Obituary - Dr Vaidialingam Jeevananthan

1946 to 2016

Dr Vaidialingam Jeevananthan was born on 4th January 1946. After his primary and secondary education at Hartley College, Point Pedro, Sri Lanka, he entered the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya, Sri Lanka in 1965 and graduated M.B.,B.S in 1970. After a one year period of internship at the General Hospital (Teaching), Kandy he worked as the District Medical Officer at Kariamaditta in the deep south of Sri Lanka for one year. He took up training in anaesthesia at General Hospital (Teaching), Kandy in 1972 and was successful at the primary FFARCS examination held in Colombo in 1974. Dr Jeevananthan came to the United Kingdom in 1976 and worked as a Senior House Officer in Anaesthetics at Brighton and at Bromley Hospitals before joining the Registrar rotation.  He was successful at the Final FFARCS examination held in July 1978 and joined the Senior Registrar rotation involving Lewisham Hospital and Guy’s Hospital in London. He was appointed a Consultant Anaesthetist at Milton Keynes General Hospital in 1985. His special interest was in Critical Care Medicine and he was elected a Fellow of the Faculty of Critical Care Medicine in 2011. He retired from Milton Keynes General Hospital in January 2014.

In addition to his clinical duties, Dr Jeevananthan served as the Chairman of the Management Committee of the Oxford Regional Operating Department Practitioner Training Centre from 1989 to 1994. During this period the centre became only the second centre in England to achieve NVQ Level III for ODPP.  He functioned as the Clinical Director of Anaesthetics, Critical Care, Day Bed Unit and Pain services at Milton Keynes General Hospital from 1995 to 1998 and as the Medical Director of the Milton Keynes NHS Trust from 2000 to 2006.

Dr Jeevananthan was a member of the British Medical Association, the Intensive Care Society (UK), the British Society of Medical Managers and the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain & Ireland. He served a term as the Linkman of this Association at Milton Keynes General Hospital. 

I first met Jeeva (as his friends and close colleagues knew him) when we entered the Medical School at Peradeniya in 1965. His name followed mine in alphabetical order and as was the practice at the Medical School we sat next to each other at lectures. Both of us and two others shared the same cadaver for dissection. I remember him for his simplicity and humanity which he never lost. Never did he say or do a mean, false or deliberately unkind thing. We kept in close touch since leaving Medical School and he was very helpful to me when I came to the United Kingdom in the late 1990s.

Jeeva was married to Ranji and they had two sons and a daughter. One of the sons is following in Jeeva’s footsteps and is a Specialty Trainee in Anaesthetics. The daughter is a Specialty Trainee in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Jeeva suddenly took ill when on holiday in Sri Lanka two months ago. Although he was transferred by air ambulance to the United Kingdom he sadly passed away on the 1st June 2016.

Jayantha Jayasuriya, FRCA