Robert Arthur Hughes

Dr. Robert Arthur Hughes, M.B.Ch.B, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., F.R.C.S., O.B.E., (3 December 1910 – 1 June 1996) was a medical missionary for the Presbyterian Church of Wales who worked in Shillong from 1939–1969 at the Welsh Mission Hospital, also known as the Dr. H. Gordon Roberts Hospital, Shillong. Hughes trained as a surgeon in London prior to his time in India. He is called the "Schweitzer of Assam," comparing his missionary work to that of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer. Hughes is best known for attempting to eradicate malaria from the area, introducing a vagus nerve resection process to alleviate pain from peptic ulcers and a rickets treatment in the infant population, recognising a protein calorie deficiency disorder called kwashiorkor in the Indian population, founding the area's first blood bank, performing the first lower segment Caesarean section without antibiotics to India, and expanding educational training for medical and nursing organisations.

Early life Robert Arthur Hughes was born on 3 December 1910 to Reverend Howell Harris Hughes and Annie Myfanwy Hughes in Oswestry, a town in Shropshire, England. Shropshire is along the border of Wales, the country of origin for Hughes' parents. Robert Hughes and his brother, John Harris Hughes, were twins, though Robert was older and had better health during their youth. Annie Hughes was educated at the University of Wales in Bangor and became headmistress at a school in Rhosllannerchrugog until her marriage to Hughes.

During World War I, Howell Harris was Minister of the Tabernacle Chapel in Bangor, Gwynedd, and Arthur and Harris attended Christchurch School in Waterloo and then the Waterloo and Seaforth Grammar School during this time. When the boys were fifteen, the family moved to Llandudno, where they attended the John Bright School. When he finished his time as House Surgeon, Hughes joined the medical firm of the same hospital under Dr. Norman Capon and worked as House Physician. Hughes then decided to pursue a career in surgical medicine and was appointed the John Rankin Fellow in Human Anatomy, as anatomical knowledge was a requirement for the first FRCS examination.

After passing his first examination in 1935, Hughes spent a short amount of time as Junior Registrar at Stanley Hospital until he became Surgical Registrar and Assistant Surgical Pathologist at David Lewis Northern Hospital. Under Hughes' direction, the Welsh Mission Hospital in 1942 employed more nurses and staff than the rest of the hospitals in Assam combined, as well as performed more surgeries. As a result of these achievements, Hughes is known by many as the "Schweitzer of Assam." Hughes died Saturday, 1 June 1996, at the Cardiothoracic Hospital in Liverpool.