I was just sent this article from the Norwich Evening News (2007) which is the city where McKee and Watson Farrar did their pioneering work in hip replacements in the 50s and 60s. I worked with these two chaps in the early 60s and saw them making a lot of the early improvements.
"A pensioner who was given a hip replacement by a pioneering surgeon more than 40 years ago may have broken the world record for the longest standing hip replacement.
The patient was just 28 when she was told she would need the operation in 1966 and has since become the owner of one of the longest lasting hip replacements in the world. After a car accident at the age of 10, she was left temporarily unable to walk and underwent several operations on her hip before she was told she would need the replacement when she developed complications after the birth of her first daughter.
The revolutionary surgery was carried out by Kenneth McKee at the former Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. Mr McKee pioneered primary hip replacements in Norwich in the 1950s.
The patient, now 70 and a retired nurse, lives with her husband, 80, and has two children, 45 and 43. She said "It has not stopped me doing anything and I'm always out of the house. I used to ride a bike to work before I could drive and I used to drive the ambulances. I've brought up my wonderful family and I used to do a lot of swimming too. It's been fantastic. I'm a great believer that if you can get your legs out of bed in the morning then enjoy the day."
The average hip replacement design lasts a decade and Mrs .... has surpassed this by more than 30 years. She said it has never stopped her from being active and, at the request of surgeons, often demonstrated the benefits of her hip to others thinking of having the operation. She said "I used to have to go to the hospital to demonstrate what I'd had done but I had a young family and it was difficult to keep it up."
Mr McKee started experimenting with model hip joints in 1938, working with dentists and a local engineer firm to create the original brass mock-ups. He carried out his first hip replacement on a patient in 1951. A bronze bust of the surgeon was installed in the hospital in 1994".
"A pensioner who was given a hip replacement by a pioneering surgeon more than 40 years ago may have broken the world record for the longest standing hip replacement.
The patient was just 28 when she was told she would need the operation in 1966 and has since become the owner of one of the longest lasting hip replacements in the world. After a car accident at the age of 10, she was left temporarily unable to walk and underwent several operations on her hip before she was told she would need the replacement when she developed complications after the birth of her first daughter.
The revolutionary surgery was carried out by Kenneth McKee at the former Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. Mr McKee pioneered primary hip replacements in Norwich in the 1950s.
The patient, now 70 and a retired nurse, lives with her husband, 80, and has two children, 45 and 43. She said "It has not stopped me doing anything and I'm always out of the house. I used to ride a bike to work before I could drive and I used to drive the ambulances. I've brought up my wonderful family and I used to do a lot of swimming too. It's been fantastic. I'm a great believer that if you can get your legs out of bed in the morning then enjoy the day."
The average hip replacement design lasts a decade and Mrs .... has surpassed this by more than 30 years. She said it has never stopped her from being active and, at the request of surgeons, often demonstrated the benefits of her hip to others thinking of having the operation. She said "I used to have to go to the hospital to demonstrate what I'd had done but I had a young family and it was difficult to keep it up."
Mr McKee started experimenting with model hip joints in 1938, working with dentists and a local engineer firm to create the original brass mock-ups. He carried out his first hip replacement on a patient in 1951. A bronze bust of the surgeon was installed in the hospital in 1994".