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Bruce C. Sinclair-Smith, M.D.
1919 - 1985
Dr. Bruce C. Sinclair-Smith died at his residence in Annapolis, Maryland on January 1, 1985, at the age of 65, of cancer of the stomach of short duration. At the time of his death he was Professor of Medicine, Emeritus at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine where he had served the last twenty two years of his professional career before retirement in 1982.
Bruce was born in Australia in 1919 and received his early education at the Geelong Church of England Grammar School in Melbourne. Under the supervision of Sir James Darling, Geelong gained the reputation as one of the outstanding educational institutions in the Commonwealth and was noted for its insistence on a humanitarian curriculum. The effect of that curricular focus was apparent in Bruce's personal and professional endeavors throughout his life.
His formal medical education was obtained at the University of Sydney from which he was graduated with academic honors in 1943. After an accelerated residency program, he served as a Specialist Captain in the 113th Australian General Hospital until the end of World War II. He then resumed his post graduate training, this time in the United States, with two years of experience as a Fellow in Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. These two years, 1947-49, gave him his initial experience in investigative medicine and an introduction to the opportunities and methods for the study of circulatory physiology and diseases of the cardiovascular system.
His growing interests in the heart and his desire for further clinical experience led him to London to the Institute of Cardiology, where he worked for two years as Registrar at the National Heart Hospital. His primary mentors during this period were Sir John Parkinson, Dr. Paul Wood and Dr. William Evans.
Returning to Australia in 1951, he became Director of the Hallstrom Institute of Cardiology at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. His responsibilities there were crucial for the success of the first openheart surgery program in Australia, but his native land could not hold him. In spite of the geographical separation, he had maintained close personal and professional relationships with his former associates at Johns Hopkins and in particular with Dr. Elliot Newman. And in 1960 he made a permanent move to the United States to join the faculty at Vanderbilt and work in an environment that had developed around Dr. Newman. He brought with him an abiding interest in valvular heart disease which in large measure guided his research, teaching and clinical interests for most of his professional life. He spent many long hours in the cardiac catheter laboratory searching for new methods, and evaluating proposed ones, that could supplement his expert clinical judgment in the care of people with heart disease. Those hours were characterized by extraordinary persistence and patience that were always subservient to a concern for his patient's welfare. He was not a laboratory doctor. He was a physician who used the information that could be obtained from the laboratory as a supplement to his clinical skills. He enjoyed teaching, but was not a pedant. More socratic than expository in method, he often labored over lecture assignments, but was always comfortable at the bedside with his students and a patient.
He was author of some eighty papers and book chapters and a member of professional societies on both sides of the world. He was a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh) and the Australian College of Physicians. A foundation member of the Australian Cardiac society, he held membership in a number of organizations concerned with heart disease here and abroad. An avid sailor, he condoned the often too gentle breezes of the inland lakes of Tennessee because he was also an enthusiastic gardener and those gentle breezes also signaled a long growing season. His interest in golf during his early years succumbed to his enthusiasm for sailing, but his enjoyment of music was persistent and frequently in evidence.
Bruce Cooper Sinclair-Smith was in truth a gentleman. The British influence in his life accentuated the expected appearance. His knowledge and love of the classics, his choices for relaxation, and his scholarly approach to the tasks of his profession went far beyond appearances to support that observation. In his quiet and genteel manner he had a rare understanding of companionship which he applied to the care of a host of patients and which a cadre of friends will always remember.