Robert Zachary
Robert Bransby Zachary (1 March 1913 – 1 February 1999) was an English paediatric surgeon who spent the majority of his career at Sheffield Children's Hospital. He was an expert on the treatment of spina bifida and hydrocephalus.
Career
Robert Zachary was born in 1913 in
paediatric surgery and received a grant to train at Boston Children's Hospital. In 1947 he became a consultant paediatric surgeon at Sheffield Children's Hospital, making him the only consultant paediatric surgeon in Britain who had not been trained by Denis Browne at Great Ormond Street Hospital.[1] He was the first full-time surgeon employed by Sheffield Children's Hospital.[2]
Zachary was an expert on
neonatal surgery, and campaigned for all surgery on newborns to be done by specifically trained paediatric surgeons.[1] He developed an international reputation for his expertise on surgical management of spina bifida and hydrocephalus, and founded the Society for Research into Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida. With paediatrician John Lorber and orthopaedic surgeon John Sharrard, Zachary showed that if babies with spina bifida were operated on within hours of birth, the survival rate could be improved from less than 10% to almost 90%.[3] Zachary suffered from severe scoliosis and wrote of his connection with spina bifida patients: "In my own small way I feel a common bond with all those who have spina bifida when I say, 'We who were born with a deformed spine...'"[2]
Zachary was a founding member of the
Sheffield University, the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons' Denis Browne Gold Medal (1977),[4] and Knight Commander with Star of the Order of St. Gregory the Great.[2]
Later life
In 1943 Zachary married Faith Alice Stewart, a theatre nurse whom he worked alongside at Leeds General Infirmary;[2] she died from cancer in 1981. After retiring, he moved to Australia and married his second wife, Winifred. Following her death in 1990, he moved to Canada and married his third wife, Janetta. Zachary died in 1999 in Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland.[1]
Selected publications
- "Survival and Paralysis in Open Myelomeningocele with Special Reference to the Time of Repair of The Spinal Lesion", co-authored with W. J. W. Sharrard and J. Lorber,
References
- ^ a b c "Zachary, Robert Bransby (1913 - 1999)". Plarr's Lives of the Fellows. 8 December 2015. Retrieved 30 June 2019.
- ^ a b c d Emery, John L. (18 March 1999). "Obituary: Professor Robert Zachary". The Independent. Retrieved 30 June 2019.
- ^ Holt, K. S. "John Lorber". Munk's Roll Volume X. Retrieved 30 June 2019.
- PMID 10205126.
Further reading
- "Selective Treatment", Our Heritage