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{{short description|British surgeon}}
{{for multi|the Scottish writer|Alan Parks (writer)|other people|Alan Parkes (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2018}}
'''Sir Alan Guyatt Parks''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRCP|FRCPE|FRCS}} (19 December 1920 – 3 November 1982) was a British colorectal surgeon,<ref name=rcseng>{{Cite web|url=http://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/biogs/E000239b.htm|title = Parks, Sir Alan Guyatt (1920 - 1982)|work=[[Plarr's Lives of the Fellows]]|publisher=Royal College of Surgeons of England|access-date=26 July 2022}}</ref> who served as president of the [[Royal College of Surgeons]].<ref name=whoswho>{{Who's Who | title=Parks, Sir Alan (Guyatt) | id = U167882 | year = 2007 | type = was | access-date = 12 December 2013| doi = 10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U167882}}</ref>

== Early life and education ==
Parks attended Sutton High School and later [[Epsom College]] (1935–1940) on a scholarship.<ref name=epsom>{{cite web|title=Sir Alan Guyatt Parks (1920-1982)|work=Old Epsomian Biographies|publisher=Epsom College Archive|url=https://archive.epsomcollege.org.uk/1915-1939/OE_Biographies/Parks1935.pdf|access-date=26 July 2022}}</ref> He became president of the Oxford University Athletic Club while playing rugby during his bachelors studies.  He graduated from  [[Brasenose College, Oxford]] in 1943 after four years of study.  Parks then became one of few people chosen as a Rockefeller student at [[Johns Hopkins University]] for medical training.  He graduated with his medical doctorate (MD) from Johns Hopkins in 1947 and returned to [[Guy's Hospital]] in London the same year.<ref name=rcp>{{cite web|title=Sir Alan Guyatt Parks|work=RCP Museum|publisher=Royal College of Physicians|url=https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/sir-alan-guyatt-parks|access-date=26 July 2022}}</ref>

== Career ==
At Guy's Hospital, Parks was a house physician and research assistant for two years.  He then spent two years with the [[Royal Army Medical Corps]] (RAMC) as a surgeon with deployments in Asia including Japan and Korea.  Upon returning to London, Parks became a resident surgical officer at [[Putney Hospital]] in London.  He was next a [[specialist registrar|registrar]] and then [[senior registrar]] at Guy's until 1959 when he was appointed as a [[consultant (medicine)|consultant]] surgeon at [[St Mark's Hospital]], the world's first bowel specialised hospital, in London.  At the time, Parks was the first person to be appointed as a St Mark's surgical consultant without having also done his residency at the hospital.<ref name=rcp/><ref name=rcseng/>

Parks is credited with being the first surgeon in the world to premiere the [[ileo-anal pouch]] procedure in 1976.  His first pouch surgery took place at the London Hospital (called the [[Royal London Hospital]] since 1990).  Parks' pouch design was a S-shaped pouch.  Afterwards, he continued to develop the procedure at St Mark's Hospital.<ref name=rcp/>

The aim of Parks' [[ileo-anal pouch]] was to improve quality of life after a person needed to have their colon and rectum removed because of disease by providing select people who were medically suitable the option to choose between having their anal evacuation route reconstructed or life with a permanent ileostomy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rothenberger |first=David A. |last2=Buls |first2=John G. |last3=Nivatvongs |first3=Santhat |last4=Goldberg |first4=Stanley M. |date=1985 |title=The parks S ileal pouch and anal anastomosis after colectomy and mucosal proctectomy |journal=The American Journal of Surgery |volume=149 |issue=3 |pages=390–394 |doi=10.1016/S0002-9610(85)80115-X}}</ref> The ileo-anal pouch is known by a number of names including the Parks' pouch, S-pouch, W-pouch, J-pouch, restorative proctocolectomy (RPC), pelvic pouch, and ileo pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA).

Parks' [[Ileo-anal pouch|ileal-pouch anal anastomosis]] (IPAA) was an advancement in colorectal surgery building off both the ileum-anal anastomosis from the 1940s and the [[Kock pouch|Koch pouch]], or continent ileostomy first performed by Finnish surgeon Dr [[Nils Kock]] in Sweden during 1969.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Ravitch| first1= M. M. | last2= Sabiston | first2 = D.C. Jr. | title=Anal ileostomy with preservation of the sphincter; a proposed operation in patients requiring total colectomy for benign lesions | journal=Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics | volume=84 | issue=6 | pages=1095–1099| year=1947 | pmid=20240241 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | year=1976 | last1=Rudd | first1=W. W. | title=The Kock Pouch: A Continent Ileostomy with No Appliance | journal=Canadian Family Physician| volume=22 | pages=57–59 | pmid=21308013 | pmc=2378183 }}</ref> With the [[Ileo-anal pouch|ileal pouch-anal anastomosis]] (IPAA), Parks' added the construction of a reservoir or 'pouch' made from 40-50 centimetres of the small bowel (ileum) immediately above the excised colon and rectum before performing the anastomosis between the ileal pouch and the anus. This not only restored anal evacuation but was intended to improve the patient's function by reducing the frequency of defaecation, as was reported to be high from the ileum-anal anastomosis (without pouch) as described by Ravich and Sabiston in 1947.

The first article published on ileo-anal pouch surgery was authored by Parks and his colleague, [[John Nicholls (surgeon)|John Nicholls]], who also contributed to the development of the pouch procedure, in the ''British Medical Journal'' in 1978.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.bmj.com/content/2/6130/85|doi=10.1136/bmj.2.6130.85 |title=Proctocolectomy without ileostomy for ulcerative colitis |year=1978 |last1=Parks |first1=A. G. |last2=Nicholls |first2=R. J. |journal=BMJ |volume=2 |issue=6130 |pages=85–88 |pmid=667572 |pmc=1605901 }}</ref> The first five people with pouches, all S-pouches, were included in the study.

Parks is also known for a number of other contributions to colorectal surgery including his 1954 description of haemorrhoid treatment explaining a new submucous procedure which was dubbed "Parks' painless proctoplasty".  His research into the treatment of anal incontinence and fistula-in-ano also had a lasting impact on the practice of colorectal surgery.<ref name=rcp/>

Parks was elected president of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1980.  The same year he was awarded the [[Ernst Jung Prize]] for Medicine.<ref name=rcp/>

== Death ==
Sir Alan Parks died in London on 3 November 1982 at St Bartholomew's Hospital after emergency cardiac surgery while he was in office as president of the Royal College of Surgeons.  He had previously suffered a heart attack while in Rome during October 1982.<ref name=rcseng/>

==See also==
* [[De Simone Formulation]]

== References ==
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{{s-bef |before=[[Reginald Murley|Sir Reginald Murley]]}}
{{s-ttl |title=[[Royal College of Surgeons of England#Current and past Presidents|President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England]] |years=1980&ndash;1982}}
{{s-aft |after=[[Geoffrey Slaney]]}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Parks, Alan Guyatt}}
[[Category:1920 births]]
[[Category:1982 deaths]]
[[Category:British colorectal surgeons]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:20th-century British surgeons]]