It is with great sadness that we inform you of the death of our well-loved and respected former colleague, Dr Steve George, from a non-COVID-19 illness on 2 May 2020.
Steve was an Associate Professor/Reader in Public Health until his early retirement in 2017 and remained an Emeritus Fellow within the Faculty of Medicine.
Born and brought up in Swansea, he studied medicine at St Bartholomew’s Medical College, qualifying in 1980. After six years in hospital medicine, including a period in radiology, he entered public health training in 1986, and was appointed Lecturer in Epidemiology at Sheffield University in 1988.
He moved to a Senior Lectureship in Southampton in 1992 and was appointed a Reader in 2000. His very successful research career primarily focused on innovative methodology in health services research, quality of life assessment and clinical trials of complex interventions.
There were widespread applications with substantial NIHR funding, including in surgical practice, emergency medicine, delivery of primary care, and cancer diagnosis and treatment (he was still a Principal Investigator on the NIHR SPUTNIK study of diagnostic imaging for lung cancer). He also established numerous multidisciplinary collaborations. He directed the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit (2007-9) and was a member of NIHR Health Technology Assessment Clinical Trials Board.
He was an active teacher at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and an external examiner throughout his career. He made a major contribution nationally to the discipline of Public Health, serving as Chair of Examiners, Academic Registrar and Vice President for the UK Faculty of Public Health, and he sat on the Association of Medical Royal Colleges Revalidation Board.
He was a great character and had numerous talents outside of Medicine. He was an excellent musician, owner of 11 guitars and an accomplished harpsichord and piano player. He loved making things, and had a passion for gadgets including vintage cameras, Star Wars paraphernalia (a full-size Klingon in his office) and sports cars.
