Professor
Chris Colton
EducationNottingham High School
St Thomas' Hospital, London
Medical career
ProfessionOrthopedic Surgery
InstitutionsRoyal National Orthopaedic Hospital, London

Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham

University of Nottingham
Sub-specialtiesTrauma surgery
Paediatrics

Christopher Lewis Colton (born in 1937) is an English orthopaedic surgeon and Professor Emeritus in Orthopaedic and Accident Surgery at Nottingham University. He is a past President of both the British Orthopaedic Association and of the AO Foundation.

Training and Early Career

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Chris qualified in medicine and surgery in 1960, after studying at St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, London. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1963. He decided to pursue a career as an orthopaedic surgeon, studying in Bristol and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in London, also including a tour of duty at Dala Orthopaedic Hospital at Kano in Northern Nigeria during the Biafran civil war.

Surgical career

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He was appointed as a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon in Nottingham in 1973. The University of Nottingham honoured him with a personal chair in Orthopaedic and Accident Surgery, in 1993, for his research and teaching in the field of musculoskeletal trauma.

He served as President of the British Orthopaedic Association in 1995.[1] He held the Presidency of the AO Foundation from 1996 to 1998.[2]

Air Crash Injuries

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Chris Colton treated several casualties of the Kegworth air disaster in 1989 (in which a British Midland flight crashed onto the embankment of the M1 motorway) and he subsequently investigated the nature of the crash injuries.[3] [4] As a result he became a Member of the British Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) 1993-95. He then became British delegate to European Federation of Orthopaedic and Trauma Associations 1995-98. The revised brace position that he helped to develop was adopted by all UK airlines by 1999. He is a member of the International Board for Research into Aircraft Crash Events (IBRACE).

Trauma Surgery

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Chris specialised in treatment of skeletal injury in both adults and children, with an emphasis on post-trauma reconstruction. Chris Colton introduced the recognised Colton Classification of Olecranon Fractures in 1973.[5]

He assisted his colleague Robert Mulholland to treat mountaineer Doug Scott, 3 weeks after he had badly fractured both legs in 1977 near the summit of The Ogre in the Himalayas.[6]

In September 1990, following ongoing press speculation, he reassured the public (in a front page story in The Times) that Prince Charles was recovering well from a bone graft to reunite his fractured right arm, following a polo accident in June. Chris Colton had performed the operation on the Prince in Nottingham with his colleague John Webb .[7] [8] [9]

In 1991, he operated on motorcycling world champion Ron Haslam, who had sustained an open fracture of his leg in a racing crash. When Ron had fully recovered, he took Chris around the Donington Park race track on the back of a Norton motorbike.[10]

After Kenyan conservationist Richard Leakey was critically injured (when the Cessna plane that he was piloting crashed in Kenya in 1993), Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands paid for Chris Colton to fly out to Nairobi to assess the treatment options. After ten operations in Nottingham, attempting to reconstruct his crushed legs, Chris eventually had to amputate both of Leakey's lower legs.[11]

He retired from surgical practice in 1997, dismayed at how NHS healthcare reforms and targets were incentivising surgeons to treat fewer patients.[12] He has though remained active as a teacher, an editor and a writer.

Chris Colton was granted Freedom of the City of London in 2007.[13]

In 2015 he criticised the Labour Party’s inappropriate use of a fracture X-Ray in its General Election campaign.[14]

An eponymous “Chris Colton Trauma Lecture” is delivered each year at the Nottingham University Fracture Forum.[15]

Medical Education

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Over the years Chris Colton has published articles & chapters in over 70 journals[5] [16] [17] [18] & books, including co-authoring the medical reference book “Atlas of Orthopaedic Surgical Approaches”[19]

He undertook visiting Professorships to the Universities of Cairo, Gothenburg, Isfahan, Kentucky, Kuala Lumpur, London, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Florida, Shiraz, Singapore, Texas and Wellington.

He was Executive Editor of the AO Surgery Reference online guide for orthopeadic surgeons 2005-11.[20]

References

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  1. ^ BOA. "Archives". www.boa.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  2. ^ "AO Presidents". www.aofoundation.org. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  3. ^ Rowles, J. M.; Kirsh, G.; Macey, A. C.; Colton, C. L. (April 1992). "The use of injury scoring in the evaluation of the Kegworth M1 aircrash". The Journal of Trauma. 32 (4): 441–447. doi:10.1097/00005373-199204000-00006. ISSN 0022-5282. PMID 1569616.
  4. ^ Plunkett, Patrick K. (1995-06-17). "Management of Disasters and their Aftermath". BMJ. 310 (6994): 1615. doi:10.1136/bmj.310.6994.1615. ISSN 0959-8138.
  5. ^ a b Colton, C. L. (1973-01-01). "Fractures of the olecranon in adults: classification and management". Injury. 5 (2): 121–129. doi:10.1016/S0020-1383(73)80088-9. ISSN 0020-1383. PMID 4774763.
  6. ^ Scott, Doug (2017). The Ogre: Biography of a mountain and the dramatic story of the first ascent. Vertebrate Publishing. ISBN 978-1911342793.
  7. ^ "Surgeon keeps the royal presshounds at bay". The Times. 24 September 1990.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ^ Wilson, Christopher (2003). The Windsor Knot: Charles, Camilla, and the Legacy of Diana. Citadel Press. ISBN 978-0806523866.
  9. ^ Pittam, David (2017-08-04). "Cerebal palsy patient who now works at QMC thanks doctors for years of care". nottinghampost. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  10. ^ Haslam, Ron (2008). Rocket Men. Bantam Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-0553819366.
  11. ^ "White Man's Burden". Sunday Telegraph Magazine. 17 June 1995.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ "Health reforms attacked by bishop as top surgeon quits". The Independent. 1995-07-03. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  13. ^ Freedom of City of London certificate R.CO.CO.12.9.2007
  14. ^ Turner, Camilla (2015-03-24). "Labour accused of using 'inappropriate' election poster image of potential 'victim of child abuse'". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  15. ^ "Bone & Joint 360". Bone & Joint Publishing. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  16. ^ Johnson, J. R. (1988). "Orthopaedics. The principles and practice of musculoskeletal surgery. S. P. F. Hughes, M. K. D'A. Benson and C. L. Colton. 250 × 185 mm. Pp. 1077. Illustrated. 1987. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone. £125.00". BJS (British Journal of Surgery). 75 (6): 623–623. doi:10.1002/bjs.1800750647. ISSN 1365-2168.
  17. ^ Colton, Christopher L. (1988-01-01). "An historical perspective of fracture surgery". Current Orthopaedics. 2 (1): 28–31. doi:10.1016/0268-0890(88)90055-2. ISSN 0268-0890.
  18. ^ Colton, C. (2013-04-01). "Orthopaedic challenges in Ancient Egypt". Bone & Joint 360. 2 (2): 2–7. doi:10.1302/2048-0105.22.360124. ISSN 2048-0091.
  19. ^ Stableforth, P. G. (1992). "Atlas of orthopaedic surgical approaches. C. L. Colton and A. J. Hall. 286 × 225 mm. Pp. 216 + viii. Illustrated. 1991. Oxford: Butterworth-Heineniann. £80". BJS (British Journal of Surgery). 79 (4): 377–377. doi:10.1002/bjs.1800790446. ISSN 1365-2168.
  20. ^ "AO Surgery Reference".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)