Mr John Lynn MS FRCS
Mr John A Lynn was for 29 years the sole Consultant Endocrine Surgeon at the Hammersmith Hospital, London and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Imperial College of Science, Medicine & Technology.In his career he has performed over 9 thousand explorations of the neck. He now practices only privately at the BUPA Cromwell Hospital London and at the Parkside Hospital Wimbledon.Mr Lynn's main interest is the safe application of minimally invasive surgery for endocrine conditions.
Rosalind Jones has been for 27 years Mr Lynn's practice manager, her contact number is 0044 (0)7836285832.Mrs Jones deals with any appointments or referrals.Mr Lynn's Bupa Cromwell secretary Ms Lorraine Penning can be reached by telphone 0044(0)2074605917, fax 0044(0)2074605709 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Mr Lynn has had an interest in endocrine surgery for 35 years.He qualified from King's College Hospital, London in 1964 and was appointed house physician to the Professorial Medical Unit at Kings College Hospital and subsequentlly was house surgeon to Sir John Wakeley at the Chester Royal Infirmary. In 1996 he was casualty officer at the Birmingham Accident Hospital, and then worked for 18 months as a general practitioner in South London while he studied for the primary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of London.In 1967 he went to Ascension Island with the BBC as a general practitioner with a surgical interest. Following his period abroad he had an extensive surgical training as a surgical registrar in Liverpool and Chester in Cheshire.
Mr Lynn spent 18 months from 1971 with Dr Richard Egdahl learning endocrine surgery at the Boston University Medical Centre in Massachusetts,USA.Endocrine surgery was very much in its infancy in the UK at this time. While in Boston in his spare time he was a medical officer for a drug addiction clinic.From 1973 he was senior registrar for 2 years at the district general hospital in Bournemouth in the UK.He returned to London to the Westminster Hospital as a senior registrar in 1975 for a spell of 2 years training in the the head and neck unit under Mr Gerald Westbury.In 1977 Mr Lynn was appointed Lecturer in Professor Harold Ellis' Surgical department at Westminster Hospital Medical School, London.In 1977 he was awarded the Arris and Gale Lectureship of the Royal College of Surgeons of London.In 1978 Mr Lynn was awarded the Mastership in Surgery of the University of London for his dissertation on "The Effects of female hormones on bile composition- a Study in a Primate model".
In 1978 Mr Lynn was appointed consultant surgeon to the Hammersmith Hospital with a special interest in thyroid and parathyroid surgery.At the same time he had general surgical responsibilities at the newly opened Ealing Hospital in West London.In 1979 was awarded an honorary senior lectureship to the Royal Postgraduate Medical School London.For 29 years at Hammersmith Hospital Mr Lynn's special interests were the medical and surgical treatment of thyroid disease, the management of parathyroid disease and re-operative surgery. He developed a special expertise in the management of endocrine tumours of the pancreas and of benign and malignant tumours of the adrenal including functional tumours such as phaeochromocytoma, Cushing's and Conn's tumours.In the late 1990's Mr Lynn introduced minimally invasive endocrine surgery into the Hammersmith Hospital.
From 2006 Mr Lynn dedicated all of his time to private practice at the BUPA Cromwell Hospital London. He is certainly one of the most experienced practicing endocrine surgeons in the United Kingdom.
Mr Lynn operated on 445 endocrine patients in 2005-6, with more than 130 thyroid and 60 parathyroid cases per year.
Mr Lynn has lectured worldwide and published extensively on all aspects of endocrine surgery(please see his publications and presentations).He has worked for 30 years with the distinguished Endocrine Pathologist Dr Paul Lewis and a team of Endocrinologists, Radiologists and Anaesthetists who have a special interest in endocrine tumours.Mr Lynn's research interests are mainly clinical. He is particularly interested in the difficult problem of re-operative endocrine surgery.He also has a special interest in paediatric surgical endocrinology.He has for 15 years advocated early operative intervention in young children who are Ret proto-oncogene positive from families with medullary cancer of the thyroid.This view is now considered the gold standard.In the last 29 years Mr Lynn has trained over 20 surgeons who have developed either a part or full-time interest in endocrine surgery.
Mr Lynn was a founder member of the British Endocrine Surgical Group, later known as the British Association of Endocrine Surgeons, recently renamed the British Association of Endocrine & Thyroid Surgeons (BAETS).Mr Lynn's practice is now 95% endocrine surgery.An audit of thyroid and parathyroid surgery by the BAETS in 2007 confirmed that Mr Lynn and his co-consultant Mr Fleming have the the largest thyroid and parathyroid surgical practice in the UK.
Mr Lynn has voiced his concerns for many years about the apparent high incidence of complications following thyroid and parathyroid surgery performed by non specialist surgeons or surgeons with an alleged interest in parathyroid or thyroid surgery but a low yearly volume.As a result of his published concerns Mr Lynn has developed a large medical legal practice related to complications following thyroid and parathyroid surgery.
The recent BAETS audit in 2007 demonstrated a re-operation rate for bleeding in thyroidectomy of 1.25% as compared with Mr Lynn's rate of 0.2%.The study also showed permanent damage to the parathyroids of 7.56% following thyroidectomy as compared to Mr Lynn's rate of less than 3%.
Mr Lynn performs all his surgery using specially custom made illuminated magnifying loupes very kindly donated by one of his thyroidectomy patients. These loupes are an enormous aid in improving the safety of the surgery.
Mr Lynn is convinced that intra-operative nerve monitoring of the recurrent laryngeal nerve should be performed in all parathyroid and thyroid operations.This attitude is not supported by all endocrine surgeons but is justified in Mr Lynn's view by the fact that an audit in 2007 by the BAETS showed that its members who do not universially use nerve monitoring had a mean damage to the major voice box nerve following thyroidectomy of 2.2% and a voice change rate of 5.9% as compared to 0.2% for both in Mr Lynn's hands.The National Institute for Clinical Exellence (NICE) in 2007 asked for advice about the use of intra-operative nerve monitoring and Mr Lynn is disappointed with its March 2008 verdict.NICE confirms that there is no risk using the nerve monitor but did not recommend its universal use. Interestingly they commented on its value in complicated thyroidectomies.Some of the advisors to NICE were concerned about its use by inexperienced surgeons who in Mr Lynn's view should not be doing the operation anyway! One hopes that more and more surgeons will use this useful method and that like identifing the laryngeal nerves, that nerve monitoring is in the future considered essential in thyroid and parathyroid surgery.Mr Lynn's recent experience of nerve monitoring in over 500 consecutive cases has convinced him that this the case. Intra-operative nerve monitoring is not a substitute for meticulous recurrent nerve identification but is an additional aid in protecting the nerve.The use of nerve monitoring may be in part hampered by the question of cost and one hopes that it does not become part of the "postcode lottery" so widespread in England.
In July 2007 Mr Lynn was instructed as an expert witness on behalf of General Medical Council regarding the use of thyroxine in biochemically normal patients.
In 2007 Mr Lynn gave the Yearsley Lecture of the Royal Society of Medicine and ENT UK and was awarded the Yearsley Gold Medal.
In March 2008 Mr Lynn gave the Thomas Tatum memorial lecture on Head and Neck Surgery at St George's Hospital London.
Mr Lynn is the owner of Worgret Manor Hotel a Georgian Manor House famed for its accommodation and fine cuisine in Wareham in Dorset. Wareham is the gateway to the Purbecks,part of the World Heritage Dorset Coast. www.worgretmanor.co.uk
