BTS Andrew Paris Memorial Fellowship - British Transplantation Society

BTS Andrew Paris Memorial Fellowship

The BTS are honoured to be able to offer Travelling Fellowships bearing Andrew Paris’ name for colleagues wishing and willing to continue adventurous endeavours.

The British Transplantation Society is delighted to announce the launch of the 2024 Fellowships. Please find links to guidance notes and application form below. Applications with supporting documentation must be received by the deadline of 5pm Thursday 28^th November 2024 (email to secretariat@bts.org.uk and generalsecretary@bts.org.uk).

A committee will score and rank the applications for the Executive to review. All applicants must be current members of the Society and will be informed of the outcome before the end of December 2024.

Download Guidance Notes

Download Application Form

The Fellowships will be offered on an annual basis to any member of the Society keen to learn a specific technique or skill or widen their knowledge in another centre.

In 2021 the BTS were approached by Susan Paris, wife of the late Andrew Paris who had been instrumental in setting up and running the St John’s Ambulance Airwing.

This service provided by the well known St John’s Ambulance charity had been established in 1962 to provide a volunteer air service for the rapid transport of organs, drugs, blood supplies and patients when other means were not available.

In 1973 there were over 100 flights with more than 60 aircraft on stand-by. In 1972-73 alone they transported 72 kidneys (Br Med J 1973:3:589). The Airwing was active all through the 1980’s, but was disbanded in 1993 when the NHS established more formalised transport systems.

The charitable donations and investments continued and fellowships for junior healthcare personnel have been provided on an annual basis to continue the movement of transplant knowledge and experience, in lieu of physical organs.

The story of the first flight had so many fascinating and fantastic aspects that it was reconstructed by ATV for a film ‘Too Late Tomorrow’.

The first flight took place on 17th December 1971, even before the Air Wing was officially established. It was full of drama.

A kidney from Cardiff was on its way to London by train when the recipient was found to be too unwell for surgery. The next-best-matched patient was in Nancy in eastern France.

Through a special arrangement with the London Hospital, two of the selected volunteer pilots, Malcolm McClaren and Tony Gyselyneck, took off at night from Booker Airfield in Buckinghamshire and then flew to Nancy with the kidney. ‘It arrived’, Andrew remembered, ‘in time to be transplanted.

Andrew Martin Ingledew Paris.

Born 27.11.1940

Royal London Hospital Medical College
1959-1964
MB BS, FRCS, Order of St John
1985
Consultant Urological Surgeon RLH
1976-2005

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