Philip Raikes Bromage • LITFL • Medical Eponym Library

Philip Raikes Bromage (1920 – 2013) was a British anaesthetist.

Best known for popularizing epidural analgesia/anaesthesia and his textbook Epidural Analgesia

Bromage published 118 articles and letters on topics ranging from local anesthetics (bupivacaine, lidocaine, etidocaine, carbonation); the physiology and pharmacology of epidural anesthesia; pain management; and the neurological complications associated with neuraxial anesthesia.

Biography

Born 1920 in Richmond, London
Educated in Benedictine College of Ampleforth in Yorkshire
1938-1943 – Medical student at St Thomas’s hospital, London
1943 – House officer in ENT and Orthopaedics under George Perkins and Rowley Bristoe
1944 – Joined the Merchant Navy – became the ships surgeon on a cargo steamer (HMS Salween) converted to troop carrying on the Burma Campaign
1945 – Bromage took an ex service medical post at the Municipal Hospital at Southend-on-Sea, Essex under Dr Alfred Lee.
1946-1947– Registrarship at West Middlex Hospital, Isleworth – Bromage incorporated Regional anaesthesia techniques in patients with thoracic and upper abdominal surgery. to assist the patients early ambulation and to extend the post operative pain free physical therapy period. Bromage developed the scoring system to guide safe early ambulation of post operative patients.
1948-1955 – Consultantship at Chichester, West Sussex. During this time Bromage published the first edition of Epidural Anaesthesia
1956 – 1970 – Bromage emigrated to Montreal, Canada and joined the McGill Faculty as an Associate Professor under Dr. Harold Griffith
1970-1977– Chairman of the McGill department of Anaesthesia at the Royal Victoria Hospital
1978 – Moved to Duke University, North Carolina and Published the second edition of Epidural Anaesthesia
1981 – Chairman of the department of clinical anaesthesia in Denver, Colorado
1985-1987 – Worked on the exchange program as Professor at King Khaled University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
1988-1990 – Scientist-in-Residence at The Medical Center of Delaware and Professor at Thomas Jefferson University Medical School
1991 – Retired from clinical practice
Died June 7th 2013 in Williston, Vermont, USA

Medical Eponyms

The Bromage score is an assessment of the intensity of motor blockade originally described as below with sensory blockade to S5.

Bromage score for motor blockade with S5 sensory Block

Major Publications

Bromage PR. Epidural Analgesia Saunders (W.B.) Co Ltd. 1978

References

Maltby R. Notable Names in Anaesthesia. The Choir Press; pp31-34. 2013
Biography: Dr Philip Raikes Bromage. RCOA UK.
Douglas J. Philip Raikes Bromage (1920–2013). International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , 272