There Is a Lot More to Transplantation Surgery Than the Surgery Itself: The "Other" Sir Peter John Morris, AC, FRS.

One discovers a lot more about a person after their death, particularly for those you first meet on a professional basis and then remain in regular contact with thereafter.1,2 For 2 y, I was a fellow in transplantation surgery at the Oxford Transplant Unit, starting 9 y after Peter Morris established the new kidney transplant center in 1975. To fill in the gaps, I have sought the assistance of others, starting with his daughters Liz Morris, who was 8 y old when Peter moved his family of 5 children from Melbourne to Oxford in 1974, and her older sister Sarah. Peter’s friend of 75 y, esteemed Melbourne surgeon Brian Collopy, first met at secondary school, Xavier College, when they were 13 y old. They subsequently completed 6 colorful and enjoyable years of undergraduate medical school before joining the junior medical staff at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne. In medical school, Brian is of the view that neither of them excelled, but both were determined to become surgeons. Together with his brother Stanley, 2 y his junior, Peter grew up in suburban Melbourne where his mother Mary was a pharmacist and his father Stanley, who had been an elite footballer, worked as a railways engineer. School holidays were often spent at his grandfather’s large farm 400 km west of Melbourne, as well as much longer periods when Australia was under threat during the latter years of World War II. His father died in 1948 when Peter was 15 y old. Peter’s brother Stanley died tragically a year later in a car accident on Christmas Day that also left their mother with multiple fractures. Peter was relatively unscathed. After a long recovery, Mary became more protective of Peter while being proud of his scholastic and sporting achievements at school and university. Meanwhile, Peter learned to be both resourceful and resilient. Creating a new family, and a big one, was always going to be important to Peter. Jocelyn Gorman and Peter were in the same medical school cohort and were of a similar mind. They married in 1959 before moving to London where Peter had been offered a training position at Hammersmith Hospital, one that would subsequently provide opportunities from which the energetic and enquiring surgical trainee could flourish, particularly in the United States.1,2 This was an era of poor remuneration, for long working hours, arduous on-call rosters, and the need to publish without the assistance of word processors, there was also the need to attend international workshops and meetings that drove transplantation science forward with “just in time” data. This meant that raising and financially supporting a family of 5 children in the United Kingdom, the United States, and then Australia was largely the responsibility of Jocelyn, and likely, it was never easy. Invariably, Peter traveled with his tennis racquet. Peter’s prestigious Oxford University appointment in 1974 came with significant administrative responsibilities and his promise to create a new kidney transplant unit supported by research laboratories. Many talented women supported his endeavors in Oxford, the most important of whom was his wife, Jocelyn, a gracious and entertaining lady who is always a great pleasure to meet and talk to. Word from 3 reliable sources has it that Peter was not all that helpful in the kitchen, with housework, or even with the children’s homework. Both Peter and daughter Liz were of the view that Jocelyn was clearly the most intelligent person in the house. Apart from her ability to remain calm and solve all the domestic issues in the house, she was often responsible for relocating one of the children from their bedroom at short notice to accommodate one of Peter’s unannounced “out of town” visitors. As the 5 children gradually moved out to forge successful careers, Jocelyn was able to return to medical practice and became a consultant Thoracic Physician in Oxford.1,2 Three of their children now live in Australia and 2 in the United Kingdom. There are 12 grandchildren living on 3 continents and 3 great grandchildren. The family highlight of the year was always the long summer holiday, usually in rented farmhouses in the south of France and close to rural village life. As the children became older, they wanted more. Peter’s solution was to purchase an apartment on a golf course with access to a pool and more activity while he went on to represent France in an international golf club competition. One of the few times that daughter Liz could recall seeing her father being upset while on vacation was back in Australia in the early 1970s. Jocelyn’s very welcoming family owned a beach house beside a river estuary and close to a golf course in the resort town of Barwon Heads. Before the holiday, Peter had built a wooden Mirror dinghy boat in his backyard and then taught himself to sail, all with the plan of beating the locals in a sailing regatta. He lost and, that evening, expressed his displeasure with his poor performance to anyone who would listen. The next great lady in Peter’s time in Oxford was his secretary, Joan Cracknell. She held the same position for the preceding Nuffield Chair of Surgery, who was a neurosurgeon. Joan knew how the university and the National Health Service functioned and had contacts all around town. She managed most of Peter’s working life activities. Importantly, she was a charming and resourceful person who knew of the importance of family life and “downtime” for Peter and his family. Peter also appointed 3 young female UK scientists, Kathryn Wood, Maggie Dallman, and Susan Fuggle, to establish and lead his multidisciplinary laboratories (Figure 1). Equally important were the early appointments of Alan Ting and Ian Hutchinson for the tissue typing and immunology laboratories, respectively. The packed early Friday morning multidisciplinary research meetings were notable for rigorous discussion and creative feedback. When invited to present at the meeting, I expressed my real concern to Peter Morris of being intimidated by the collective intelligence in the room. His calm response was that my role was equally important because they were all dependent on me for the quality of the surgery and protocolized clinical biopsy material that followed. In turn, they molded me into a trusted surgeon-scientist. In a relatively short period of time, Peter had created a large, talented, and dynamic “transplant team” that attracted funded research students from around the world. It was great fun and an exciting time to be involved in transplantation. In the transplant ward, cyclosporin A was being handed out in the recommended big Cambridge doses, but “triple therapy” was around the corner. As with Peter’s sporting activities, there was always an element of competition to do better than others, particularly at Cambridge University.FIGURE 1.: Maggie Dallman, Sir Peter Morris, Jocelyn Morris, and Kathryn Wood, Oxford 2013.One of Peter’s many ways of enjoying life was talking to interesting people. He found an abundance of them in Oxford, and they enjoyed speaking to him. It was his way of broadening his own education. In late January 1985, this became more serious when asked to represent the science and health senior academics in a debate that would decide if Mrs Margaret Thatcher, the then Conservative Party Prime Minister, would be offered an Honorary Doctor of Civil Law. The main argument of law and art faculty academics of the Affirmative team was that every other UK Prime Minister of the 20th century had been a recipient. Peter Morris was a speaker for the science-based negative team that argued Mrs Thatcher had slashed funding to both science- and health-based research and the National Health Service. Peter would have used his magnificent and centuries-old Nuffield Chair of Surgery office at Balliol College to prepare carefully worded, precise, and polite arguments based on facts. This office was used as his quiet weekend retreat on a regular basis. The following day, The Guardian Newspaper reported, “The ‘No’ exit of Sir Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre was jammed like a London Tube station in the rush hour long after the ‘Aye’ door had taken its last voter. Dons and senior administrators decided by 738 votes to 319 against giving Mrs Thatcher the scarlet and crimson gown and velvet bonnet of a Doctor of Civil Law.”3 Peter Morris was knighted in 1996 after the UK Labour Party replaced the Conservatives. In 2004, he was awarded Australia’s highest civilian honor, the Companion of Australia. The breadth and depth of Peter’s admirers and contacts from around the world were on show at the time of his retirement from the Oxford University position in September 2001. The packed hospital lecture theater listened to invited speakers from around the world speak of how he had shaped their own endeavors, while emphasizing his personal strengths of inclusiveness, sharing of knowledge, integrity, sharpness of mind, and love of sport. That evening, about 400 “transplanters” attended a formal dinner in the main dining room of Christ Church College, made famous by the Harry Potter movies. A cricket match followed the next afternoon on the grounds of Blenheim Palace. Hoping for a rear-guard response from his struggling surgical team up against the physicians, Peter was keen to show us how a good forward defensive shot should be executed (Figure 2). That Saturday evening came the second formal dinner, this time attended by a largely different 650 guests who were welcomed by the full UK Marine Guard’s band that marched in through the main gates and onto the cobblestoned Palace courtyard. At both dinners, Peter demonstrated his enormous capacity for remembering names, significant partners, events, and sporting interests of everyone in attendance. Many thought he had a filing card system, but Peter always denied this, as have his family and secretaries. Daughter Sarah described this ability as his “superpower.”FIGURE 2.: Sir Peter Morris’ Festschrift Cricket match played on grounds of Blenheim Palace, 2001.Despite living in the United Kingdom for 50 y, both Jocelyn and Peter maintained a great love and respect for Australia. Because of families, friends, and sporting events like the ritual of the first day of the Boxing Day Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, trips were both frequent and action-packed. He admired the skills of international cricketers and claimed that ball sports helped develop surgical skills of dexterity, eye coordination, and reflexes (Figure 3). After losing to Sir Roy Calne’s team in an annual Cambridge–Oxford transplant tennis match, he informed me on the Monday ward round “that the opposition had cheated with team selection rules.” As for his own poor team selection, he followed softly with, “If you ask an Australian if he can play tennis and he says ‘yes’, he really can play tennis.” He had a soft spot for Australian surgical trainees at Oxford, where winters were long. He thus reasoned they would return home after a year or so. He was correct. Thirteen of us trained in Oxford, and all but one became transplant surgeons after returning. Only one of us admitted to being able to play tennis, and he really could.FIGURE 3.: Sir Peter Morris together with Jeffrey Robert (Thommo) Thomson, one of the fastest bowlers in the history of cricket.My own journey to Oxford and transplantation started with the reading of an article by Peter J. Morris in an Australian surgical newsletter in 1983 extolling the benefits of international training after obtaining formal surgical qualifications in Australia. He recommended we return to Australia with skills that others would not have. I wrote to him, but there was no reply. I discussed matters with a senior vascular surgeon collegue at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. A noted Scottish golfer, he promptly arranged to play a game with Peter Morris. A position soon materialized in Oxford, and when asked, I informed Peter that I could play cricket but not tennis. Peter’s daughters said that he remained very “sharp” to the end, even if his display of competitive skills was restricted to using his motorized scooter chair to get to an empty Oxford restaurant table before others. Peter Morris taught many of us that there is a lot more to transplantation surgery than the surgery itself.