Frank Wild Holdsworth

Professor Sir Frank Wild Holdsworth FRCS (1904, Bradford – 1969) was a British orthopaedic surgeon remembered for pioneering work on rehabilitation of spinal injury patients. He described the Holdsworth fracture of the spine in 1963.

Frank Holdsworth was born and brought up in Bradford, and educated at Bradford Grammar School. He studied medicine at Downing College, Cambridge, where he had won an exhibition, and St. George's Hospital Medical School. He qualified MRCS, LRCP in 1929, and was awarded FRCS in 1930 and M. Chir in 1935. On his return to Yorkshire, he worked at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary, becoming consultant orthopaedic surgeon there, and at the Sheffield Children's Hospital, in 1937. He established the orthopaedic and accident service in Sheffield, and later developed the registrar rotation system which has become standard in the United Kingdom.

His interest in trauma surgery, which stemmed from working in a highly industrialised area, led to his becoming one of the first surgeons in the United Kingdom to develop rehabilitation for spinal injury patients under the aegis of the Miners' Welfare Commission. He visited the United States and Canada to study paraplegia which was common after coal mining accidents. Paraplegia remained an interest throughout his career, and he campaigned to establish a spinal unit at Lodge Moor Hospital in Fulwood, South Yorkshire.

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