Ronald Marks

Every Saturday morning in Cardiff, Ronald Marks (“Ronnie”) led a personal ward round, and a pathology slide review. As his registrar, once you reluctantly accepted that your Saturday was disappearing, these were superb training sessions. The morning would often finish with a game of squash. Ronnie’s unique personality, great drive, huge energy, creative imagination, and persuasive powers propelled him to become one of the world’s most dynamic academic dermatologists of the late 20th century.

Ronald Marks was born on the 25 of March 1935, to Isidore and Jessie Marks, themselves the children of east European Jewish immigrants. His daughter Naomi explains that “The family moved west from London’s East End to Maida Vale during the war and Ronnie, nine years later joined by a sister, Ruth, spent his whole childhood there. He was short sighted, but his concerned mother’s eye exercises were singularly unsuccessful. He went to Marylebone Grammar School where he excelled academically, at least in part motivated by his ambitious parents, and was a prizewinning student. He started sixth form studying Classics and it was only a good way down this path that he switched to sciences, teaching himself as the school did not have the requisite teachers. He won a scholarship to Guy’s Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1959. ”

Ronnie spent five years in the Royal Army Medical Corps, including two years in Munster, West Germany. During this time he worked mainly in dermatology, but his formal training came later at St George’s Hospital and St John’s Institute of Dermatology in London. After a short time as consultant at St John’s, Ronnie moved to the first academic dermatology post at the Welsh National School of Medicine, based at …