เฉลิมฉลองอดีตเจ้าหน้าที่ในวันเกิดปีที่ 75 ของ WHO

04/03/2024

Thomas Barns
A life of adventure and service
Born in 1919, Dr Barns graduated from Oxford University, England as a medical doctor in 1944. He was immediately drafted into the British Army during the second World War. He married while waiting for his posting, but three days into the honeymoon, he received his embarkation orders.

He was stationed in India where he served as an anesthetist in a frontline mobile surgical unit. He returned to Oxford three years later to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology, gaining experience while researching his PhD in pelvic tuberculosis, which won him the Blair Bell Memorial Lecture at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London.

In 1952 he was appointed as State obstetrician and gynecologist for Johore, Malaysia, and as a personal physician to the Sultan. There, he developed the Flying Squad Service to deliver emergency obstetrics services to remote locations regardless of communist insurgency.

Dr Barns' life was not without risks. During his time in Malaysia, he worked in the red zone and drove his specially designed jeep, with medical supplies and operating space on board, to provide emergency care wherever it was needed.