- Raymond Hoffenberg
Sir Raymond ("Bill") Hoffenberg KBE (
16 March 1923 -22 April 2007 ) was an endocrinologist who specialised in the study of thethyroid . Born inSouth Africa , he was forced to leave in 1968, and settled in theUnited Kingdom , where he was President of theRoyal College of Physicians from 1983 to 1989, and President ofWolfson College, Oxford from 1985 to 1993.Hoffenberg was born and educated in
Port Elizabeth inSouth Africa . He was a brilliant student, and studied medicine at theUniversity of Cape Town from 1939, aged only 16. He was also an active sportsman, taking part in tennis, golf, squash, boxing and rugby.He enlisted in the
Union Defence Force in 1942, serving as astretcher-bearer in theSecond World War in North Africa and Italy in the6th South African Armoured Division . He returned to South Africa to complete his degrees, MB andChB , in 1948. He was an intern atGroote Schuur Hospital , and then a lecturer at the University of Cape Town Medical School. He married his first wife, Margaret Rosenberg in 1949, and they lived in Newlands. They had two sons.He spent some time serving under
Albert Schweitzer atLambaréné inFrench Equatorial Africa (nowGabon ), and travelled to theUnited States in 1957-8 under aCarnegie Fellowship , and started to specialise in endocrinology. He obtained hisMD in 1957 andPhD in 1968. He was a lecturer at the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town from 1955 to 1967. He also continued to practise medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital, where he was involved preparing forChristiaan Barnard 's firstheart transplant operation in 1967.He ran into political difficulties in South Africa. He opposed the
apartheid policies of the National Party, and supportedAlan Paton 's Liberal Party, which he had joined in 1953. He had been a friend Paton and of the party's chairman,Peter Brown , since they were students together in Cape Town, and was also a friend of Paton. He supported theNational Union of South African Students , and was chairman of theDefence and Aid Fund , which funded the defence of those accused of political crimes and supported their families, until it was banned in 1966. In July 1967, thePrime Minister John Vorster passed abanning order under theSuppression of Communism Act which prohibited him from all political and social activity for 5 years. By now, he had an international reputation as a leading endocrinologist, and the banning order led to widespread protest.He and his family were given an "exit permit" to leave South Africa in 1968, on condition that they did not come back. He moved to the United Kingdom, where he continued to lend support to the campaign against apartheid. The exiled
Oliver Tambo was a patient for many years.He worked for the
National Medical Health and Research Council atMill Hill in north London, and at thethyroid clinic atNew End Hospital inHampstead , for four years from 1968. He became professor of medicine atBirmingham University in 1972, where he developed an outstanding endocrine department. He became President ofWolfson College, Oxford in 1985.Meanwhile, he was President of the
Royal College of Physicians from 1983 to 1989, publicly disagreeing with the Conservative government's policy of introducing an internal market into theNational Health Service . He was appointed KBE in 1984. He was also president of theInternational Society for Endocrinology , chairman of theBritish Heart Foundation , and chairman of theMedical Campaign Against Nuclear War and later vice-president of its successor,MEDACT . He held six honorary doctorates, and was a fellow of seven learned societies. After theAlder Hey organs scandal came to light in 1999, he courted controversy by arguing for the medical benefits from retaining tissue samples frompost-mortem examinations.He retired in 1993, and he and his wife joined his two sons in
Australia . He moved toQueensland , where he was professor of medical ethics at theUniversity of Queensland from 1993 to 1995.After the death of his first wife in 2005, he married Gräfin Madeleine Douglas in 2006. He died in
Oxford . He was survived by his second wife, and his two sons from his first marriage.References
* [http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2481033.ece Obituary] , "
The Independent ",24 April 2007
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1700941.ece Obituary] , "The Times ",25 April 2007
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=1XRW4OC5YFFRTQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/05/09/db0902.xml Obituary] , "The Daily Telegraph ",9 May 2007
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2089878,00.html Obituary] , "The Guardian ",29 May 2007 External links
* [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp08484&rNo=0&role=sit Photograph] at the National Portrait Gallery
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