Thousands of people owe their hip or knee replacements, directly or indirectly, to the consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon Hugh Phillips, who has died, aged 65, of lung cancer. Based at the Norfolk and Norwich university hospital from 1975 until the summer of 2004, he trained several hundred junior doctors, set NHS policy and national standards for joint replacement surgery, and was, at the time of his death, president of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS).
Phillips was director of the RCS committees on trauma, professional standards and regulation. He was the expert's expert on joint replacement, including the revision of existing hip and knee replacements. During his career, he was a specialist adviser to the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice) and chairman of the specialist advisory committee in orthopaedic surgery, the UK national training body.
The training of orthopaedic surgeons is a national priority, and Phillips was made trainer of the year in 1990. Many surgeons, both nationally and abroad, went to Norwich to learn and practise under him. He lectured widely to other specialists and to patient groups, both in Britain and throughout the world, and estimated once that he had replaced 6,000 joints, as well as repairing people who had suffered major trauma.
Phillips worked hard to drive the waiting list down. He was noted for his courtesy and interest in his patients, and for his kindness. He was one of the first surgeons to replace knee joints. He had a particular expertise and interest in replacing joints destroyed by rheumatoid arthritis, replacing both hips in one operation and both knees in a subsequent operation, on the same patient where necessary.
He was the principal author of four books about multiple joint replacement published by the Royal College of Surgeons and the British Orthopaedic Association, and was on the editorial board of five orthopaedic journals. He published many papers in learned journals, and was respected by colleagues for his sound judgment, the way he made patients' needs a priority, his capacity for listening to patients and his seemingly unlimited energy and capacity for work.
Phillips was educated at Roan school, Greenwich, and St Bartholomew's hospital medical college, qualifying in 1964. He received his specialist training across the following decade, working at Bart's, the Princess Alexandra hospital, in Harlow, Essex, the Royal National orthopaedic hospital in Stanmore, Middlesex, Great Ormond Street children's hospital, and at the Norfolk and Norwich. When he was appointed consultant there, he was the fifth of five orthopaedic consultants; there are now 17.
Before his RCS presidency, Phillips had served on the college council for eight years. He was a past president of the British Orthopaedic Association, the British Hip Society and the orthopaedic section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was also chairman of the national training body for orthopaedic surgery,
Kind, warm, and with a sense of fun, Phillips was a modest man who had high office thrust upon him. His interests were his patients, his work and his family. He was an inspiration to his juniors, many of whom went on to become orthopaedic consultants in Britain or abroad.
When he was 29, Phillips developed Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system that was then usually fatal; he was one of the first to benefit from the modern treatment that now cures nine out of 10 patients. He was indebted to medicine for saving his life, and felt he needed to give something back.
Had he completed his term as RCS president, he could have expected a knighthood; he was already deputy lord lieutenant of Norfolk. His cancer developed last summer, but he continued to work for the college until shortly before his death.
He is survived by his wife, Trish, a former president of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, and their three daughters.
· Hugh Phillips, surgeon, born March 19 1940; died June 24 2005