19th September 1937 – 2 December 2022
Professor Daniel Catovsky, BSH President from 1996–1997, died peacefully in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, in December 2022, at the age of 85 years. Daniel was a BSH member for over 23 years and in 2000 was awarded the BSH Medal for contributions to British haematology.
Having started his training in Argentina and graduating in Buenos Aires in 1961, Daniel received a fellowship which enabled him to join Hammersmith Hospital, initially as a research fellow and subsequently working his way up the ranks as an honorary registrar, honorary senior registrar and, from 1976, honorary consultant physician to Hammersmith Hospital. Concurrently he was Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and in 1987 was awarded a personal chair in Haemato-oncology at the RPMS. He was a senior staff member in the MRC Leukaemia Unit, headed by Professor David Galton. From 1988 to 2003, Daniel was Head of Haematology at the Royal Marsden Hospital & Institute of Cancer Research.
During his career, which did not stop with his retirement, Daniel focused on the diagnosis and management of haematological malignancies, making particular contributions in the field of hairy cell leukaemia and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. From 1976 he was one of the seven members of the French–American–British (FAB) cooperative group, which had a major impact on the diagnosis and classification of haematological neoplasms. In addition to his roles as a researcher and a physician, Daniel played a major role in education, being a key figure in a number of postgraduate courses and publishing widely.
He will be greatly missed, not only by his family but also by his colleagues and by his previous trainees who are now to be found throughout the world.
Written by Professor Barbara Bain
Watch Professor Daniel Catovsky discuss his career in our past presidents interviews filmed in 2019 as part of our 60 at 60 exhibition