Geoffrey Fisk, hand surgeon, was born on May 26, 1916. He died on November 10, 2007 aged 91

Geoffrey Fisk was a meticulous and pioneering hand surgeon who invented the “lead-hand” splint now used worldwide in operations to hold the finger joints in place. An inspiring teacher, in retirement he studied anthropology at Cambridge and, while examining fossils from the Aswan Dam, discovered a healed fracture of the heel thought to be the earliest healed fracture detected to date.

Geoffrey Raymond Fisk was born in 1916 in Essex and entered St Bartholomew’s Hospital at 17, qualifying in 1939. In 1943 he was seconded to Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, as the chief assistant in the orthopaedic department established at the Leys School. In 1946 he joined the RAF medical service as the specialist surgeon in charge of orthopaedics in the RAF Hospitals in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, and Swindon and also at Central Medical Establishment.

After leaving the Air Force as Wing Commander in 1949 Fisk returned to Barts for a short period before being appointed consultant to the Seaman’s Hospitals Group (at the Albert Dock), St Margarets Hospital, Epping, and Rye St Hospital, Bishops Stortford, and Hon Orthopedic Consultant at the Regional Orthopedic Centre, Notley Hospital, Braintree.

In 1951 he won the first of three Huntarian Professorships of the RCS, and the following year was awarded a Fulbright Travelling Fellowship which allowed him to visit the main centres of hand surgery in the United States.

When the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow, was opened he was appointed the consultant orthopaedic surgeon, and he became increasingly involved in the Barts rotation training scheme for young orthopaedic surgeons.

An early member of the “Second Hand Club” (which later became the Society for Surgery of the Hand), in 1981 he was its president. On retiring in 1976 he served until he was 72 on the panel of the Disability Tribunals in the eastern region.

During his anthropology postgraduate degree he embarked on the study of a collection of bones removed from flooded cemeteries flooded when the Aswan Dam was raised. It was the first time the bones had been examined by a clinician familiar with bone diseases.