Dr Ralph Joseph Whiting

Personal Details

Dr Ralph Joseph Whiting MRCS LRCP MB BS FFARCS DA

18/11/1911 to 10/11/1995

Place of birth: Dartford, Kent, England

Nationality: British

CRN: 534206

Education and qualifications

General education	Medical School, University College Hospital, London
Primary medical qualification(s)	MRCS Eng., LRCP Lond., 1938 MB BS, University of London, 1941
Initial Fellowship and type	FFARCS by Election
Year of Fellowship	1953
Other qualification(s)	DA (RCP&S), 1946

Professional life and career

Postgraduate career

After qualifying Whiting joined the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve as a Flight Lt. He served as a medical officer to 81 Squadron and then anaesthetic specialist in Italy. Following demobilisation, in 1946 he was appointed as an assistant in the Department of Anaesthetics at University College Hospital, London. By 1948 he moved to Wrexham Emergency Hospital, and soon after he was appointed Consultant Anaesthetist to Maelor General Hospital and Wrexham War Memorial Hospital. He remained in this post until his retirement in 1976.

Professional interests and activities

At Wrexham Emergency Hospital he co-authored a paper in 1948 on the treatment of tetanus with d-tubocurarine.  

Other biographical information

Although he left school at the age of 14 to become a gardener’s boy, he matriculated at night school. He married Jessica Goodwin in 1939 and they had a son and a daughter, who respectively became a general practitioner and a dentist. From about 1948 he lived in Llangollen, where he died of prostatic cancer at the age of 83, survived by his family. 

Author and sources

Author:

Dr Alistair McKenzie

Sources and comments:

[1] Whiting SW. Obituary Ralph Joseph Whiting. BMJ 1996; 312: 634. [2] Medical Registers and Directories. [3] ancestry.co.uk