Dr Leslie Rendell-Baker

Education and qualifications

Professional life and career

Postgraduate career

After graduation Rendell-Baker undertook house jobs at Preston Hall E.M.S. Hospital in Kent, and casualty officer at the Tilbury Seamen’s Hospital in Essex. In 1942 he joined the RAMC and attained the rank of Captain in a Field Dressing Station; his unit became a Forward Surgical Unit in the D-Day landings in Normandy. On demobilisation after the Second World War, he undertook a trainee post in anaesthetics at Guy’s Hospital, London. Next (1948) he was appointed senior assistant to Mushin, the Director of the Department of Anaesthetics at Cardiff Royal Infirmary. By 1952 he was appointed a Consultant Anaesthetist to the United Cardiff Hospitals and Sully Chest Hospital. Leslie spent one year 1955-56 as a Fulbright visiting assistant professor at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. In 1957 he immigrated permanently to the USA, taking up the post of associate professor of anaesthesiology at Case Western Reserve University Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. He moved in 1962 to spend 17 years as Director of the Department of Anesthesiology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City (and clinical Professor of Anesthesiology at Columbia University School of Medicine). He moved finally in 1979 to join the staff of anaesthesiologists at Loma Linda University in California, where he remained until his retirement in 1998 as emeritus clinical professor.  

Professional interests and activities

Rendell-Baker was co-author with Mushin of two books: “The principles of thoracic anaesthesia, past and present” (1953) and “Automatic ventilation of the lungs” (1959); the latter ran to three editions. Through 1960-62 he worked with dentist Donald H. Soucek at Cleveland, Ohio in designing their eponymous paediatric face masks, which provided a snug fit with minimal dead space and fitted the newly adopted standard (adult) 22 mm anaesthetic breathing system connector. After moving to New York City in 1962, he was appointed chairman of the American National Standards Committee Z79 for anaesthetic equipment. While at Loma Linda in 1981, he became a founder member and chairman of the American Society for Testing and Materials Subcommittee D 10.34, which evolved standards for syringe labelling.  He contributed to at least 75 peer reviewed journal articles, which were mainly on use of hyperbaric oxygen, ventilators, paediatric anaesthesia, standards for anaesthetic equipment and ethylene oxide sterilization. He was held in high esteem as a teacher of anaesthetic practice. In 1982 he published “Problems with anesthetic and respiratory therapy equipment” (Int. Anesthesiol. Clinics Vol.20.No.3). He then began to publish on the history of anaesthesia and he continued this interest in his retirement.    

Other biographical information

He married Rosemary Carr Hogg in Ayr, Scotland in 1946 and they had three daughters. In retirement at Redlands, California he enjoyed photography. Sadly his last years were marred by Parkinson’s disease

Author and sources

Dr Alistair McKenzie: 

Sources and comments:

[1] Rendell-Baker -Soucek Mask. In Maltby JR (Ed.) Notable Names in Anaesthesia. London: RSM Press, 2002; 173-5. [2] Medical Registers and Directories.