Dr Francis Geoffrey Wood-Smith
Personal Details
Dr Francis Geoffrey Wood-Smith MRCS LRCP MB BCh FFARCS BA DA MA
05/08/1904 to 02/4/1990
Place of birth: Croydon, Surrey, England
Nationality: British
CRN: 715904
Education and qualifications
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General education |
Haileybury School, Hertford followed by University of Cambridge |
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Primary medical qualification(s) |
MRCS Eng., LRCP Lond., 1929 |
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Initial Fellowship and type |
FFARCS by Election |
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Year of Fellowship |
1953 |
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Other qualification(s) |
BA, University of Cambridge, 1926 |
Professional life and career
Postgraduate career
After graduation Wood-Smith was a casualty house physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, followed by house officer in surgery and obstetrics at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. Next he was a Civil Medical Officer in charge of the women & children’s wards at the RAF Hospital, Cranwell, Lincolnshire. By 1935 he returned to London to be District Medical Officer for the LCC in Westminster and also undertook medical referrals from insurance companies. In the Second World War he joined the RAMC and became a specialist anaesthetist (1939-45), eventually attaining the rank of Colonel. After demobilisation he had a period in general practice in London (Wood-Smith & Pitts), but became a clinical assistant in the Anaesthetic Department of St Bartholomew’s Hospital and anaesthetist for ENT at St George’s Dispensary (LCC). When the NHS started he was appointed Consultant Anaesthetist at St Giles’ Hospital, Camberwell, and Lecturer in Anaesthesia at the Postgraduate Medical School, based at Hammersmith Hospital, London. Soon he was appointed to a Consultant post at the Hammersmith Hospital and later the King’s College Hospital Group. He retired about 1971.
Professional interests and activities
From 1949 Wood-Smith contributed to several papers on anaesthesia in the medical journals. He served on the Council of the AAGBI 1957-60. Notably in 1962 he instigated the first edition of the book “Drugs in Anaesthetic Practice” for which he enlisted the pharmacologist, Harold C . Stewart, as co-author. This book ran through many editions in the next four decades and was a standard text for trainee anaesthetists in British practice. Wood-Smith continued to be a co-author (even in retirement) up to the 6th edition (1984). He was Hon. Treasurer of the Fourth World Congress of Anaesthesiology hosted by the AAGBI in London in 1968, and was made an Honorary Member of the AAGBI in 1981.
Other biographical information
He married Joan Loane in 1933 and they had a son and a daughter. On retirement to the village of Lower Halstow in Kent, he and his wife enjoyed sheep farming and wine making. Predeceased by his daughter and his wife, he was somewhat reclusive in his later years.
Author and sources
Author:
Dr Alistair McKenzie
Sources and comments:
[1] Obituary. BMJ 1990; 300: 1522. [2] Medical Registers and Directories. [3] ancestry.co.uk