Professor Norman Exton-Smith was a highly respected, distinguished postwar consultant geriatrician with a worldwide reputation. He devoted his life to improving the medical care of elderly people and researching age-related decline in physical function, particularly thermoregulation and postural balance. He established thriving clinical and research departments at St Pancras Hospital, London. Many of his junior medical staff became well-known geriatricians. He published and lectured extensively, organized many meetings and conferences, and was advisor to the Department of Health and Social Security for many years. He was a valued authority on geriatric medicine within the Royal College of Physicians of London and a major influence in the British Geriatrics Society (BGS) of which he was Secretary and later the President.
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