Alumnus Professor Sir Roy Calne Passes Away at 93

We recently have been made aware of the passing of Roy Calne. Roy was a pioneering transplant surgeon whose groundbreaking work helped prolong and save thousands of lives and transformed the understanding of organ transplantation as a profession.

Roy Calne attended Dulwich Prep London, then Dulwich College Preparatory School, leaving in 1944. He went on to attend Lancing College, being evacuated twice to Shropshire. At 16, he gained a place at Guy’s Hospital, where he completed his medical education in 1952. He completed his national service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, stationed with the Gurkhas. Upon his return to England, he took up a post teaching anatomy at Oxford University.

Calne was a Fellow of the Royal Society and was Professor of Surgery at Cambridge University from 1965 to 1998.

Roy was also a passionate artist, and he strongly linked his work to his passion for medicine. Calne painted several of his transplant patients; he believed that it brought a sense of closeness and humanity to the relationship between surgeon and patient. His The Gift of Life exhibition was displayed at the Barbican in 1991.