The late Graham Fraser

Nigel Knight writes:

Many of you will remember Graham who joined our clinical year from Oxford. He was Consultant ENT Surgeon at UCH/Middlesex. His great interest was the treatment of the profoundly deaf by cochlear implants. Despite good results in Australia and USA, the NHS would not help with this initially and there was much scepticism from a number of influential consultants. Graham approached the Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust which funded a pilot implant project at UCH. The success of this enabled Graham to convince the then Health Minister (David Mellor) and a very successful national programme was set up. Many deafened people owe Graham an immense debt.

His untimely death in 1994 at the age of 57 cut short much promising research and development work designed to improve the quality of life of those disabled by profound deafness. In recognition of his great achievements and the need for his work to continue, his widow Pat, his friends and colleagues set up a Foundation in his memory (www.grahamfraserfoundation.org.uk). (Click on link at right.) This has endowed an annual lecture at the RSM by distinguished clinicians and researchers worldwide and, when funds permitted, enabled a travelling Fellow to spend six months in Professor Gibson’s unit in Sydney.