Richard Smithells

Richard Worthington Smithells (12 July 1924 – 13 June 2002) was a British paediatrician and Emeritus professor of paediatrics at the University of Leeds. Smithells was most notable for research into neural tube defects, congenital abnormality registers, genetic counselling, and rubella in pregnancy and for later suggesting direct examination of the foetus by photography using ultrasonography.

Life Smithells great uncle and grandfather had been professors of chemistry at the University of Leeds and his father was a Leeds graduate, so Smithells family always had a strong connection to the university. Smithells took his early education at Rugby School and later studied medicine at St. Thomas' Hospital Medical School. This was followed by 2 years of national service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Germany in 1949–1951.

In 1948 he married Joy Muriel Foster née Beaver, who died 4 February 2010. They had five children and eleven grand-children.

Smithells retired from the chair of Paediatrics and Child Health in 1988. to provide payments to children seen to be damaged by a vaccine.

The Early Diagnosis of Congenital Abnormalities., R W Smithells. Cassell: London, 1963. Why are babies born deformed? R W Smithells. University of Exeter, 1983. Clinical examination of children., S R Meadow; R W Smithells. Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1991

Awards and honours In 1985, Smithells was awarded the Harding award in 1985 from Action Research for the Crippled Child In 1992, Smithells was awarded the prestigious James Spence Gold Medal in 1992, by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. The Rank Prize for Nutrition followed and was awarded jointly in 1995. In 1998 he won the Dawson Williams Memorial Prize of the British Medical Association. During 2000, Smithells won the International Research Award of the Joseph P Kennedy Foundation for research into the role of folic acid in preventing neural tube defects.