Education
He studied at the University of Oxford, earning a medical degree.
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Norman Guthkelch
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Career
He is sometimes known as the first British pediatric neurosurgeon. He was the first physician to make a connection between shaking an infant and subsequent brain injury. Born outside London, Guthkelch wanted to become a veterinarian in early childhood, but he shifted his goal to becoming a physician by the second grade.
He was a resident at the Manchester Royal Infirmary.
Guthkelch worked at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Salford Royal Hospital, Royal Manchester Children"s Hospital and Hull Royal Infirmary. His early career was influenced by neurosurgeon Sir Geoffrey Jefferson.
Guthkelch has been described as the first pediatric neurosurgeon in Great Britain. Making the connection between subdural hematoma and babies who had sustained shaking injuries, Guthkelch published his conclusions in a 1971 British Medical Journal paper.
He said that since there was no stigma associated with shaking infants in Northern England at that time, parents were frank with him that these injured infants had been shaken.
Later, he was critical of the broad application of the shaken baby syndrome diagnosis in legal proceedings, saying that illnesses could sometimes cause similar issues to shaken baby syndrome. "In a case of measles, if you get the diagnosis wrong, in seven days" time it really doesn"t matter because it"s cleared up anyhow," Guthkelch said. "If you get the diagnosis of fatal shaken baby syndrome wrong, potentially someone"s life will be terminated." In September 2015, he told Retro Report that he was "shocked" and "desperately disappointed" that prosecutors were using his science as a basis to convict people.
Guthkelch took retirement in 2012 but continues to review cases in which people have been charged with injuring children by shaking.
The Society for Research into Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida bestows the Norman Guthkelch Award upon a student or early career scientist involved in spina bifida or hydrocephalus research.
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Quotations: "In a case of measles, if you get the diagnosis wrong, in seven days" time it really doesn"t matter because it"s cleared up anyhow,".
