Patrick Clarkson

His experiences during the Second World War and his training with Sir Harold Gillies in burns and facial injuries led to an internationally acclaimed career in that area.

He received his basic education at Christ's College, New Zealand, subsequently studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh, after which he entered Guy's Hospital Medical School on a scholarship.

[1] Clarkson won the Treasurer's Gold Medal in medicine and surgery and completed the Conjoint Diploma in 1935, subsequently qualifying with the FRCS a year later, and then MBBS in 1940.

[1] In 1940, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and two years later was appointed to a training post in plastic surgery under Sir Harold Gillies at Rooksdown House, Basingstoke.

[1] He published extensively in textbooks and journals, mainly on hand surgery and on the treatment of burns, and developed international recognition for his work.

[1] In 1968, as president of the Section of Plastic Surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine, he spoke on recent progress in burns as his presidential address.

His son later explained how his father discovered the 1841 work of Alfred Poland,[5] an anatomy student at the time who described a body with a hypoplastic webbed hand associated with chest wall deformities.