Gerald Anderson was a consultant physician with a special interest in thoracic medicine who spent his senior career at Royal Gwent and St.Woolos Hospitals, Newport, Gwent. In addition to his many clinical research publications, he played a significant role in the British Thoracic Society and advised the Welsh Assembly on lung cancer and pneumoconiosis.
Gerald Anderson was born on 9 May 1936 and raised in Swansea, the son of Rosemary and John Anderson, a garage proprietor. He was educated at Bishop Gore Grammar School, Swansea and subsequently received his medical education in London at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1960. After house officer posts in Hampstead and Romford hospitals, he served as both senior house officer and then medical registrar at The London Chest Hospital where he developed his interest in chest disease. Subsequently he was appointed to a senior registrar post rotating between the Royal Free and the Brompton Hospitals in London. While at the Brompton he obtained his MD on the subject of primary pulmonary hypertension. Keen to return to Wales he applied for, and was appointed to, his consultant post in Newport.
Gerald was a fine clinician and an excellent teacher of both medical students and postgraduate doctors throughout his medical career. He was also an able administrator but had no time for pomposity or the pompous. His effective skill in dealing with pomposity was often the source of great amusement for his colleagues. He served as Secretary of the Welsh Thoracic Society and later as Secretary of the British Thoracic Association (BTA). In this role he played an instrumental part in the dissolution of the BTA and the Thoracic Society and the formation of the British Thoracic Society. Throughout his career he remained active in clinical research and published many papers. After his retirement from the NHS in 1996 he served on the Welsh Assembly’s Cancer Advisory Committee as the representative for lung cancer and the Pneumoconiosis Panel.
A much respected and admired doctor, Gerald was also well known for his interest in old motor cars: he owned both a 1961 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith, which he kept in mint condition, and a Morris Minor which he used as his everyday transport.
He was a devout Roman Catholic and, in his retirement, became a lay preacher in the parish of St. Michael’s Church, having been a loyal member of its congregation since 1980. He died in the Royal Gwent Hospital from heart failure on the 16 November 2021. He is survived by his wife Rosemary, and their four children, Bridget, Anthony, Michael and Stephen.
Dr. Howell Lloyd
Dr. Susan Cotton
Dr. Ian Campbell
A version of this obituary was published in the British Medical Journal: