OBITUARY

Professor Bryan Jennett

Bryan Jennett was the pioneering Professor of

Neurosurgery who helped place Glasgow on the

world neurosurgical map and under his leadership

the city became a global centre for innovation in

Neuroscience. The ‘Glasgow School’ attracted a

generation of international research collaborators

and neurosurgical trainees which has left a remark-

ably diverse and widespread legacy. He not only

influenced, fundamental improvements in the treat-

ment of head-injured patients but developed meth-

odologies, philosophy and ethical approaches for a

far wider medical field.

Bryan Jennett was born in Twickenham in 1926 to

Scottish and Irish parents. Following a brief flirtation

with agriculture that was stimulated by wartime work

on the family farm in Scotland, he subsequently

settled on medicine as a career. He was to later

discover that the Lanarkshire farming dynasty from

which he was descended had produced no fewer than

five physicians (all Loudons). His early achievements

at Liverpool Medical School included marrying his

classmate Sheila Pope, finishing top in his year and

becoming President of the British Medical Students

Association.

Inspired by the Neurological lectures of Lord

Cohen of Birkenhead, but drawn to surgery, Bryan

Jennett took up Neurosurgical posts at Oxford,

Cardiff and Manchester. With a distinct lack of

foresight, appointment committees failed to promote

him to Consultant posts in Oxford, Manchester and

Dundee. He attributed this to the fact that the NHS

at that time placed a greater emphasis on patronage

than he could tolerate or in some quarters perceived

academic interests as a hindrance. Following a year-

long Rockefeller Fellowship at UCLA his frustration

tempted a permanent move to the USA, but in 1963

he was sought out for a combined NHS/University

post in Glasgow joining a team based in the

converted wartime complex at Killearn. With the

notable support of figures like Sir Charles Illing-

worth, the young Consultant became Professor and

over the next decade the Nissen huts of Killearn gave

way to a purpose built Institute of Neurological

Sciences at The Southern General Hospital.

Before arriving in Glasgow, Bryan Jennett had

already published a seminal work on epilepsy after

head-injury. His benchmark ‘Introduction to Neu-

rosurgery’ soon followed and over the following

quarter century it ran to five English and many

foreign language editions.

A great collaborator, the new Professor Jennett soon

set up an unprecedented prospective computerised

British Journal of Neurosurgery, April 2008; 22(2): 305 – 306

ISSN 0268-8697 print/ISSN 1360-046X online ª The Neurosurgical Foundation

DOI: 10.1080/02688690802021215

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data bank, compiling the features and outcome of

head-injured patients from Glasgow, the USA and the

Netherlands. This led to a series of landmark papers in

the 1970’s including the now legendary Glasgow

Coma Scale (GCS) with Teasdale, and the deceptively

simple Glasgow Outcome Scale with Bond. When he

defined the ‘Persistent Vegetative State’ with Dr Plum

in 1972, he was to coin a phrase which remains in

widespread use today. His work was distinguished not

just by his courageous intellect and his ability as an

effortless communicator but by the selfless partner-

ships he forged with peers and his inspirational

encouragement of his juniors. Eventually seven of

the UK’s ten Professors of Neurosurgery would be

Glasgow trained and others from around the world

were attracted to the city for training and research.

Even with advancing years, Bryan Jennett cut a

lively, if somewhat diminutive, figure. A life-long

taker of informed risks any brinksmanship was well

disguised by his confident style and calm tenor.

Known simply as ‘‘BJ’’ to many he brought great

energy to his work while his inclusive, egalitarian

approach touched the many nurses, scientists,

assistants, statisticians, and others with whom he

worked. For his part Bryn Jennett was always keen to

promote and acknowledge the role of others in his

team. All these qualities were underpinned by

assured clinical skills and a frank but sympathetic

bedside manner which will live on in the memory of

many patients and relatives.

The same attributes often placed him in the public

spotlight. In the aftermath of a 1976 BBC Panorama

programme which challenged the criteria used to

establish ‘brain death’ in potential organ donors his

clear advocacy of the arguments in the media proved

pivotal in the recovery of UK donor numbers. Not

surprisingly, Bryan Jennett was in universal demand

as a speaker and was often called upon as an expert

witness, most notably to the High Court for the Tony

Bland case.

However, his interest was not confined to the

medical establishment and he was for seven years

President of Headway – the national patients group

for patients with brain injuries.

As Dean of Medicine at Glasgow in the 1980’s he

applied his broad intellect to issues which overarched

medicine and society. Much ahead of his time, he

tackled the appropriate use of high cost technology in

medicine. Working with the King’s Fund, he

established a series of Consensus Conferences which

helped develop a form of technology assessment

that is now central to many health department

initiatives. His 1984 paperback ‘High Technology

Medicine: Benefits and Burdens’ followed a well-

received series of BBC talks ‘Doctors, Patients &

Responsibilities’.

His academic approach is illustrated by his 1988

response to suffering deep-vein thrombosis (DVT)

which he attributed to cramped aircraft seating.

Within a year he had located colleagues who had

similar symptoms. Together they published a short

paper in The Lancet and first used the term

‘‘Economy-Class Syndrome’’.

Following his retirement in 1991 he received the

CBE and an honorary DSc from St Andrews

University. His continued output included the noted

monograph ‘The Vegetative State’. A final publica-

tion appeared just a month before his death, in which

he typically set his personal experience of progressive

illness in an academic framework. His work has

continued to be globally celebrated and he was due to

collect an award from the International Brain Injury

Association in April.

He leaves his wife Sheila, three sons, a daughter,

seven grand-children and a great grand-child. Sheila

became Professor of Physiology and a unique

research collaborator for her husband – often visiting

researchers found themselves working with a differ-

ent Professor Jennett on alternate days of the week!

The partnership provided hospitality to many who

passed through the ‘Glasgow School’. From the

1960’s the couple had a house at Lochgoilhead from

which they led intrepid colleagues on memorable

adventures.

Although Bryan Jennett lived his final five years

under the shadow of terminal Multiple Myeloma he

embraced both the disease and its treatment with

characteristic pragmatism, continued sailing, travel-

ling and enjoying the outdoors well into his eighth

decade. A keen sailor and founder member of the

Serpent Yacht Club, two of his sons went onto com-

plete transatlantic crossings and a 3rd is a qualified

Yachtmaster. Tone deaf himself, Jennett was a great

sponsor of musical talent and had the pleasure of

enjoying the music created by his wife and burgeon-

ing family including his daughter who became a

professional cellist.

Bryan Jennett, Professor of Neurosurgery, born

March 1926, died January 26 2008 aged 81.

J. JENNETT & K. LINDSAY

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