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We report with sadness the recent passing of Dr Philip Robinson who was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales and was educated nearby at Rydal School.

He read medicine at Liverpool University graduating in 1942. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, following house appointments, and served mainly in troopships as a medical officer. Returning to Liverpool at the end of the war he graduated M.D. and qualified as a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Following registrar training in Liverpool he was appointed consultant physician in general medicine at Clatterbridge Hospital, Bebington, in the Wirral peninsula.

At Clatterbridge he established and developed a Department of Geriatric Medicine, one of the first modern departments for the care of the elderly in the Northwest of England. His views on how this care should be delivered were not without controversy. He believed that the acute care of the elderly should not be divorced from the rehabilitation and social aspects of older people’s management, and that this care could be combined with a practice in general medicine. He therefore for many years practised general acute medicine as well as rehabilitation and continuing care for elderly patients. This comprehensive care had a most important offshoot. Junior doctors came to his department to train in general medicine and found themselves doing geriatric medicine as well. A considerable number of them then pursued a career in caring for the elderly. Other young doctors in other medical departments were similarly influenced, notably the late Prof Gordon Mills and Dr Jeremy Playfer, recent President of the British Geriatrics Society.

Philip was a clinical lecturer in Geriatric Medicine in the University of Liverpool, Regional Advisor to the London College of Physicians and Vice-Chairman of the Post Graduate Advisory Panel in Medicine at Liverpool University.

He was a pioneer in developing services for the elderly and he was delighted and honoured when he was awarded the BGS 50th anniversary medal for outstanding services to geriatric medicine. He will be remembered by all of us who worked in the same hospital as him as a wonderfully knowledgeable and wise physician who helped many people in their careers. He was well ahead of his time in recognising the importance of Geriatrics. He had a great intellect which he inevitably used in a benign way for the greater good. A great conversationalist, he had a wealth of knowledge of many subjects, becoming an expert ornithologist in his long and happy retirement. He is survived by a son, a daughter and three grandchildren.

John A Aitken
Chris Turnbull
Jerry Playfer

BGS Newsletter, December 2007
Issue 14 ISSN 1748-6343 14