Mr. Rodney Maingot
- General Surgeon

Dr Rodney Maingot was a world-renowned surgeon, who possessed a great reputation as a surgeon as well as a writer on surgery and a teacher of postgraduate surgeons. Of Dr Maingot’s prolific writing in the field of surgery, his best-known work was his 1940 publication Abdominal Operations, which has since seen 10 editions, seven of which were under his pen. This book is still considered to be a key text for aspiring surgeons in Great Britain. He was also the Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Clinical Practice and was a regional consultant in the Emergency Medical Service during the Second World War.

Rodney Maingot was born in Trinidad in 1893. At the age of eight, he migrated to England, where he obtained all his academic training. He studied at Upshaw College, Durham and at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. After finishing his course of medical training, he qualified as a doctor in 1916, becoming a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (LRCP) and a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS). He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) in 1920. Even while attaining these qualifications, Dr Maingot also served in the First World War.

Dr Maingot’s surgical skill soon became a widely attested fact and his fame began to spread beyond the walls of the Royal Waterloo and Southend hospitals in London. Although these facilities were comparatively small, many students came to observe his operations and these previously modest institutions soon became key centres for postgraduate instruction in surgery. Dr Maingot’s reputation extended beyond the United Kingdom, and during his career he held positions at several foreign institutions. Between 1960 and 1968, he was a Visiting Professor of Surgery at Ohio State Medical School, Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami, Florida and Maadi Hospital in Cairo, Egypt.

In 1976, Dr Maingot was awarded Trinidad and Tobago’s highest national award, the Trinity Cross.

After his death in 1982, Dr Maingot’s step-daughter used the assets of his estate to establish the Maingot Charitable Trust in his honour. The Trust assists young doctors from Trinidad and Tobago by providing a scholarship grant to help them in qualifying for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons. The Trust has assisted 22 scholars over the past 21 years since its inception- a worthy legacy of this outstanding surgeon.

This Icon is also featured in the Kids’ Booklet :

Selected Publications:

• Maingot, R (1936) Postgraduate Surgery. London, Medical Publications Ltd.
   

• Maingot, R (Ed.) (1938) Postgraduate Surgery Vol.2 NY, NY: Appleton & Co.
   

• Maingot, R (Ed.) (1950) Techniques in British Surgery. Philadelphia, Saunders.
   

• Maingot, R (1952) Splenectomy, indications and technique. Lancet 1:625-629.
   

• Maingot, R (1953) The management of abdominal operations. New York, Macmillan.
   

• Maingot, R (1961) Operations for sliding hernia and for large incisional herniae. Br. J. Clin. Pract. 15: 993-1033.
   

• Maingot, R (1965) The choice of operation for femoral hernia in children. Am. J. Surg. 109:470-475.
   

• Maingot, R, Schwartz, S I, Ellis, H and Husser, W C (1989) Maingot’s abdominal operations (9th Edition). Norwalk, Conn. Appleton and Lange.
   

• Maingot, R (1992) Abdominal operations. Vol 1 & 2. McGraw-Hill.

Short biography:

• Born: 27th February, 1893

• Parents: Andrew Maingot and Christine Sellmann

• Married: Rosalind Smeaton, no children
  Evelyn Plesch, no children, one step-daughter

• Academics: Upshaw College, Durham
  St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London

• Awards: Trinity Cross, Government of Trinidad and Tobago, 1976

• Fellowships: Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons

• Memberships: Member of the Royal College of Surgeons
   

CCST Secretariat
 4 Serpentine Place, St Clair, Trinidad W.I.
Tel: 868 622-7880      E-mail: ccst@niherst.gov.tt