Mohankumar Adiseshiah (known by all as Mo) was born in Madras, (now Chennai) India in 1941. His father, Malcolm Adiseshiah, was an internationally renowned UNESCO educationalist. His mother Helen (née Paranjoti) was the daughter of a prominent clergyman.
Mo attended La Martinière College in Lucknow prior to moving to the UK, where he attended Wandsworth School in south London. From there he was successful in obtaining a state scholarship to Kings and Westminster Medical School, graduating in 1965 and being awarded the Arthur Evans memorial prize in surgery. He subsequently became a fellow of both the Royal College of Surgeons in 1969 and later the RCP.
Following house officer posts at Westminster and St George’s hospitals in London, he commenced his surgical training at University College Hospital, London and in Cambridge. He later spent time as a research fellow in Toronto and as a lecturer in Hong Kong. He was particularly influenced in his training by Harold Ellis, Charles Drew, David Bailey and G B Ong in Hong Kong, and Ronald Baird in Toronto. He was awarded an MA(Camb) in 1977 and MS(London) in 1978.
On return to the UK he was appointed as a consultant surgeon in Huntingdon and a lecturer in Cambridge. Typical of Mo, he threw himself energetically into upgrading Huntingdon Hospital to a full district general hospital with the help of the then local MP, Sir John Major.
Mo returned to The Middlesex Hospital and UCH in 1982, serving with enviable distinction in many capacities in the hospital and university, until his retirement. As clinical director for surgery, he redefined vascular surgery as an emerging subspecialty of general surgery and oversaw the transition of the service to the current excellent UCLH main campus.
He maintained a commitment to surgical research throughout his career and published widely. However, his most enduring legacy is undoubtedly his pioneering role in the early development of minimally invasive endoluminal stent graft repair, as an alternative to open surgery. He was a very early convert, cobbling together homemade early prototypes, and patenting the UCL technique in 1995. He stuck with this new technique through its, at times underwhelming ‘endo-gloominal’ infancy while training, publishing and participating in defining trials for what is now the global default aortic operative approach. To Mo and his small band of pioneering colleagues, the vascular community owe a wealth of gratitude.
Mo loved to travel. A visionary surgeon from the start, he understood that we can only see as far as our horizons. His professional travels took him to every continent. As a regular invited faculty member at international meetings, he contributed tirelessly. He served on the Council of the Vascular Society and published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including book chapters and national newspaper articles. He chaired the medical committee and was a trustee of St Luke’s Hospital for the clergy.
Mo adored cricket, rugby union (Saracens) and the theatre, being responsible for a number of raucous productions while at medical school. He played squash and the violin. He was also passionately concerned about the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza.
Surviving a major stroke in November 2018, the cruellest blow to a surgeon who had saved countless others from the same fate, he regained some quality of his life only to be taken by COVID-19.
Mo was a wise, compassionate and generous man and is survived by his wife Maria, six children and two granddaughters.
Irving Taylor
Republished, with permission, from the Royal College of Surgeons of England Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows website [https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/lives/ Accessed June 2022]
[This obituary originally appeared in the Royal College of Physicians’ In tribute: Remembering RCP members and fellows who died from COVID-19 in 2020]