CLMH ‘Max’ Gibbons
21st April 1957 – 7th November 2025
Obituary by Duncan Whitwell
Professor CLMH 'Max' Gibbons was appointed as a Consultant Orthopaedic Arthroplasty and Oncology Surgeon at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, University of Oxford by Professor Robert Duthie CBE and Mr John Spivey in 1996 after Fellowships in Sarcoma Surgery in Lyon France, Berne Switzerland, Mount Sinai Hospital Toronto Canada and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, USA. Max oversaw the development of the Oxford Sarcoma Service with the introduction of National Sarcoma Guidelines in 2004, to become a fully comprehensive sarcoma service with site specific support and national recognition as a supra-regional sarcoma centre covering a population of over twelve million in the south and southwest of England. He also had a personal interest in knee conditions and was often the surgeon to consult on the patellofemoral joint.
Max initially attended Hertford College, Oxford and read Geology. He then transferred to The Royal London for medical training where he met his future wife Sarah training as a nurse. He also undertook military service with the 10th Btn Parachute Regiment and on completion of medical training had retained a strong association with the medical defence services. He was elected as an Honorary Member of the Combined Services Orthopaedic Society in recognition of 20 years of training of armed services medical personnel in surgery. He trained more than 30 military orthopaedic surgeons who have gone on to perform major surgery in conflicts across the world.
Max followed his father into surgery and also a Hunterian Professorship from the Royal College of Surgeons, following his father’s award in 1984 for his contribution to Surgery in the treatment of Bomb Blast Injuries in Northern Ireland. Max was awarded a similar Hunterian Professorship in 2016 for his contribution to surgical advances in treating Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcoma and the use of tumour prostheses in revision arthroplasty.
Max was unique as a passionate educator and has lectured around the world in Arthroplasty and Sarcoma Surgery. He has provided crucial education in less developed countries such as Ecuador, Guyana, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. He undertook the first distal femur tumour prosthesis in Ethiopia in 2016, after a charitable donation for the implant. However, he particularly encouraged novel biological reconstructions to support limb salvage rather than amputation, as implants are just not affordable in this region. With his work on numerous training courses in arthroplasty and oncology in association with the College of Surgeons of Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) region of Africa, he furthermore supported their annual postgraduate examinations, equivalent in standard to the Fellowship Examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. This work has always been entirely unpaid, and he had to give up his annual leave to undertake this valuable work.
Due to his interest and enthusiasm for training in orthopaedics and his inability to sometime say 'no' to invitations, Max was actively involved in teaching and training of the medical students in Gaza and the West Bank. This also involved a close association with the orthopaedic surgeons in the region regarding surgical planning and training for more specialised surgery. Max continued to provide this service even at the height of conflicts in the region. If it was easy, it was not worth it.
Max has had a long-term association with the island of Malta, a nation of half a million people. He set up and developed an outreach of the Oxford Sarcoma Service in partnership with NHS England Highly Specialised Commissioning, the Health Ministry and the Mater Dei University Hospital. This work was recognised with a visit from the President of Malta, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca on a personal visit to the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in 2017 to thank the staff at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust. A further invitation in 2019 to the Presidential Palace in Valetta by the President and Prime Minister was made in recognition of Oxford’s contribution to the treatment of Maltas cancer and orthopaedic patients over the last 25 years.
Max established the Oxford Sarcoma Service Charity to raise money for those training to become specialist sarcoma doctors and particularly allied health professionals. Sarcoma nurse training has traditionally been poorly supported, and this additional money has principally been used to allow nurses and other staff to attend conferences and training events at no cost. Over the last 30-years over 200 trainees have benefited from this money. Professor Gibbons also established the John Spivey Prize, in honour of one of our former senior surgeons, to promote research and support Commonwealth Fellows during their training in Oxford.
Max’s energy and enthusiasm were legendary particularly for sarcoma work where he was great thinker and innovator. He had an eclectic range of research interests from implant design to anthropology. A highlight for him was being able to handle and study 'Lucy’s' actual bones in a museum in Addis Ababa. His clinical judgments were often on a higher plane but always well considered. He authored over 100 papers and was always encouraging to his trainees on research projects. He was particularly instrumental in the use of custom and modular endoprosthetic replacement, including growing prostheses in children and this, combined with innovative orthoplastic surgery, such as the use of the free fibular graft and versatile biological reconstruction has facilitated limb salvage in many hundreds of patients, who would have otherwise had to have an amputation. Max has been at the forefront of implementing the vascularised fibular graft after segmental bone resection and the 20-year results in reconstruction have been presented both nationally and internationally in the combined Oxford Leiden Study. This has become a standard reconstructive technique in centres across the world. This has been used in various applications including, osteoarticular reconstruction of the shoulder, wrist, ankle and small joints and even in children with an open physis.
It was as a surgical trainer that Max thrived and was unique. Max was regularly voted by trainees in Oxford as 'Trainer of the Year'. He gave his trainees enormous surgical experience but had an uncanny knack of knowing when to help. Long days in the operating theatre were then followed by a debrief down the local ale house. It was there that he proudly became your friend and he allowed you to be his. He showed great interest in all he met and he never looked down on or patronised anyone.
The personal side of Max is his most unique quality and for what he will be remembered for most. He was 'Oxford' charm personified to all levels of staff often giving up time to enquire how you were. Max was a civilised Oxford gentleman, supportive and loyal to his colleagues. His death has highlighted that he was greatly loved in Oxford and the field of sarcoma care by all who met him. He will be sorely missed in Oxford and the wider international orthopaedic community.
Max delighted in being a surgeon and the humanity of being a doctor working in a cancer field was his major driver. He showed compassion for patients and colleagues alike dealing with life threatening conditions. He bore his cancer diagnosis and arduous treatment for almost a year with strength and dignity. He attended the Sarcoma MDT he set up two days before he died. He was proud of the surgical skills, innovation and character required to work in sarcoma surgery. Max rest in peace, you deserve it,
He is survived by his wife Sarah and three children Max Jr, Flora and Daisy.