Prof. Michael Camilleri MD, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, US, writes:
Prof. Victor George Griffiths passed away at 93 years of age on March 28, 2014.
He was an expert diagnostician, a technically gifted thyroid, prostate, breast, stomach, biliary and colonic surgeon. He based his craft on mastery of anatomy, and respect for the physiological consequences of different surgical options that led him to choose the least traumatic.
Victor Griffiths wrote about surgery in World War II, revered his mentor, Prof. Pietru Pawl Debono, and trained with one of the greatest surgeons of the time, George Grey Turner, at Hammersmith Hospital, and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London.
Prof. Griffiths held the Chair of Anatomy at Royal University of Malta. His anatomy lectures were proverbial: he used chalk and blackboard to build from bone structure through the different soft tissues while emphasising the application of anatomy to practice.. He succeeded Alfred Craig as professor and head of the department of surgery in 1969, and was an inspiration to medical students and house surgeons, including myself.
He was articulate with a command of medicine, of English language and literature, and the history of medicine.
He emphasised teamwork in the care of patients. With his senior surgical assistant, Mr Alex J. Warrington, the team performed elaborate surgeries despite limited resources available at the time.
Thus, the Griffiths-Warrington team performed synchronous, combined abdomino-perineal resection of the large intestine in patients with chronic ulcerative colitis, alternating their roles as the abdominal or perineal surgeons to hone their skills in the different parts of the surgery.
Meanwhile, Prof. Griffiths taught continually! He embraced the Socratic approach to teaching, peppered us with questions and trained us to marshal our thoughts and articulate our responses.
During that operation he would ask: What is the Oxford regimen for severe ulcerative colitis? Who was the gastroenterologist at Oxford who performed the first randomised controlled trials in ulcerative colitis? What did Milligan and Morgan contribute to this surgery? If the questions were unanswered, a dissertation was expected at the end of the next ward round.
In addition to surgical handicraft, I shall always remember several attributes of this great man.
He was a thinking surgeon, who encouraged all around him to think about the current practice and when conventional approaches should be questioned or be abandoned.
He was a surgical physiologist who understood the organ dysfunctions resulting from surgery, the price that should only be paid if there was no alternative.
He wrote a treatise on disorders resulting from surgery (iatrogenic disease) reflecting on the deleterious effects of some surgical options and the rational choice in diverse diseases, including peptic ulceration, breast cancer, and bile duct obstruction.
Prof. Griffiths was a great mentor and helped his protégés reach their fullest potential: from Sir Alfred Cuschieri (a legendary pioneer in laparoscopic surgery), to a whole generation of surgeons practising in Malta and many other countries. His interest in gastrointestinal diseases spurred the development of gastroenterology in Malta.
Prof. Griffiths was a leader, who represented and secured the rights of doctors in Malta during several decades.
Victor Griffiths was a voracious reader, with an insatiable appetite for learning. From 1977 to 1983, I was fortunate to meet him several times while he and Dr Mary Griffiths visited their daughter, Margaret, and her family in London.
He loved watching while I performed flexible endoscopy at his old stomping ground at Hammersmith Hospital. He would have relished introducing endoscopic surgery to his practice during 1977-1987.
I mourn with his family, the legions of patients whose lives he touched, and the doctors he trained.
I salute the passing of a Master Surgeon.