Ross, Sir (James) Keith

Sir James Keith Ross was born on 9th of May 1927 in London. He was the 2nd Baronet, a title that he inherited in 1980. In 1956 he married Jacqueline Annella Clarke and they had one son and three daughters.

He studied at St Paul's School till 1945 and in 1950 graduated from the Middlesex Hospital Medical School (MB BS). During his studies Ross obtained distinctions and awards including the Certificate for Proficiency in Histology (1946), the Asher Scholarship in Anatomy (1947), the Lyell Medal, Scholarship in Surgery and Surgical Anatomy and the Middlesex Hospital Medical Society Historical Prize, both in 1950.

Ross started his surgical career in the Middlesex Hospital in 1950 as House Surgeon and later as Demonstrator of Anatomy. In 1952 he obtained the Primary Fellowship in the Royal College of Surgeons and the Hallett Prize. During the years 1952-1954 Ross served in the Navy (he was a Member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and was awarded in 1967), and afterwards he was appointed House Surgeon in the Middlesex Hospital. At the beginning of 1955 he was a Casualty Surgical Officer and at the end of the same year a Registrar. In 1956 Ross obtained the Final Fellowship in the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Ross' following appointment was at the Brompton Hospital in London. In 1959 as a Heller Fellow in Cardiovascular Surgery, he was accepted in the surgical team of F Gerbode in San Francisco for one year. After his return to Britain he continued his career in the Brompton Hospital till 1961 when he moved both to the Harefield and the Middlesex Hospital as the Senior Registrar in Cardiothoracic Surgery. The same year Ross was appointed Hunterian Professor from the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1965 he obtained the Master of Surgery from the University of London with his thesis titled "Tissue Grafts in Cardiac Surgery".

His consultant career started in 1964, when he joined the Central Middlesex Hospital and the Willesden Chest Clinic as Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon. He also changed his appointment to Consultant in the Harefield Hospital. After 1967 Ross was working as Consultant Cardiac Surgeon, first in the National Heart Hospital (1967-1972) and later in the Wessex Region, Southampton (1972-1990) and King Edward VII Hospital in Midhurst (1978-1992). In May 1968, being in the National Heart Hospital he was a member of the surgical team (with Donald Longmore and Donald Ross) that carried out the first heart transplantation in England. Since 1990 he has been a Consultant Emeritus to the Southampton and Southwest Hampshire Health Authority.

Ross' career was full of distinctions in England and abroad. In 1961 he became a member of the Cardio-thoracic Society (Pete's Club). In 1982 Ross obtained a membership of James IV Association of Surgeons, and he was also Postgraduate Dean in the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons (1981-1985) and Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons (1986-1994). Just before his retirement (1990), Ross was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh without examination and the Bruce Medal as well as the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Medicine (1989).

His publications are concentrated on cardiac surgery and can be found in the appropriate medical journals such as The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Thorax, The Lancet, The British Medical Journal etc.

For further biographical information see the two CVs contained in the archives (A.13 & A.14) and Who's Who 2003.

At Wellcome Collection:

Archives and Manuscripts collections: PP/FPW, PP/LEW, SA/BCV, GC/15, 137, 170, 240. For further materials relating to Immunology, see Sources leaflet no. 40: Immunology, Virology, Vaccination.