Ian Aird (4 July 1905 – 17 September 1962) was a Scottish surgeon who became Professor of Surgery at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London.
There he built up a large and productive research department which made particular contributions in cardiac surgery, renal transplantation and the association of blood groups with stomach cancer.
[2] In 1930, after a year spent learning at surgical clinics in Paris and Vienna, he passed the examinations to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (FRCSEd).
[8] As a result of this work he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship which enabled him to pursue his research and gain further experience in the Department of Surgery of Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine under the direction of Evarts Graham.
His work there on the pathophysiology of intestinal strangulation formed the basis of the thesis for which he was awarded the degree of Master of Surgery (ChM) with high commendation in 1935.
[2] While working as an assistant surgeon in Edinburgh, he established, with his friend and colleague John Bruce, an evening and weekend tutorial course to prepare candidates for the FRCSEd examination.
[2] With the outbreak of the Second World War, Aird was called up for service with the Royal Army Medical Corps and was posted initially to Plymouth with the rank of major.
Colonel, he served as surgeon in charge of a forward surgical unit of 17th Indian Field Ambulance, part of the Eighth Army in the North African campaign.
After successful resuscitation Aird performed a thoracotomy, watched by German officers, including, he later discovered, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
After the war Aird wrote poignantly of being visited in London by the officer's widow and son for whom he was able to describe the manner of Col. Stephan's death and where he had been buried.
[11] After the war he returned to Edinburgh as surgeon to the Sick Children's Hospital and became deputy director of the Wilkie Surgical Research Laboratory.
He arrived at a department which had very limited accommodation and facilities, but which, over the next 15 years he was to develop into a surgical unit with an international reputation for research and innovation.
The operation was successful and Melrose and William Cleland, a thoracic surgeon in Aird's department, joined the small band of pioneers of open heart surgery.
He arranged for Cleland and Melrose to travel to Moscow where they performed several cardiac operation under cardio-pulmonary bypass, and they are credited with introducing open heart surgery into Russia.
[10] William J. Dempster, a Scottish surgeon who had trained in vascular surgery in France, carried out early animal renal transplants and explored the use of cortisone and radiation to suppress immunity and prolong graft survival.
Members of Aird's department included R H Franklin, who researched into causes of gastric and oesophageal cancer and who performed the first operation in Europe for tracheo-oesophageal fistula, Peter Martin was tasked by Aird to set up a vascular surgery unit, one of the first in the UK, which attracted surgeons from around the world who came to learn techniques of reconstructive vascular surgery.
[18] Geoffrey Knight, a neurosurgeon, became a pioneer in the controversial techniques known as psychosurgery[19] and Selwyn Taylor gained an international reputation in the surgery of the thyroid and parathyroid glands.