Professor James Blackburn Gibson was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, where he was an open scholar,and the University of Edinburgh to which he obtained the Thompson entrance bursary in classics. He was awarded a Rockefeller Medical Studentship to study at the Western Reserve University, Cleveland. He received the Doctor of Medicine of the University of Edinburgh in 1958 with high commendation and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1961.
During the war he served in the RNVR and then started his academic career in pathology at the University of Glasgow. His career subsequently took him to Northern Ireland and to the USA and he became Professor of Pathology at the University of Hong Kong in 1963. He was Dean of Medicine from 1972 to 1978 and Pro-Vice-Chancellor from 1967 to 1968 and from 1980 to 1981.
He has served on many medical advisory bodies in Hong Kong and elsewhere and was honoured with the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1976.
Professor Gibson was the architect of the present modern and comprehensive hospital pathology services at Queen Mary Hospital.
In recognition of his service to the University and his contribution to the hospital pathology field in Hong Kong, the University has resolved to confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa.
