John Studd, DSc, MD, FRCOG, is Professor of Gynaecology at Imperial College and formally Consultant Gynaecologist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. He qualified at Birmingham University in 1962. He was trained in Bulawayo and Salisbury in what was Rhodesia and finished his training in Birmingham. He was a Consultant Gynaecologist at Nottingham City Hospital and then moved to King's College Hospital in London from 1973 to 1995.       profstudd@gynaecology.co.uk   He was then invited to join the staff of the new Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. He runs the Menopause, Premenstrual Syndrome and Psychoendocrine Clinics at this hospital where he also teaches gynaecological surgery. His book Vaginal Hysterectomy was published last year. He is also the author of Progress in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, a series which is now in its 20th year and also a series of annual books on the menopause. In his published work he has stressed the importance of hysterectomy, not as treatment of last resort or a confession of failure but one which should be used for debilitating problems of bleeding, pain, premenstrual depression, menstrual migraine as well as the long term problems, such as fibroids, pelvic inflammatory disease and endometriosis.