Abstract
Dr Frank Clifford Rose Consultant Neurologist at Charing Cross Hospital, London, died on 1 November 2012, age 86
Frank Clifford Rose qualified in 1949, after Medical School at King’s College, London and the Westminster Hospital. His training posts through Paediatrics, General Medicine, Cardiology and Rheumatology in and around London took him back to Westminster Hospital as Medical Registrar, and then Senior Medical Registrar and Clinical Tutor (1955–1957). With this amount of medical training under his belt he was appointed a Senior House Physician and then Resident Medical Officer at the National Hospital, Queen Square, London (1957–1960). Frank then became Senior Registrar in the Department of Neurology at St George’s Hospital at Hyde Park Corner (now the Lanesborough Hotel) and also at the Atkinson Morley Hospital, Wimbledon (1960–1965), famous through the neurosurgeon Wylie McKissock and the neurologist Denis Williams, who saw Princess Margaret for her migraine. Frank was appointed the first Consultant Neurologist at Charing Cross Hospital in 1965.
Alongside his clinical activity Frank had an interest in neurological research. Frank’s interest in migraine meant that a Migraine Clinic was soon established in 1974 with a strong emphasis on research. His interests also included aphasiology, motor neuron disease and stroke.
With tremendous energy, Frank raised the ‘soft’ funds which allowed more neurology research registrars to be appointed. With Marek Gawel (later to go to Toronto) they wrote the very successful Migraine the Facts, intended for patients. Richard Peatfield and Paul Davies were among the first Neurology Registrars in Migraine at Charing Cross and wrote their MD theses on migraine. He received the Harold Wolff Award of the American Association for the Study of Headache twice in his career and, in 1986, its Distinguished Clinician Award.
It was in 1980 that the title of Princess Margaret became linked to the Migraine Clinic at Charing Cross Hospital. Frank had been a close friend of Macdonald Critchley who had been in favour of this move. Critchley was also the founder of the World Federation of Neurology (WFN) and it was during these discussions that Frank received the political support to become the Assistant Secretary of the WFN Research Group on Migraine and Headache (1977), European Secretary (1979), Associate Secretary and then Chairman (1980–1995). He was also for a very long time Chairman of the Migraine Trust and founded, under the Patronage of Princess Margaret, the biennial Migraine Trust Meetings which are still a highlight in headache research communication. Frank was also member of the first Headache Classification Committee and, thus, stimulated headache research worldwide.
Frank was a founding member of the European and International Headache Societies and was Chairman of the British Migraine Trust between 1987 and 1995. He was active in a number of journals both as a member of the editorial board and in an editorial capacity. He was editor in chief of Neuroepidemiology between 1984 and 1990 and co‐editor of Headache Quarterly between 1980 and 2001. He edited the Transactions of the Medical Society of London between 1980 and 1986 and was the founding editor of the Journal of the History of Neurosciences, serving from 1991 to 1996. Frank edited over 70 books during his career, many based on symposia which he had organised at the Medical Society of London, Charing Cross Hospital and elsewhere.
Following his retirement he continued in private practice for a number of years and during that time published even more books. Music was an important part of his life, and the last book he edited was Neurology of Music (2010) to which, interestingly, other headache researchers also contributed.
To his juniors he was ‘Dr Clifford Rose’ or ‘FCR’, and to the huge number of colleagues and close friends in the UK and from around the world who held him in warm affection and admiration he was simply ‘Frank’. When one considers that his medical career covered a post‐war period (1949–1991) without the communication aids available to everyone today, the energy and effort which led to success in so many aspects of neurology, and in particular migraine and headache, is simply astonishing.
For the International Headache Society:
Peter J. Goadsby, President
Stefan Evers, Honorary Secretary
Richard Peatfield