Dafydd Stephens, known to many as Dai died on 2 July 2012, the day of his 70th birthday. He was Professor of Audiological Medicine and Director of the Welsh Hearing Institute in Cardiff from 1990 to 2005. He was a clinician, an academic and a teacher. He made an outstanding contribution to the practice of audiology, both nationally and internationally, particularly in the area of adult aural rehabilitation. This was through his clinical and teaching activities, and by writing prolifically; he edited the British Journal of Audiology from 1985 to 1990, was editor of the Bulletin of the International Association of Physicians in Audiology for 10 years before becoming founder member and then associate editor of the Journal of Audiological Medicine from 1992 to 2002. He continued to work as books editor into his retirement. He was regarded as one of the founding fathers of British audiological medicine and was chairman of the British Association of Audiological Physicians and then of the International Association of Physicians in Audiology. He was responsible for inspiring a generation of audiological physicians, and he also taught widely and was respected across the audiology professions, always encouraging a multidisciplinary approach.
He was born on 2 July 1942 in Caerfyrddin, Wales, to two teachers. His schooling initially was in Wales, and then in Croydon, England, and he trained as a doctor at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, London from 1959 to 1965. He won the Huxley Prize in 1961. His early interests included both psychiatry and audiology, and while still at medical school, he spent three months at the University of Iowa, USA, as research assistant with Professor Scott Reger, one of the leading pioneers in audiology in the USA. It was here that he met Ron Hinchcliffe, later to become the first UK Professor of Audiological Medicine, who proved instrumental as his guide and mentor. Dai also worked as a part-time audiometrician in the ENT Department at Charing Cross Hospital, and in Cambridge and Teddington where he worked for the Medical Research Council/National Physics Laboratory survey on occupational hearing loss.
Once qualified, his early medical career included four years as Member of the Scientific Staff Medical Research Council Applied Psychology Unit, a joint appointment with the Acoustics Section of the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington. In 1971−76 he was Clinical Research Fellow, Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton and Honorary Senior Registrar, Wessex Regional Health Authority. He was made Consultant in Audiological Medicine and Head of Department of Audiological Rehabilitation, Royal National Throat, Nose & Ear Hospital, London in 1976, and came again to work alongside Professor Ron Hinchcliffe. He returned to his Welsh roots in 1986 when he was appointed as Director of the Welsh Hearing Institute, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, where he became Professor of Audiological Medicine until he retired in 2005.
He was a prodigious academic and published more than 440 articles of which he was the first author in the majority. Among these, some were written in Welsh, some in French and others were published in Italian and Finnish journals. The topics ranged from echo-location in birds, through his vast and varied interests in audiology, through to the ENT healing tradition of Celtic saints.
Within audiological medicine, his publications followed various themes: in the 1970s his publications demonstrated his interest in the interaction between hearing and personality, and in the factors influencing audiometric performance; he studied the link between electrophysiological data and psychophysical measurement, and provided some of the earliest reviews of central auditory function tests. This came to fruition in later publications on the King-Kopetsky syndrome.
The 1980s onwards saw the development of his lifelong work to promote better hearing for the elderly. He was known for the development of open-ended questionnaires and had many publications of self-report measures evaluating hearing aid fittings and auditory rehabilitation. He was editor of the volume on Auditory Rehabilitation in both the fifth (1987) and the sixth (1997) edition of Scott-Brown's Otolaryngology. Spheres of interest also included the aetiology of hearing loss, genetic hearing impairment and tinnitus. He made significant contributions to the World Health Organization international coding and classification system of hearing disorders and disability. By the time of his retirement Dai's publications included some with a more historical flavour as in his joint authoring of an article ‘A ringing endorsement for Assyro-Babylonian medicine: the diagnosis and treatment of tinnitus in 1st millenium BCE’. However, his book ‘Living with Hearing Difficulties’ which he wrote in collaboration with Sophia Kramer in 2010, probably best encapsulates his legacy.
Dafydd was undeniably a Welshman, but he was also a world citizen. Work with European and international colleagues was a feature of his professional life and his list of awards and invited lectures pays testament to his contributions to international audiology. He was awarded the Copernicus Medal of the University of Ferrara in1989; he was made Honorary Member of the Societa Italiana di Audiologia in 1989, Honorary Life Member of the International Association of Physicians in Audiology in 2009, and given an Honorary Diploma of the Polish Society of Audiology and Phoniatrics in 2010.
In parallel with his guest lectures abroad, he gave the first McCrea Lecture in audiological medicine in Belfast in 1986, and was the Edith Whetnall Lecturer at the Royal Society of Medicine, London, in 1999. He was invited to give the Sue Bellman Lecture to the British Association of Audiological Physicians in 2006, and to give the Thomas Simm Littler Lecture to the British Society of Audiology in 2007. Honours included the George Davey Howells prize in Otolaryngology, University of London, in both 1987 and 2006. He was made Honorary Life Member of the British Society of Audiology and of the British Association of Audiological Physicians in 2006.
Dai’s first big contribution to the history of ENT and audiology was to write the section on audiology in the monumental work ‘Naissance et developpement de l’Oto-rhino-laryngologie dans l’histoire de la medicine’ edited by the late Jacques Willemot (Ghent) and published by Acta Oto-Rhino-Laryngologica Belgica in late 1981.This publication coincided with the establishment of the European Society for the Study of the History of Otorhinolaryngology in Bologna in late 1980. These two catalysts prompted Dai and others to propose a British Section at a meeting in Birmingham in April 1981 at which Dai spoke on ‘The development of hearing tests’. The following year he organized a meeting at the Institute of Laryngology and Otology. The Society for the History of Otorhinolaryngology (changed in 1994 to the ‘British Society for the History of ENT’) was formally established in May 1984 with Dai as the Honorary Secretary. He collaborated with Neil and Sue Weir to produce ‘Who was who and what did they do?‘ in the January 1987 edition, which celebrated the centenary of the Journal of Laryngology and Otology, and hosted a successful meeting in Cardiff in 1989. Dai continued to publish and present historical papers during his retirement and was a treasured member of the International Study Group for the History of Otorhinolaryngology to which he last spoke in Zurich in 2011.
He inspired many of us to be clinicians, teachers and academics. However, he was also inspirational for the way he combined his personal life with his working life. By returning to Wales in 1986 to become Director of the Welsh Institute he was able to marry his feeling of Welshness “my hiraeth” and interest in Welsh cultural and political activities, with his professional life. Notably he sat on the Llanmaes Community Council for 25 years and was an active member of his local branch of Plaid Cymru.
His family were of great importance to him and he was devoted to his wife, three children and six grandchildren. Many of us enjoyed Dai and Janig's hospitality and stayed with them in the family home in Pen-y-Bryn, Llanfaes, swimming in his pool and attending his big birthdays. He embraced his international friends and continued to travel widely even after his retirement. He was delightfully outspoken and this never derailed him, only serving to demonstrate his intellectual honesty. It was a privilege to have known him and worked alongside him as Honorary Secretary when he was Chairman of BAAP, and then when he was Chairman of the Specialist Advisory Committee in Audiological Medicine for the Joint Committee for Higher Medical Training at the Royal College of Physicians.
He made all things seem possible and will be much missed.
Daffyd Stephens
Audovestibular Physician and Academic
Born 2 July 1942
Died 2 July 2012