Obituary - Dr Clifford B Franklin

1931 to 2015

Clifford Franklin MB, ChB (University of Birmingham), MRCS (Eng), LRCP (Lond), FFARCS (Eng), Cert MHS

Thomas EJ Healy, Professor Emeritus of Manchester University, writes:

Former colleagues learn with sadness of the death of Clifford Franklin.

Born in 1931, Clifford read medicine at Birmingham University, qualifying in 1955 and going on to specialise in anaesthesia.  After junior posts in Birmingham and Liverpool he was appointed a consultant anaesthetist in Whitehaven in 1964 and from 1965 at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester, where he remained until his retirement in 1995.

Clifford held many non-clinical appointments. As the consultant in administrative charge of anaesthetic services he had a major involvement in the commissioning of the new Wythenshawe Hospital opened in 1972. He was Chairman of the Wythenshawe Medical Executive Committee for extended periods between 1978 and 1995. He was involved from 1979 in the training of medical students, junior medical staff, and members of associated professions as an honorary member of, and later lecturer in, the Department of Anaesthesia at the University of Manchester. He contributed also to the training of junior doctors in anaesthesia throughout the North West as Chairman of the Regional Training Committee. At the time of his retirement in 1995 he was Chairman of the North West Regional Higher Distinction Awards Committee.

Clifford lectured abroad, notably in Germany - he was a fluent German speaker - and South America, and contributed much published work.

An early enthusiast of computer technology – an interest he carried into his retirement - he pioneered its use in anaesthetic practice. 

A devoted husband of his wife, Doris, and father and grandfather, Clifford was an ever cheerful, smiling presence and a lively conversationalist.  Valued by his colleagues for his advice and friendship, he was a first class anaesthetist who set for himself and others the highest standards of clinical practice.