- Peter Beighton
Peter Beighton, a medical
geneticist , was born in England in 1934 and qualified in medicine in 1957 at theUniversity of London 's St Mary's Hospital. After several internships, Beighton served as a Medical Officer in the Parachute Regiment and with theUnited Nations forces during theCongo Crisis . In 1962 Beighton began training ininternal medicine atSt Thomas' Hospital inLondon . Beighton had a research fellowship in clinical genetics in 1968-69 with Dr.Victor McKusick atJohns Hopkins Hospital inBaltimore .In 1968 Beighton published a report in the
British Heart Journal outlining that air travel can produce "an ideal climate for precipitatingdeep vein thrombosis ". The airlines refused to warn passengers and it was only in the early 1990s that the link between long flights and deep vein thrombosis was made public.Beighton did clinical research in the
Sahara Desert and epidemiologic studies onEaster Island and in Southern Africa. In 1972, Beighton was appointed Professor of Human Genetics at theUniversity of Cape Town 's Faculty of Medicine. His research was largely on inherited disorders of the skeleton and connective tissues.Beighton has received many awards including the gold medal of the British Orthopaedic Association, the President's Medallion of the South African Orthopaedic Association, the Smith & Nephew literary award and the silver medal of the South African Medical Research Council. In 2002, he received the
Order of Mapungubwe - Bronze, for outstanding achievements in medical genetics.He has been accorded Fellowship of the University of Cape Town and the British Society of Rheumatology, and in 1999, he obtained the degree of Master of Philosophy in History at the University of Lancaster, UK. Professor Beighton retired with Emeritus status at the end of 1999, retaining his links with UCT, and collaborating with the University of the Western Cape Faculty of Dentistry.
Fourteen of Professor Beighton's postgraduate students have been awarded Doctorates, and eight of these have achieved Professorial or Associate Professorial status. Professor Beighton is the author, co-author or editor of 19 monographs and editions, 25 chapters and more than 380 medical publications.
Peter Beighton and his wife Greta Beighton have a shared interest in the history of medical genetics and have published two unique volumes of brief biographies of people for whom syndromes have been named.
Peter and Greta participate in the sport of orienteering, and they have been South African champions in their respective age groups on several occasions.
References
* "The Man Behind the Syndrome". By Peter Beighton & Greta Beighton. Springer Verlag (1986) ISBN 0387162186
* "The Person Behind the Syndrome". By Peter Beighton & Greta Beighton. Springer-Verlag; Revised edition (June 1997) ISBN 354076044XExternal links
* [http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/genetics/bios/pb.htm Biographical sketch of Peter Beighton] with a photograph on the University of Cape Town site
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