​Cheves Smythe (Late)

Dr Cheves McCord Smythe was the visionary Founding Dean of the Aga Khan Faculty of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan, Professor Emeritus 2000.

A graduate of the Taft School and Harvard Medical School preceded by time at Yale before he joined the Navy, Dean Smythe was an academic and strategic leader who left an indelible mark on three medical schools. In 1962, as a 37-year-old, he was named Dean of the Medical School at the Medical College of South Carolina followed by a Founding Deanship at the University of Texas Medical School in 1970, before taking up the challenge to initiate AKU's Faculty of Health Sciences in 1979.  Soon after his arrival, Dean Smythe successfully recruited amazing faculty to AKU, and shaped the direction of what we know as the Medical College and the School of Nursing and Midwifery today.  He completed his tenure in 1985, and returned to Houston, till 1991 when he was requested to re-join AKU to serve as Chair of the Department of Medicine, where again he served with great distinction. Dean Smythe was very straight-forward with impeccable work ethics and tremendous energy, a truly inspirational figure, with great wisdom and wit, supportive of faculty and a strong advocate for high quality academic programmes.

He was a caring physician, a true mentor and educator. The inaugural class of 1988 remembers him particularly well. A graduate of that class Dr Anita Zaidi, our former Chair of Paediatrics and Child Health writes the following about him: “His commitment to excellence, what he expected from the students, his massive energy to move mountains and get things done - they are indelible images etched in my brain. The students of AKU owe immense gratitude to Dr Smythe."

Along with all of his professional achievements Dean Smythe was an avid outdoorsman, a duck hunter, sailor, golfer and an excellent cook.  Dr Smythe is survived by his wife, Isabella Carr Smythe (Polly), and their five sons: Alexander Cheves Smythe, James Leighton Smythe, Augustine Thomas Smythe II, Daniel Thompson Smythe and St. Julien Ravenel Smyth.

His famous quote was 'an institution reaches maturity when an alumni returns to take a senior position.' Dr Cheves Smythe's legacy will live on for generations to come.