Dr John Froude obituary

The Guardian

21-05-2025

My friend John Froude, who has died aged 80, was an infectious disease physician and worked all over the world. He died from complications of a stroke sustained last autumn.
After resident medical posts at Orpington, the London and the National Heart hospitals in London, he went to Nigeria in 1973, and continued working in Africa, in Zimbabwe and Uganda, and the Middle East before settling in New York, where he obtained a position at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan in the 1980s, when the Aids epidemic was starting.
He moved to practise as an infectious disease specialist in Kingston, in the Hudson Valley, in 2000. His skills as a diagnostician and physician were greatly appreciated by his medical and nursing colleagues, especially throughout the horrors of the Covid-19 pandemic when he praised the skills of the nursing staff. It was in Kingston that he became fascinated by Lyme disease, which is endemic in the Hudson Valley.
John was born in Eastbourne, the middle of three sons of Dympna (nee Murphy), a nurse, and Leonard Froude, a police officer. He grew up in Worthing, West Sussex, and attended Steyning grammar school as a boarder before going on to study medicine at Guy's hospital medical school in London in 1962, where we met. There, he confessed he was probably the worst student on record. He also had aspirations to become a writer. Eventually, he fulfilled both his ambitions to be a doctor, a profession he came to love passionately, and a writer.
Spurred on by Covid, he wrote Plagued, a book on pandemics over the ages, and followed this with True Lyme, on Lyme disease. He also wrote and published two novels.
He worked right up to his illness and for the past few years had alternated between working as a doctor in US and writing at his home in Worthing.
John had a large circle of friends, was a great raconteur, an enthusiastic musician and an impressive linguist. He had long been an admirer of Bob Dylan. John was proud of his Irish heritage and delighted in Irish literature, especially James Joyce. It was a source of pride to him when he obtained Irish nationality.
John is survived by his partner, Elaine Taylor, with whom he entered into a civil partnership in 2022, his daughters, Abigail and Susannah from his marriage to Barbara Watkins, which ended in divorce, and his sons, Jack and Luke from his marriage to Gilda Riccardi, which also ended in divorce, five grandchildren, and his brothers, Leon and Peter.