Blackburn colleagues pay tribure to 'inspirational' doctor

1:28pm Wednesday 23rd July 2008

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COLLEAGUES of an “inspirational” doctor who died in a car crash have paid tribute to him and said they had been left “devastated”.

Robert McKendrick, 35, a specialist registrar in anaesthetics, had just returned form a charity trip to India, where he worked with a team operating on people with cleft palates, when he died on Tuesday night.

The father-of-two from Carleton, who worked at the Royal Blackburn Hospital as part of his training to become a consultant, was killed when his Vauxhall Astra was in a head-on collision with a lorry in Poulton.

Dr McKendrick, known to his friends as Robbie, went to India for 10 days earlier this month as part of a team led by Royal Blackburn Hospital surgeon Dr George Teterswamy.

He said: “Robbie was a wonderful young man who was extremely well-liked and had a real magnetic personality. He touched everyone who met him.

“It was a privilege to have known him, even for such a short time.

“His death is a great loss to his friends and to the profession.”

Clitheroe nurse Alison Emmett, who also travelled to India with Dr McKendrick, added: “I got to know him while he was training at the Royal Blackburn Hospital and when we went to India, and he was a fabulous man.

“He was so full of life and enthusiasm and he wanted to come with us to India again next year, but his life was cut short and we are all absolutely devastated.”

Ian Stanley, clinical director of anaesthesia and critical care for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Robert McKendrick came to the Trust back in 2007 as a specialist registrar he worked and trained with us for nine months.

“In that time he became a good colleague and friend to the whole of the anaesthetics department and the hospital.

"He was a great trainee and people who knew him saw him as a dedicated and enthusiastic doctor who was a credit to the profession.

“We are sad to lose a good friend and colleague who was on his way to a promising career at the start of his life.”

Dr McKendrick leaves his wife Jessica, and young sons Freddie and Wilbur.

His funeral will be held on Friday, August 1 at 12.30pm at St Chad’s Church, Poulton.