Kenneth John Gurling

Former postgraduate dean University of Nottingham and consultant physician Derbyshire Royal Infirmary (b 1921; q King’s College Hospital Medical School, London, 1945; MD, FRCP), died from heart disease on 17 June 2002.

Kenneth volunteered for the army as a medical student at the age of 18 but was sent back to medical school. He was an excellent rugby player and helped organise hospital club tours to France and enjoyed watching the game throughout his life. After the second world war he was a major in the Royal Army Medical Corps and had the responsibility of being a medical director of hospitals in Somalia and the Sudan. From 1948 to 1954 he was registrar in the diabetic department at King’s College Hospital, where he developed an interest in endocrinology. For the next two years he carried out research at the University of Pennsylvania—funded by a US public health service fellowship—into the effects of methotrexate on tumour cells. This research was continued for three more years at the Royal Free Hospital before appointment as a consultant physician in Derby. He developed a reputation for being a very good postgraduate teacher. Long and busy diabetic and endocrinology clinics were combined with being area director of postgraduate medical education and clinical tutor, until the birth of the new Nottingham University medical school in 1970, at which time he was appointed the first postgraduate dean. He remained intimately involved in postgraduate education in Derby and Nottingham until his retirement in 1986. He loved music, and in retirement managed to get himself the position of tour manager in Europe for the English Sinfonia Orchestra. Predeceased by his first wife, Nora, in 1975, he leaves his second wife, Monica; a son and daughter from his first marriage; and three grandchildren. [Hugh Gurling]