Mark Crosse (1958)

Dr M.M. Crosse FRCA (1958), aged 84. Mark Crosse was born in Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, second of four sons of Captain (later Brigadier) John Crosse (1927), an army doctor, and Olive née Dodwell. Most of the war years were spent in North Wales before the family moved south. He went to Westminster School, from where he was offered an RAF Flying Scholarship to go to Cranwell. However, he turned this down and came up to Queens’ in 1958 to read Natural Sciences for Medicine, following in the footsteps of his father and older brother (Dr John Crosse (1955)). His younger brother (Dr Stephen Crosse (1966)) later also read Medicine at Queens’. Still thinking he might drop medicine and enter the RAF, he spent a lot of time flying with Cambridge University Air Squadron, much to the detriment of his exam results. He gave up the football that he had played so much at school, and instead played table tennis for the university (although he missed out on a place in the blues team). He once got back into college after hours by jumping out of a King’s College window on a fire escape harness. To his surprise, it only deposited him at the top of the old wall dividing King’s from Queens’, requiring an awkward jump to avoid the freshly staked out flowerbed below. He also managed to lose his bike in the Cam after a RAG week stunt where he cycled into the river having been set alight. After deciding against an air force career, he completed his clinical training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He trained as an anaesthetist in London, before taking a consultant post in Southampton, where he subspecialised in vascular and paediatric anaesthesia (although he anaesthetised for a full range of specialties). He was Chairman of the Southampton Anaesthetic Department from 1990 to 1995, and is well-remembered for the training programme for novice anaesthetists which he ran for 30 years. He had very high standards in matters of patient care, which he applied to himself and expected of his trainees. This could make him quite intimidating to juniors, but it was tempered by his good humour, enthusiasm, genuine interest in people, and his reassurances that things would be ‘a piece of cake, old boy!’ Messages from former trainees describe him as respected, loved, inspirational, a great mentor and a ‘legend’. In recognition of his commitment to the specialty and to teaching, the Association of Anaesthetists awarded him the 2002 Evelyn Baker Medal – their award for ‘outstanding competence in all areas of anaesthetic practice’. In 1976 Mark married Suan Kee Kan, a theatre nurse, whom he had met at St George’s Hospital. Their two children both came to Queens’: Dr Alex Crosse (2005) who read for Part III Mathematics and Dr David Crosse (2004) who studied Medicine. Mark enjoyed walking in North Wales, near where he grew up, and he remained interested in the military and aviation. There were many holidays in his battered yellow campervan, which he was once asked to remove from the hospital consultants’ car park by someone who could not believe a consultant would drive such a vehicle. For someone so motivated by his work and sense of duty to patients and colleagues, retirement was always going to be difficult, but sadly he soon also started showing signs of dementia. Nevertheless, he took great pleasure in spending time with his grandchildren, and he managed to live a fairly independent life until his final illness. He is survived by his wife, Kee, by his two children, and by two grandchildren.