He was a fellow of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Ireland (1934), Edinburgh (1946) and England (1948); he was almost unique in obtaining all three surgical Fellowships by examination in the days before the primary was "reciprocal.

The knowledge he gained at the New End thyroid clinic – where for a long time he was associated with Sir Geoffrey Keynes and Mr JE Piercy – culminated in his election to a Hunterian Professorship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1952.

[2] Early in 1952 he had the first of several attacks of coronary thrombosis, which returned in 1955 during an extensive lecture tour in the United States under the auspices of the Kellogg Foundation and the International College of Surgeons.

His health precluded him from continuing work as an operating surgeon, but in spite of this disappointment he achieved happiness through his interest in endocrinology in relation to cancer, and was attached to the Royal Marsden Hospital in a research capacity where he dedicated himself to finding answers to various problems in this field.

He used the Hunterian method, collecting the facts (recorded in his note-books in his neat handwriting), classifying them with enthusiasm before making his deductions, which he explained with lucidity.