Robert Dick

Robert Dick (“Bob”), who died in April 2019, was a founding father of interventional radiology, past president of the British Society of Interventional Radiology (BSIR), and past president of the Royal Society of Medicine’s radiology section. He had also been a vice dean of the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine and a chair of the ethics committee as well as consultant radiologist at the Royal Free Hospital where he inspired a generation of medical students and doctors with his energetic, friendly and egalitarian approach.

Bob was born in Sydney, Australia, to Mary Mercia and Robert Dick. His father was a GP and his mother was one of the first women to train as a pharmacist in Australia. He was immersed in medicine from early days as his father’s practice operated from home, and he frequently accompanied his father on house calls, waiting in the car while his father saw patients.

After school at Riverview Jesuit College he studied medicine at the University of Sydney and Royal North Shore Hospital and graduated in 1960 with the medal for first place in all subjects. He set off to the UK in 1966 as a ship’s surgeon on the SS Bendigo, to take up a radiological registrar post for Commonwealth graduates at the Middlesex Hospital. During this placement he passed the FRCR exam—and met (“the greatest event of my life”) and married Diana Fairclough (a graduate of Guy’s medical school). In 1967 they travelled together to Athens for …