A pioneer in otolaryngology

Andrew Morrison led the field in ground-breaking surgery for inner earconditions, acoustic tumour surgery, and the earliest multi-channel cochlear implantation. His career spanned from the 1950s to the 1990s, and he was involved with the NHS during perhaps its greatest years of optimism and throughout a period of rapid advancement in surgery and medicine in general.

Ear surgery also evolved exponentially during this time, because of the development of precise high speed drills, and, more importantly, the operating microscope. Microsurgery came of age, and he was one of the exponents of this thanks to a velvety and precise surgical skill.

In the early 1960s he was influenced by the House Otologic Institute in California and was instrumental in the development of the trans-labyrinthine surgical approach for removal of acoustic nerve tumours. He was the first surgeon in Britain to undertake this operation, which, because of the superior results and much improved recovery for the patient, gained hold. Throughout Europe and America it became one of the mainstay operations for removal of …