Obituary Mitchell

John Douglas Mitchell, 1951 - 2011

John Douglas Mitchell (Douglas) was born in Buckinghamshire in 1951. He qualified from the medical school in Aberdeen in 1975 with numerous awards and distinctions, including the Fulton prize in neurology.

Douglas undertook his neurology training in Cambridge and Edinburgh before being appointed Consultant Neurologist at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Preston in 1986. In 1993 he was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Central Lancashire and in 2011 Honorary Professor at Lancaster University.

Douglas made enormous contributions to the understanding and treatment of motor neurone disease, including setting up a multi-disciplinary care and research facility in 1993 (the first of its kind in the UK), contributing to the formulation of the El Escorial criteria for the diagnosis of MND, and participating in a multi-centre trial of riluzole, which resulted in this drug being licensed as the first disease modifying treatment for MND (1996). He was appointed Trust Research Director in 1996, chairing, among many others, the local research committee into dementia and neurodegenerative disease. He published on a range of neurological and allied subjects, and contributed widely to the Cochrane Database of neuromuscular disease and migraine treatments.

Prof. Mitchell held various high profile posts in the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and was an inspiration to his medical and PhD students.

He was also a talented pianist and violinist, as well as a keen amateur photographer and astronomer.

Having joined the Order of St Lazarus first in the Grand Priory of Ukraine-Ruthenia, he was among those who transferred to the Paris Obedience, helping to form, in 2002, the nucleus of the newly created Cumbria Commandery in the then Grand Priory of England & Wales, where he served the Order with loyalty and commitment.

Douglas was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in August 2010. Despite aggressive chemotherapy, which he endured with great fortitude, he died on 13th February 2011. He is survived by his wife, Christine, and two daughters.