Sean Patrick Francis Hughes (born 2 December 1941) is emeritus professor of orthopaedic surgery at Imperial College London where he was previously professor of orthopaedic surgery and head of the department of surgery, anaesthetics and intensive care. Earlier in his career he had been professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Edinburgh.

His clinical research topics have included fracture healing, musculoskeletal infection and the surgery of degenerate: lumbar and cervical discs. His basic science research publications include studies of the microcirculation of bone, bone infection and the role of nitric oxide in bone and joint disease. He served as vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and chairman of DISCS, the charity funding research into spinal conditions.

His interests in the history of medicine have focused on the history of orthopaedic surgery, and the doctor and poet John Keats.

Contents

• 1 Early life and training
• 2 Surgical career
• 3 History of Medicine
• 4 Personal life
• 5 Awards and honours
• 6 Selected publications
  • 6.1 Papers
    • 6.1.1 General orthopaedics
    • 6.1.2 Bone blood flow and fracture healing
    • 6.1.3 Infection
    • 6.1.4 Intervertebral disc
    • 6.1.5 Humanities
  • 6.2 Books
  • 6.3 Book chapters
  • 6.4 Book reviews
• 7 References
• 8 External links

Early life and training

Hughes was born in Farnham, Surrey, England, son of Patrick J. and Kathleen E. Hughes. He completed his early education at Downside School. He studied medicine at the University of London, qualifying MB BS in 1966. His surgical training in orthopaedics took place in London and he became a senior registrar in orthopaedic and trauma surgery at the Middlesex Hospital and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He attained his FRCSEd in 1971 and FRCSEng and FRCSI the following year. Subsequently, he was awarded the degree of MS from University of London with a thesis on bone scanning, completed while he was research fellow at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, US.

Surgical career

In 1979 he was appointed Senior Lecturer and honorary consultant orthopaedic surgeon, Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. Later that year he was appointed to the Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Edinburgh. In 1984/85, he held an academic mentorship for Rüdiger Döhler.

The International Skeletal Society's 25th anniversary book lists him as a member.

In 1991, he became Professor of orthopaedic surgery, Imperial College London and honorary consultant orthopaedic surgeon, Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust (1991–2006). At the same time he took on the role of Chief of Service Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery, Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust, a post which he held until 1998, when he became the Trust's Clinical Director for Surgery and Anaesthetics. He was Non-Executive Director of the West Middlesex University Hospital (2001–2005) and was Medical Director of Ravenscourt Park Hospital from 2002–2004. Hughes was Clinical Director of the Hillingdon Primary Care Trust from 2008–10.

In addition to his clinical and academic responsibilities, he was Vice President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (1994–97) and President of the British Orthopaedic Research Society (1995–97). He served as chairman of the charity Action Research, now called Action Medical Research (1998–1991).

He was on the International Advisory Board of the Journal of Orthopaedics, Traumaand was Chairman of the charity Discovering Innovative Solutions for Conditions of the Spine (DISCS).

Currently (2018) he is a primary editor of The Bone & Joint Journal.

Hughes performed basic research on bone blood flow mineral exchange, musculoskeletal infections and stem cell research. He has a special interest in degenerative disc disease and external fixation of fractures (Hughes-Suhktian fixator).

History of Medicine

Hughes has lectured on the history of orthopaedics. In addition, he gave the eponymous Keats lecture at the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in 2017.

Personal life

Hughes married Felicity Mary Anderson and they had two daughters and one son. Their eldest daughter was the journalist Sarah Hughes.

Awards and honours

• Arris and Gale Lecturer, Royal College of Surgeons, 1976.
• Seddon Prize, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, 1976.
• U.K. Travelling Fellow, British Orthopaedic *ociation, 1977
• A.B.C. Travelling Fellow, British Orthopaedic *ociation, 1978
• Scandinavian Travelling Fellow, British and Scandinavian Orthopaedic *ociation, 1986
• Visiting Clinical Scientist, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA, 1989
• Rahima Dawood Travelling Professor, East African *ociations of Surgeons, 1992
• Patrick Kelly Visiting Professor, Mayo Clinic, USA, 2000
• Walter Mercer Lecturer, British Orthopaedic *ociation, 2004
• President's Medal from the British Orthopaedic Research Society, September 2017.

Selected publications

Hughes wrote or contributed to 216 total publications in scientific journals, thirty-two chapters in books and thirteen books.

Papers

General orthopaedics

• Hughes, SP; Davies, DR; B*ingthwaighte, JB; Knox, FG; Kelly, PJ (1977). "Bone extraction and blood clearance of diphosphonate in the dog". Am J Physiol. 232 (3): H341-7. doi:10.1152/ajpheart.1977.232.3.H341. PMC:4169266. PMID:402827.
• "Fluid space in bone". Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research. Vol. 134,:1 July 1978, pp.:32–341. Co-aut*d with D.R. Davies,:P.J. Kelly and R. Khan,:
• Court-Brown, C; Hughes, SP (1982). "Experience with the Sukhtian--Hughes external fixation system". J R Soc Med. 75 (12): 949–57. PMC:1438470. PMID:6757433.
• "Orthopaedics. The principles and practice of musculoskeletal surgery". British Journal of Surgery. Vol. 75, 1988, pp.:623–623. Co-aut*d with M. K. D’A. Benson and C. L. Colton.

Bone blood flow and fracture healing

• Hughes, SP; Lemon, GJ; Davies, DR; B*ingthwaighte, JB; Kelly, PJ (1979). "Extraction of minerals after experimental fractures of the tibia in dogs". J Bone Joint Surg Am. 61 (6): 857–66. doi:10.2106/00004623-197961060-00009. PMC:3625437. PMID:383718.
• McCarthy, ID; Hughes, SP (1989). "Multiple tracer studies of bone uptake of 99mTc-MDP and 85Sr". Am J Physiol. 256 (5): H1261-5. doi:10.1152/ajpheart.1989.256.5.H1261. PMID:2719126.
• Corbett, SA; McCarthy, ID; Batten, J; Hukkanen, M; Polak, JM; Hughes, SP (1999). "Nitric oxide mediated vasoreactivity during fracture repair". Clin Orthop Relat Res. 365 (365): 247–53. doi:10.1097/00003086-199908000-00030. PMID:10627709.

Infection

• Hughes, SP; Want, S; Darrell, JH; Dash, CH; Kennedy, M (1982). "Prophylactic cefuroxime in total joint replacement". Int Orthop. 6 (3): 155–61. doi:10.1007/bf00267725. PMID:7166446. S2CID:35425556.
• Hughes, SP; McCarthy, ID; Fleming, RM; Anderson, FM; Dash, CH (1984). "Extraction of ceftazidime in bone". J Antimicrob Chemother. 14 (3): 285–9. doi:10.1093/jac/14.3.285. PMID:6386787.

Intervertebral disc

• Wallace, AL; Wyatt, BC; McCarthy, ID; Hughes, SP (1994). "Humoral regulation of blood flow in the vertebral endplate". Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 19 (12): 1324–8. doi:10.1097/00007632-199406000-00004. PMID:8066511. S2CID:8661097.
• "The Cervical Disc". Bailliere's Clinical Orthopaedics – International Practice and Research. Vol. 2, Number 2, August 1997.
• "The pathogenesis of degeneration of the intervertebral disc and emerging therapies in the management of back pain". The Bone & Joint Journal, Vol. 94-B, No. 10 (2012), pp.:1298-1304. doi:10.1302/0301-620X.94B10.28986. Co-aut*d with A. J. Freemont, D. W. Hukins, A. H. McGregor and S. Roberts.
• Espahbodi, S; Doré, CJ; Humphries, KN; Hughes, SP (2013). "Color Doppler ultrasonography of lumbar artery blood flow in patients with low back pain". Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 38 (4): E230-6. doi:10.1097/BRS.0b013e31827ecd6e. PMID:23197013. S2CID:205518965.

Humanities

• Hughes, SP (2015). "Walter Mercer's (1891-1971) contribution to the surgical treatment of low back pain". J Med Biogr. 23 (2): 108–14. doi:10.1177/0967772014565566. hdl:10044/1/25207. PMID:25697350. S2CID:11621871.
• Hughes, Sean P. F.; Hughes, Sarah (2017). "Keats Memorial Lecture: How did John Keats's Medical Training Influence his Poetry?". The Keats-Shelley Review. 31 (2): 136–146. doi:10.1080/09524142.2017.1369304. S2CID:165599138.
• Hughes, Sean; Gardner-Thorpe, Christopher (2018). "Charles Bell (1774–1842) and Natural Theology". Journal of Medical Biography. 28 (2): 75–82. doi:10.1177/0967772018790736. PMID:30165759. S2CID:52133460.
• Hughes, SP (2018). "Person or system - What leads to surgical advances?". J Med Biogr. 26 (2): 73–79. doi:10.1177/0967772017732440. PMID:28972434. S2CID:41218983.

Books

• Bone Circulation and Vascularization in Normal and Pathological Conditions. Springer, NATO Science Series: A (1993). ISBN:978-1-4615-2838-8. Co-aut*d with A. Schoutens, J. Arlet and J.W.M. Gardeniers,
• Musculoskeletal Infections. Yearbook Medical Publishers (1986). Co-aut*d with R. H. Fitzgerald. ISBN:9780815147619
• Textbook of Orthopaedics and Fractures. Taylor & Francis(1997). ISBN:978-0-340-61381-8. Co-aut*d with R. W. Porter
• Nitric Oxide in Bone and Joint. Cambridge University Press (2008). Co-aut*d with Mika V. J. Hukkanen, Julia M. Polak. ISBN:9780521592208

Book chapters

• "Fibröse Knochendysplasie und Weil-Albright-Syndrom", co-aut*d with J.R. Döhler in Walter Blauth and Hans-Wolfram Ulrich's Spätergebnisse in der Orthopädie, Springer-Verlag (1986), ISBN:9783642710292.
• “The Regulation of Blood Flow in Bone”, co-aut*d with Corbett SA, Reichert ILH, McCarthy ID, Osteonecrosis (Urbaniak JR, Jones JP), American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 1997, Chapter 2, pp.:11–19.
• "The Use of Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Bone and Cartilage Repair", co-aut*d with R. Behan, N. A. Habib, M. Y. Gordon and N. Levičar. Stem Cell Repair And Regeneration, Imperial College Press, London (2008). ISBN:978-1-86094-980-7.

Book reviews

• Clinical Disorders of the Shoulder. Lipmann Kessel (Pp 182) Churchill Livingstone (1982). British Medical Journal Vol. 284, 3 April 1982, p.:1036
• The First Transplant Surgeon: The Flawed Genius of Nobel Prize Winner, Alexis Carrel by David Hamilton, British Society for the History of Medicine Book Reviews, January 2017.

References

External links

• U.S. National Library of Medicine
• Stem Cells and Tibial Fractures
• Discs Foundation (with photographic portrait)