Norman Barrett

Norman Rupert Barrett (1903 to 1979) was an Australian-born English thoracic surgeon, born in Adelaide and brought to England at the age of ten. He trained at St Thomas' Hospital, became a consultant surgeon there in 1935 and spent the rest of his career at the hospital, lecturing in surgery for the University of London. He turned to thoracic surgery after a Rockefeller travelling fellowship in the United States, and on 7 March 1947 he performed the first successful repair of a ruptured oesophagus. He is widely yet mistakenly remembered for describing what became known as Barrett's oesophagus, since he argued that the columnar-lined segment was stomach drawn into the chest, a view he later gave up. He was appointed CBE.