appreciation - WO Williams OBE MD FRCGP.

Dr W O Williams of Swansea died in 2002 after a lifetime of research in general practice and his work has been both formative and influential in our discipline. This honest, humble and intellectual man was loved and respected for his contributions to the development of general practice and for his contributions to the academic credentials of the RCGP. He was called ‘WO’ by all who knew him. He was recognised in the 1975 New Year Honours List with the award of an OBE when he was 55 years old. A summary of his contributions prior to this award reveals some of his talent. He qualified from the Welsh National School of Medicine in 1945. By 1950 he had entered general practice after post-graduate training and national service. This was a time when general practice was at a low ebb nationally and the brightest undergraduates were often persuaded to enter a specialty. Nevertheless WO came with BSc MBChB, and he quickly started to conduct research into measles (1954), Bornholm disease (1956), asthma (1957) and influenza (1960). His MD thesis from general practice was awarded for ‘A clinical and epidemiological study of Bornholm Disease’ in 1958. This involved detailed study of hundreds of cases in the Swansea epidemic of 1956; no mean achievement when general practice was over-loaded and underfunded. He was one of only three general …