Ronald Hinchcliffe MD, PhD, was a pioneer of auditory and vestibular medicine both in the UK and worldwide. He devoted his life to the scientific and clinical study of hearing and balance disorders and, together with Professor Ian Taylor, was instrumental in the establishment of Audiological Medicine as a recognized medical speciality under the aegis of the Royal College of Physicians. He conducted the earliest systematic epidemiological studies in the field and his work on age-related hearing loss, published in the late 1950s, remains the most cited of studies on this condition. This led to an interest in the effects of noise on hearing and its medico-legal aspects of which he wrote extensively and was the leading expert. He was always extremely supportive of young researchers and physicians who worked with him, many of whom went on to establish recognized careers, leadership, and innovations in auditory and vestibular medicine. We all remain indebted to the support he gave us throughout our careers. He was a founding member of many auditory and vestibular medicine organizations notably the British Association of Audiological Physicians (BAAP) and of the International Association of Physicians in Audiology (IAPA). He went on to be Chair or President of both organizations.
In his own career, he collaborated with many distinguished physicians and researchers including Professor Archie Cochrane in Cardiff, Professor S.S. Stevens at the Psychoacoustical Laboratory at Harvard, Professor Bruce Sayers at Imperial College, London and the Nobel prize-winner Georg von Békésy. He developed interests in evidence based medicine, medico-legal aspects of noise induced hearing loss and biological signal analysis of the vestibular system, and conducted pioneering epidemiological studies worldwide.
Professor Hinchcliffe studied physiology and medicine and his internship was also in Manchester. He then joined the RAF and ran the Air Force acoustics laboratory working on hearing protection. He left the RAF and went to work for the MRC Wernher research unit at Kings College Hospital, London. At this time he had a Wernher travelling fellowship which enabled him to spend a year at the Psychoacoustics Laboratory at Harvard.
Returning to London he spent much of his time in Wales and Scotland on epidemiological studies with Archie Cochrane, which established his international reputation. This work on normally hearing adults provided the baseline for subsequent population studies, in the UK and abroad, which have been used to quantitatively assess the effects of noise on hearing. This is a field to which he returned frequently and he was involved in many of the earliest medico-legal cases for noise induced hearing loss, continuing to write on this topic long after his retirement. In 1960 he was invited to the University of Iowa, USA, to establish a balance research laboratory. Much of his work there was concerned with Ménière's disorder and the psychological factors underlying it. This was another aspect of his work that recurred throughout his professional career and contributed to improving our understanding of tinnitus, particularly with his studies in the 1980s.
In 1963, he was appointed as Consultant Neuro-otologist at the Royal National Throat Nose & Ear Hospital, establishing a vestibular research laboratory. He was awarded a personal Chair in Audiological Medicine in 1977, which later became an established Chair. He was one the founders of the British Society of Audiology in 1967 and was Secretary General of the International Society of Audiology from 1972 to 1990 and later President of the Society.
In London he continued the main themes of his clinical and research endeavours in auditory and vestibular medicine both in the UK and worldwide. In the early 1970s he worked with many individuals in the UK to highlight the inadequacies of existing hearing rehabilitation services within the UK National Health Service. His work led to the establishment of a training programme for the speciality under the auspices of the Joint Committee for Higher Medical Education. The first appointment was made in 1975 and there has been a slow expansion of the speciality since that time.
Over the years he was responsible for the training of many young doctors and scientists, from all over the world, working in the field of hearing and balance and their disorders and he was always very supportive of able and enthusiastic individuals throughout their careers. He was an invaluable source of information, even long after his retirement, and will be sorely missed by all his friends and former colleagues worldwide.
Compiled by the IAPA Executive Committee