Ruth Wynne-Davies

Ruth Wynne-Davies or Ruth Blower (1926–2012) was a British medical doctor and scholar of orthopaedics. She researched and wrote about clubfoot and scoliosis.

Ruth Wynne-Davies
Born	Ruth Blower 1926 London, England
Died	2012 Oxford, England

Life and career

Wynne-Davies was born in London in 1926. She attended Oswestry High School for Girls. After finishing school, she was a land girl. She then worked as a secretary before starting her training in medicine at the Royal Free School of Medicine. She was encouraged and financially supported to do so by her uncle, Llewellyn Wynne-Davies. In 1959, she changed her name to Wynne-Davies, in his honour.^[1]

In her early medical career, she worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital as a house officer, then as a surgical registrar at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. After a period of time as a prosector in anatomy at the Royal Free Hospital in London, she became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1960.^[2]

She turned her attention to research at University of Edinburgh,^[3] completing work on the genetics of clubfoot, and publishing numerous research articles on that subject.^[4][5][6] She received a medal from the British Orthopaedic Association. She made significant contributions to research in the field of scoliosis.^[3][7][8] She also set up specialist clinics for treating scoliosis in Harlow Wood, Edinburgh, London and Oswestry.^{[1][8][9][10][11][12]}

Wynne-Davies achieved a PhD in 1973 for her thesis on the aetiology of scoliosis, before becoming a reader in orthopaedics. She took early retirement from the University of Edinburgh in 1981, moving to Oxford.^[13] There, she studied English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford Department of Continuing Education.^[1]

She died in Oxford in 2012.^[1][14]

In 2018, Wynne-Davies was found to be the most highly-cited British author of works on spinal deformity.^[15]

Publications

• James, John Ivor Pulsford, Zorab, P.A., & Wynne-Jones, Ruth (1967) Scoliosis. E & S Livingstone^[3]
• Wynne-Davis, Ruth (1973) Genetic and Other Factors in the Aetiology of Scoliosis. University of Edinburgh^[7]
• Wynne-Davies, Ruth, Hall, Christine M. & Apley, Alan Graham (1985) Atlas of Skeletal Dysplasias. Churchill Livingstone^[16]