Obituary: Professor Kenneth Rankin FRCS, OBE, orthopaedic surgeon

Surgeon, and anti-apartheid sympathiser who was honoured for his work in Africa

Professor Kenneth Rankin FRCS, OBE, orthopaedic surgeon.

Born: 22 January, 1939, in Alexandria, Egypt.

Died: 3 July, 2011, in Newcastle, aged 72.

IN A distinguished career Professor Rankin was a widely respected orthopaedic surgeon whose work throughout Africa marked him out as a very special medical practitioner. The scope of his work in South Africa brought him into direct confrontation - both professionally and personally - with the Apartheid regime.

He campaigned against such injustice with a typically calm resolution. Professor Rankin was not only an admired colleague but did much to improve health education in Africa and advance the training of young doctors and nurses. This work was acknowledged in 1994 when he was the Lipmann Kessel Travelling Professorship to the Third World.

Kenneth Cunningham Rankin was born in Egypt while his father was stationed with the Royal Air Force in Alexandra. In 1942 the family returned to Edinburgh and he firstly attended Tynecastle High School but his talent for learning was noted and he was transferred to Boroughmuir High School. Professor Rankin also researched avidly the work of the medical missionary Albert Schweitzer in Africa.

After reading medicine at Edinburgh University and graduating in 1963 Prof Rankin served in various surgical posts in Edinburgh before being appointed the ship's doctor on the Canberra and voyaged to Australia.

In 1966 he was Registrar in Paediatric Surgery, in Edinburgh and the following year began his close professional association with Africa when he joined the medical team at the Sibasa rural hospital in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The following year he undertook work at Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto and was attached to KwaZulu Natal.

His work was organised by the South African Council of Churches and he provided medical care to those displaced by the apartheid regime. At this time Professor Rankin met his future wife, the journalist and political activist, Joyce Sikakane.

The stringent apartheid laws forbade an interracial marriage and the two made plans to get married outside South Africa. However Sikakane was detained by the authorities and they were not married until 1974. In the intervening years Professor Rankin returned to Scotland where he was Registrar in Orthopaedic Surgery at Bridge of Earn

He returned to Africa in 1971 as Senior Registrar in surgery and orthopaedics at the University Teaching Hospital of Lusaka in Zambia and an Honorary Lecturer in Surgery in the University of Zambia.

At a chance meeting he was reunited with his fiance who had been released and exiled from South Africa.

Before returning to Scotland in 1975 Professor Rankin gained a private pilot's licence. He became lecturer in orthopaedic surgery at Edinburgh University: it was a post to which he brought not only his wide experience gained in Africa but also his keen medical knowledge and personal energy and enthusiasm. In 1977 the family moved to Dundee where Professor Rankin became Senior Lecturer with a special interest in paediatric orthopaedics. However in 1980 the lure of Africa proved too compelling and with his family to the Central Hospital in Maputo where he did much to encourage and advance the education of young doctors.

A greater number of doctors was sorely needed as at Bulawo Professor Rankin was the only orthopaedic consultant for a population of approximately 3 million.

Professor Rankin was much involved with the World Orthopaedic Concern (WOC) and his work at Themba Hospital South Africa was widely acknowledged and praised. A speaker mentioned. "Professor Ken Rankin had put immense effort into both

hospitals over the years with regards to all matters including staffing and instrumentation. It was very obvious that he was held in very high regard by all his staff."

In 1992 he again returned to Scotland to become a consultant firstly at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and then at Law Hospital in Carluke, Lanarkshire, although he returned to visit the new Republic of South Africa in 1995 where he was appointed Professor of and Head of Department of Orthopaedics at Kalafong Hospital, University of Pretoria. For two years from 2009 Professor Rankin was locum consultant at hospitals in Elgin, Edinburgh and Dumfries but in 2010, he was taken ill while operating at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. Acute myeloid leukaemia was diagnosed and although Professor Rankin continued to practise a relapse earlier this year forced his retirement.

Professor Rankin throughout his life was a keen hill walker and a sailor - he much enjoyed, for example, piloting himself at the week end to sail his catamaran in the Indian Ocean. He also worked tirelessly on behalf of the Anti-Apartheid movement. He was awarded an OBE in 2002 ("For services to Orthopaedics in Africa") and was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

He is survived by his wife Joyce and their five children.