Edward Melville Kay was born in 1923 in Croydon,
Surrey. His father, Arnold Innes, was an Anglican minister,
and his mother, Winifred Julia Kay, was a missionary doctor.
When he was a baby he and his mother joined his father in
India. The family moved back to England when he was 4. He
was educated at Bryanston School, Blandford, Dorset. He
studied medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, qualifying in 1945,
and then worked as a house physician and senior medical
casualty officer at St Thomas'. In February 1947 he joined
the RAF Volunteer Reserve and served at the RAF hospital at
Weeton, Lancashire, and in Aden.
Between 1949 and 1956 he was an assistant lecturer and then
lecturer in Pathology at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School.
In 1956 he was appointed consultant clinical pathologist at
the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, a post he held until
1984. He became Professor of Haematology in 1982 and
Professor Emeritus in 1984.
In 1968 he was appointed secretary to the leukaemia trials
committee of the Medical Research Council. He organised the
collaboration of US, British and French leukaemia
specialists in the research into and the treatment of the
disease, which led to the first international protocols for
leukaemia treatment. Kay was a prolific writer, authoring or
co-authoring more than 120 scientific papers and a number of
chapters in books.
On retirement from medicine he began a second career, as a
naturalist. An excellent communicator, he enjoyed taking
parties of Marlborough School pupils into Savernake Forest
and lecturing about natural history and conservation. He was
an enthusiastic member of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and a
member of its council. He specialised in entomology but took
an interest in most conservation issues.
He contributed to the debate about badgers and bovine
tuberculosis, and, between 1988 and 1998, was a member of
the National Badger Advisory Panel. In 1996 the Wildlife
Trusts awarded him the Christopher Cadbury Medal for his
contributions to conservation. In 2002 he published a Survey
of Wiltshire Hedgehogs. He also wrote poetry: in 2002 he
published Poems Polymorphic, a collection of humorous poems.
Kay was married twice. His first wife died in 1990. His
second wife survives him, along with a son, two daughters, a
stepson and a stepdaughter.
Professor Humphrey Kay, haematologist and oncologist, was
born on October 10, 1923. He died of a heart attack on
October 20, 2009, aged 86
La N
> From The Times
> November 24, 2009
>
> Professor Humphrey Kay: haematologist and oncologist
>
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6928778.ece
>
> The haematologist, pathologist and oncologist Humphrey Kay
> was best known for pioneering a scientific approach to the
> diagnosis and treatment of leukaemia. It is the most common
> form of childhood cancer although it affects three times as
> many adults as children. In the UK, it is diagnosed in about
> 7,000 people every year.
>
> Forty years ago leukaemia was usually fatal, killing the
> patient within weeks. It was, after accidents, the most
> frequent cause of childhood death. The treatment of
> leukaemia is one of the great successes of modern medicine.
> Today three out of four children, and increasing numbers of
> adults, with leukaemia can be cured.
>
Thank you, Dr. Kay. Much appreciated!
- nilita