It gives me the greatest pleasure to present Arthur Cecil CYRUS for the Honorary Fellowship of the Caribbean College of Surgeons. Cecil is one of those ‘small island’ people who constantly amaze us with his capacity and energy in the face of adversity and has become the poster boy for the term The Isolated Surgeon. Born in a small riverside village in St. Vincent, some 76 years ago, the village life never left him although he left the village, for he makes do with what he has and he cannot keep away from the ground and what it brings forth alongside the water course that runs at the bottom of his garden.
Schooled in St. Vincent, he taught at his alma mater before going to London in 1950 to do a BA and then to the Queen’s University in Belfast to study Medicine. He distinguished himself in Medical school and seemingly was preparing himself from the start for his role as an everyman in medicine. He did an intercalated BSc in Anatomy, which foreshadowed his career as a surgeon and that of specimen collector, but he would also obtain prizes in therapeutics and obstetrics and gynecology. Having qualified in 1957 he would take the minimum time required in those days to get his Fellowship from the college in England in 1961, and appeared obliged to put his name to the college roll in Edinburgh as well. He strayed out of Ireland for a year and stole Katyryn away from York, and she is his compass, his matron, his child mother of 4 and now grans to spoil.
He would return home to work at the Kingstown Hospital in 1963, where his intensity to get everything and everybody done, including those with conditions he spotted in the street, would endear him to the people but leave him at odds from time to time with the ministry and his colleagues. Cecil I don’t think ever quite accepted that a whirling dynamo was disturbing to the placid waters of the island professional life. He wanted to do everything that needed to be done and accepted a Commonwealth Scholarship in 1967 to do Ophthalmology at Moorfields. I suppose our stars would have been intersecting at that point for that is when I undertook a similar Fellowship to do Cardiothoracic Surgery at Guys. In fact we were not to meet until we were about to leave, and as I recall it was in one of those cavernous London railway stations. In fact I got the distinct impression at that meeting that he had decided to look in on ENT as well as ophthalmology, but it was obstetrics and he was returning with two newly minted diplomas in both. Let me say for the youngsters around these were not decorations on the wall, these were in everyday use, and he still was impatient with what he could achieve for he went on much later to get the MCH.
Cecil you have received honours both locally and internationally for your work in medicine and in the field of sports, you have been declared a National Health Hero in your country and it is unlikely that there is anyone else in this room who will have their image engraved on a stamp, as you have. It is therefore an honour to our fledgling college that not only you were a founding member, but that you honour us by agreeing to accept the Honorary Fellowship of our College. You have kindly agreed to address us tonight but I can’t let our audience go away without a little peek at your achievements. When you left the government service and opened your own small private hospital, you remained undaunted by the challenges that brought, in fact you simply added to its complexity by starting a wonderful museum, installing your own squash court, and the vigour with which you played suggested to me that those balls represented some part of the officialdom you had battled with so often.
I always remember on my visits seeing the marvellous photographic and specimen record you kept and encouraging you to come and share your experiences with us in the wider forum of the medical research Council meeting. You first agreed to come to our meeting which was in St. Lucia in 1975 protesting all the way that you did not like flying. Well it appeared that the government did not like you flying either, for on the evening before the meeting , I was by the pool sipping a beverage and we heard that there was an incident in St. Vincent and that you may not be coming to the meeting . But you appeared at the poolside that evening and told us how a fire tender had blocked the path of the airplane on which you were travelling and how you had to go into hiding from the authorities and got a fisherman to smuggle you across to St. Lucia. We all have our stories about travelling to meetings but I think you will agree that takes the cake. My anesthetic colleagues always paled when I told them that they should hear of the scope of the surgery you did under Ketamine and local anesthesia, I witnessed this myself first hand on a visit when you invited me to come and see what went on with the delivery of twins, well I ended up assisting at this Caesarean done under Ketamine and local anesthesia, with the nurse anesthetist taking the blood pressure and such things. Out came the first baby and was sent to Matron who did the resuscitation and out came the second one, but the first one still needed some attention. What did he do, he simply took off with the second baby and said why don’t you sew up, well I had’nt sewn up a uterus since I was a student but what to do there was the patient looking at me and the babies were being resuscitated. All did well including myself. But with all his exploits Cecil was never shy to ask for advice in a difficult situation and one knew that it was going to be difficult whenever he called.
Colleagues, I present to you for the Honorary Fellowship of the College. Cecil Cyrus, BA, BSC, MB.BS. FRCS Eng, FRCS Ed, Dip OPTH; Dip O&G; FACS; MCH; OBE, CMG; PAHO Health Hero; Isolated surgeon; former Deputy Governor General; honoree of the Olympic Association; philantropist; museum curator; charter founder member of our college, and surgeon extraordinaire.
