The Mitchell family wish to let former colleagues and former patients know the following;
Dr Terry Mitchell, a leading ME/CFS specialist in the UK, died at home on Friday 3 July 2015 after a long battle with debilitating illness.
Dr Mitchell was the Consultant clinical lead of the Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire NHS ME/CFS Service until 2008 and thereafter ran the Peterborough ME/CFS Service until his retirement in 2011.
Under sometimes difficult circumstances, he cared for thousands of patients throughout his career with great compassion and humanity. He also quietly acted as an advocate for ME sufferers in local, national and international fora.
Dr Mitchell personally endorsed and ensured distribution of the Carruthers et al Criteria (2003) and Overview (2005) documents to all referring clinicians in his NHS practice areas. He subsequently went on to co-author the International Consensus Criteria (2011) and Clinical Primer (2012) along with Dr Bruce Carruthers and colleagues.
He was a critic of the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) clinical guideline 53 for ‘CFS/ME' patients.
Dr Mitchell will be greatly missed by many former patients, colleagues and friends as well as by family. He was a true humanitarian.
The Mitchell family wish to have a private funeral for immediate family and friends.
Details of an opportunity to celebrate Terry’s life and work, together with an RSVP can be found here http://eame.org.uk/ Please reply as soon as possible.
The intention is to hold this thanksgiving in Suffolk on Friday, July 24. Friends, colleagues and past patients will all be welcome.
DR CHARLES SHEPHERD, MEDICAL ADVISER TO THE ME ASSOCIATION, WRITES
The words kind, compassionate and caring all immediately come to mind when I think of Dr Terry Mitchell.
He will be greatly missed by his patients with ME/CFS – and he must have seen a huge number during his professional career.
As a consultant haematologist, Terry was also very interested in taking the ME/CFS research agenda forward and was an active member of the Melvin Ramsay Society – where I used to meet him and pick up all the news from Norfolk!
And we should never forget that Terry was one of a very small number of clinicians with NHS consultant status who wasn't afraid of supporting his patients when he knew something was clearly wrong – his strong criticism of the NICE Guideline and supporting the High Court judicial review of the guideline being just one example.
As one of Dr Mitchell’s patients I totally agree with everything that Charles has said. With hindsight I realise I was incredibly lucky to be referred to Dr Mitchell. After a long journey to diagnosis the relief of meeting a clinician who believed and understood my symptoms cannot be understated.
Dr Mitchell genuinely cared for his patients and went out of his way to help them where he could.
He engaged patients in what he knew and observed about ME and CFS, treating them with respect and equal partners in a journey to learn more about the conditions.
A truly kind, compassionate man and an anchor of a knowledge and common sense in the often stormy world of ME and CFS. Thank you Dr Mitchell. You will be greatly missed.
It’s so sad to hear of Dr Mitchell’s passing. I never knew of him or his devotion in helping ME patients, but it’s obvious he will be sadly missed by all who knew him.
My condolences go to his family and I hope that knowing how much he meant to all ME sufferers will ease the loss a little.
Best Wishes
Annx
So sorry to hear of this sad news, such a caring man x