John Fisher Stokes

John Fisher Stokes (19 September 1912, Bexhill, Sussex – 11 May 2010) was a physician and surgeon, who earned a footnote in the history of the Royal College of Physicians by becoming part of the first married couple who were both elected FRCP.

Biography
After education at Haileybury School, John Fisher Stokes matriculated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1937 MB MChir (Cantab.) after medical study at University College Hospital Medical School. In 1937 he qualified MRCS, LRCP from University College Hospital (UCH), where he was a house physician and house surgeon. At UCH he successively became a resident medical officer and a medical registrar. In 1939 he qualified MRCP. Stokes joined in 1942 the RAMC, served as a physician in Burma Campaign, was mentioned in dispatches, and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was a consultant physician at UCH from 1946 until he retired in 1977. In 1947 he graduated MD and was elected FRCP. In 1975 he was elected FRCPE.

"He was a censor at the RCP (from 1963 to 1964), and then became academic vice-president (1968 to 1969), and gave his time and commitment to the MRCP examination. ... He was concerned to standardise the MRCP and was a main driver behind the introduction of multiple choice questions into the examination."

Stokes gave the Bradshaw Lecture in 1973 and the Harveian Oration in 1981. For many years he was a trustee of the Leeds Castle Foundation, a private charitable trust.

"... he reached the finals of the National Squash Championship in 1937, played international squash in 1938 and he loved real tennis. He played the piano brilliantly, to a standard which enabled him to perform publicly, giving a concert to a packed audience in the library at UCH with a university orchestra. He completed The Times crossword daily well into his nineties. His Harley Street rooms were decorated by competent and attractive watercolours he had painted whilst in the RAMC in Burma."

In 1940 he married the microbiologist Joan Stokes née Rooke, who was elected FRCP in 1947. They were married for 69 years and John died a few months after Joan died. They were survived by a son, a daughter, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. For a number of years, John and Joan Stokes lived next door to, and were friends of, the actor Alastair Sim and his wife, Naomi.