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Mervyn George Bishop/Fairfax Media/Getty Images Peter Sleight, a professor at Oxford University, helped to transform heart attack treatment and prevent cardiovascular disease with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and statins. Isis methodology influenced the design of studies into other conditions, including the Recovery trial, which showed that dexamethasone reduces covid-19 mortality. [...]unlike many eminent men, he was able, endearingly, to laugh at himself—for example, when medical students lampooned him as Professor BA Flight after he had flown to Tokyo for the day. In the last 10 years of his life, he generated global media interest after demonstrating with his Italian colleague Luciano Bernardi that certain musical rhythms lowered blood pressure.
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Educated at Friars School, Bangor, and St John’s College, Cambridge, Owen worked in health service administration in London and Wales before becoming a director in 1979 of United Medical Enterprises (UME), a UK owned company developing health services in the Middle East and Canada, and working with international agencies such as the World Bank and the World Health Organisation. Health gain A few weeks before his death Owen singled out as the highlight of his career the development between 1989 and 1993 of the Welsh NHS strategic intent and direction, especially the introduction of the concept of “health gain”—years to life and life to years. The forum became a WHO Collaboration Centre for regional health strategy, planning, and management development and won awards in Europe and the US.
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Photo: Chris Young/PA In 2013 Roger Williams, who helped to develop the UK’s first liver transplant programme, said, “I still do my 12 hours a day.” He was then well into his 80s. His wish to keep going until he “keeled over backwards” was granted. The covid-19 lockdown gave him an unexpected chance to complete, some three months ahead of deadline, the 7th Lancet Commission report into liver disease in the UK. The author of more than 2750 publications, 340 in the past 10 years, Williams was one of the most highly cited and influential hepatologists, according to the Institute of Scientific Information. He spent more than 50 years at the forefront of research and, uniquely, led three liver institutes. Williams told the Lancet in 2013, “I’ve always wanted to be in medicine doing the best, as it were, and not having to refer to someone else to do something special. I’m never happier than when I’m working on and trying out new advances.” His rise to prominence began in 1959 when he moved to the Royal Free Hospital, London, under Sheila Sherlock, the doyenne of liver disease—and a great talent spotter (read obituary: www.bmj.com/content/324/7330/174.1). Starting in the …