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Obituaries

Arthur LevinBrian Robert Blakemore LumbJohn Callender (“Jack”) NicholsonJohn Lawrence PearceAllan Thomas Marsh RobertsDavid Anthony SlessorGordon Cunningham TaylorArthur Leslie TulkDavid Wilson WallaceJohn Michael Wilson

BMJ 1999; 318 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.318.7199.1701 (Published 19 June 1999) Cite this as: BMJ 1999;318:1701

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Arthur Levin

  1. Gloria Levin

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    Founder of the Wellington Hospital and pioneer of day surgery (b 1913; q Cambridge/St Bartholomew's 1939), d 29 April 1999. Early in the war he was appointed to the Royal Masonic Hospital, which was an officers' hospital. Later he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in India and the Far East. After the war he entered general practice and was medical adviser to several large companies, including Rolls Royce and British Aerospace. In 1960 Arthur became one of the original trustees of the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust and over the next nearly 40 years was influential in the development of many medical projects. In 1970 he realised that there was a need to create a modern flagship private hospital. The result was the Wellington Hospital in London, which opened in 1974. It was funded by the British and Commonwealth Shipping Company, of which he had been chief medical officer. He remained executive medical director until 1988, developing the second building, Humana Hospital, for which he laid the foundation stone in 1982.

    In 1981 he began plans for a day surgery centre in Harley Street and the Wellington Day Surgery Centre opened the following year with 20 beds and five operating theatres. While at the Wellington Arthur Levin founded the Wellington Foundation to further postgraduate education for doctors and nurses and research into patient care and the Wellington Society, which organises lectures and conferences. He was chairman of both. In 1984 he was appointed an honorary fellow of King's College London and was involved in planning the largest day surgery centre for the NHS at King's College Hospital. This now treats 12 000 patients a year. Arthur believed in the cross fertilisation of ideas between the private and state funded sectors in medicine, and he used his intelligence and charm …

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