John Walker-Smith

John Walker-Smith
John Walker-Smith, Thomas Cotton room, Royal College of Physicians, London, (2023)
Born (1936-12-01) 1 December 1936[1]
Sydney, Australia
OccupationGastroenterologist
Academic background
EducationUniversity of Sydney
InfluencesSir Christopher Booth
Academic work
DisciplineGastroenterology
Sub-disciplineInflammatory bowel disease
Parenteral nutrition
InstitutionsRoyal Alexandra Hospital for Children
Brompton Hospital
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
St Bartholomew's Hospital
Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children
Royal Free Hospital
Main interestsSmall intestine
Inflammatory bowel disease

John Walker-Smith (born 1 December 1936) is an Australian-born British emeritus professor of paediatric gastroenterology, formerly at the Royal Free Hospital. Educated in medicine at the University of Sydney, he was employed at St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children before working for the Royal Free Hospital.

Walker-Smith has research interests in the structure of the small intestine, protein losing enteropathy, bile duct inflammation, and inflammatory bowel disease. He previously served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.

Early life and education

John Walker-Smith was born in 1936 in Sydney, Australia, the elder of two children of a urologist.[1] In 1954 he gained a place to study medicine at the University of Sydney, qualifying in 1959.[1]

Early career

In 1961, Walker-Smith released his first publication, and the following year he spent six months at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sydney.[1] After being accepted into a course at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in Hammersmith, London, beginning in the autumn of 1962, he travelled to England as a ship’s doctor.[1] At Hammersmith he became interested in the small bowel under the influence of Sir Christopher Booth.[1][2] In 1963 he joined the Brompton Hospital as house officer, and later became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of both London and Edinburgh.[1]

After completing two years in England Walker-Smith returned to Sydney to join the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital as a research fellow.[2] He then became a member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.[1] He learnt gastroenterological procedures that included parenteral nutrition, liver biopsy, and gastrointestinal endoscopy.[1] His research topics included inflammatory bowel disease, protein losing enteropathy, and bile duct inflammation, with a particular focus on the structure of the small intestine, which became the subject of his doctoral thesis in 1970.[1] In 1966 he moved back to England to take up a post at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children.[1]

From 1973 Walker-Smith held academic positions at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, where in 1985 he became chair of paediatric gastroenterology.[1][2] At the Queen Elizabeth in the deprived area of Hackney, he ran a gastroenteritis clinic, which successfully treated dehydrated children with oral solutions.[3] He also chaired the European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition’s working group on acute diarrhoea, which developed and promoted the use of a low osmolality oral rehydration solution for treating acute gastroenteritis.[4][a] Around this time, in 1975, he wrote the paediatric gastroenterology textbook Diseases of the Small Intestine in Childhood, noted for being one of the first European textbooks covering in its subject matter in English.[1][2]

Later career

In 1995, Walker-Smith's department moved to the Royal Free Hospital, where, as professor, he led the inflammatory bowel disease clinic and a growth inflammatory bowel disease clinic.[1][2] There, he worked on dietary treatment of children with food intolerance and Crohn's disease, and showed that exclusive enteral nutrition in children with Crohn's disease was safe.[1] He retired in 2000.[1]

Other roles

He later served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.[1][6] In 1986 he was appointed president of the British Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology.[1] Bewtween 2008 and 2009, he was president of the Osler Club of London.[7]

Memoirs

According to his memoirs, Walker-Smith's early life was marked by several incidents that he believes to have led to his career in medicine.[8] At age 14, he fell through a plate glass window, which resulted in a partial palsy of the ulnar nerve, which is noted as possibly contributing to his interest in endoscopy.[8] Before entering the University of Sydney as a medical student, he reported maths as being his worst subject in school, and during his time there had trouble with the practive of auscultation, which led him towards the path of gastroenterology.[8] His first employment out of medical school was at the Children's Hospital at Westmead (then the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children) in Sydney, followed by a position under Christopher Booth at Hammersmith Hospital.[8]

MMR vaccine controversy

Main article: Lancet MMR autism fraud

Walker-Smith is the senior co-author of a now-retracted paper (along with Andrew Wakefield, the lead author) which claimed a unique gastrointestinal condition in autistic children that may be connected to the MMR vaccine. This study is generally regarded as sparking the MMR vaccine controversy.[9] In 2010, Walker-Smith was found guilty by the General Medical Council of professional misconduct who recommended erasure subject to appeal.[9][10] The misconduct finding was reversed on appeal.[11]

In a statement reported in the book on the fraud by Brian Deer, Walker-Smith said:

My case was related to entirely different issues to those that concerned Dr. Wakefield... Every investigative procedure I ordered was to find out what was wrong with the children.[12]

In his memoir Enduring Memories, published 2003, Walker-Smith defended Wakefield's integrity,[13] and noted that the pediatric gastroenterologists in his department had never claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism, nor that it was unsafe.[8]

Selected publications

Books

  • Diseases of the Small Intestine in Childhood. Butterworth-Heinemann. 2013. ISBN 978-1-4831-6112-9.
  • Diarrhoea and Malnutrition in Childhood. Butterworth-Heinemann. 2013. ISBN 978-1-4831-4074-2. (Co-author)

Articles

Notes

  1. ^ Oral rehydration therapy (ORT), a mix of water, sugar, and salts, is a simple but life-saving treatment for diarrhoea. It works because sugar helps the body absorb salt and water, even when the intestines are damaged by infections like cholera or rotavirus. Although it is used worldwide, experts still debate the ideal balance of ingredients. The World Health Organization recommends one formula, which is widely used in developing countries, while wealthier countries often use versions with lower salt and slightly higher sugar levels.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Stenhammar, Lars; Högberg, Lotta; Browaldh, Lars; Eriksson, Mats; Tjellström, Bo (2017). "John Walker-Smith: the father of European paediatric gastroenterology". Acta Paediatrica. 107 (2): 219–222. doi:10.1111/apa.14156. ISSN 1651-2227.
  2. ^ a b c d e Christie, D A; Tansey, E M (2000). Intestinal Absorption | The History of Modern Biomedicine (PDF). Vol. 8. London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. p. 42. Archived from the original on 22 February 2025.
  3. ^ Farthing, Michael J. G (2001). "Treatment of gastrointestinal viruses". In Chadwick, Derek; Goode, Jamie A. (eds.). Gastroenteritis Viruses. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. p. 301. ISBN 0-471-49663-4.
  4. ^ Troncone, Riccardo; Shamir, Raanan (December 2019). "European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Distinguished Service Award 2019 to Professor Stefano Guandalini". Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition. 69 (6): 631–632. doi:10.1097/MPG.0000000000002510. ISSN 1536-4801. PMID 31764437.
  5. ^ Zubairi, Mustafa Bin Ali; Naqvi, Syeda Kanza; Ali, Ayesha Arshad; Sharif, Ashraf; Salam, Rehana Abdus; Hasnain, Zain; Soofi, Sajid; Ariff, Shabina; Nisar, Yasir Bin; Das, Jai K. (6 December 2024). "Low-osmolarity oral rehydration solution for childhood diarrhoea: A systematic review and meta-analysis". Journal of Global Health. 14: 04166. doi:10.7189/jogh.14.04166. ISSN 2047-2986. PMC 11622343.
  6. ^ "Editorial Announcement Regarding Professor John Walker-Smith". Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition. 55 (2): 120. August 2012. doi:10.1097/MPG.0b013e31825945cf.
  7. ^ "Poetryy Corner" (PDF). The Oslerian. Vol. 23, no. 4. February 2023. p. 11. Retrieved 19 October 2025.
  8. ^ a b c d e Candy, David CA (November 2003). "Memoirs of John Walker-Smith". The Lancet. 362 (9396): 1683. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(03)14821-0. S2CID 54306755.
  9. ^ a b "MMR doctor wins High Court appeal". BBC News. 7 March 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  10. ^ Burns, John F. (24 May 2010). "Council Bars Doctor Who Claimed Link Between Vaccines and Autism". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  11. ^ "MMR row: high court rules doctor should not have been struck off". 7 March 2012. Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  12. ^ Deer 2020, p. 313.
  13. ^ Waller, JC (1 April 2005). "Book Review: Enduring memories: a paediatric gastroenterologist remembers. A tale of London and Sydney". Medical History. 49 (2): 240. PMC 1088242.

Further reading

Bibliography

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.