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Oxford medicine
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE OXFORD MEDICAL ALUMNI OX F O R D M E D I C I N E
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Letter from the President Many of you will have memories of the Churchill Hospital, constructed circa 1942 by the Americans to cope with anticipated casualties from the intended invasion of continental Europe and completed in weeks, as a pretty unattractive place. Rows of corrugated iron Nissen huts, concrete roofed single story brick buildings with their exposed pipes, unmade roads, and so on. I had cause to go there last month, my first visit since I retired 6 years ago, and what changes I witnessed. No longer is the Churchill the poor relation. On the University side (now referred to as the Oxford University Old Road Campus), the new Doll building, a genuine architectural masterpiece, with John Bell, the Regius Professor, atop of it, luxuriating in a sort of penthouse, with magnificent views, taking in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, the Vaccine Centre, the Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, the Renal and Transplant Unit, and in the foreground, an enormous building site creating the over £100 million pound Cancer Hospital ( thanks to PFI !) to be completed in 2008. Believe me, it is all very impressive, and there is more to come. The second Oxford Osler Lecture was delivered in April by Christine Lee, Professor of Haemophilia at UCH, a medical student in the late sixties and early seventies and introduced in a masterly fashion by Grant Lee whose house physician she was. It was an outstanding account of the history, indeed the political history, of haemophilia, the background to modern management and of course the disasters caused by the HIV and hepatitis C viruses. Sadly the quality of the Rhodes
House dinner did not match it, particularly regretful in view of the splendid dinner there last year and the excellent lunch the year before. I am confident this was a blip that won‘t be repeated` We contributed to the University North American Reunion and entertained 58 people to “brunch“at the Waldorf Astoria. Global health was the theme, with well received contributions from Terence Ryan and Harold Jaffe, who took over Martin Vessey’s chair, and Ken Fleming provided a synopsis of the considerable developments in Oxford Medical Science, and some of the difficulties, not least the shambolic disarray within the NHS. The event was marred a little by your President who should know by now the importance of checking sources. Relying on intelligence provided by the Concierge, I announced, with sorrow, the result of the Boat Race which finished just before we started. Well, the Concierge of the great Waldorf Astoria got his universities mixed up…… In November, the Radcliffe Infirmary will (finally) close after 236 years of sterling service. Wonderful and ambitious plans (see page 4) will, with luck, time and money, eventually clear away the dross accumulated over the last 100 years or so, to reveal the old 1770 building in it’s true glory and provide much needed space for the humanities, mathematics and the libraries housed in environmentally sensitive new buildings arranged to show off the magnificence of the Radcliffe Observatory.
J M Holt
nd BM examination results Congratulations to the 130 final year medical students who were successful in the 2006 sitting of the 2nd BM examination in medicine and surgery.This was the second time that the examination ran in January of the final year. Analysis of results from 2005 and 2006 indicate no significant difference in performance from prior
cohorts who took the examination in June of the final year. Feedback from 2005 graduates indicates that the changed timing had positive effects, allowing greater opportunities to pursue personal interests and career development in electives and special study modules in the final six months of the course.
Contents
Letter from the President1 Director of Pre-Clinical Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Medical Sciences Division in the news . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 New UK entrance test .3 Masterplan for the Radcliffe Infirmary Site . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Sound approach to learning anatomy . . . . . .5 “My” Oxford: 1956–59 by Francis Retief . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 OMA Events Diary 2006–2008 . . . . . . . . . . . .16
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Director of Pre Clinical Studies: John Morris succeeds Stephen Goss
Anatomy is a fundamental of medicine which too often was being taught in isolation from its clinical relevance
Dr Stephen Goss, Director of Pre-Clinical Studies since 1997, stepped down from this role at the beginning of Hilary term 2006 to take up the post of Senior Proctor to the University in March, 2006. Many will consider his most enduring achievement as DPCS to be the creation of the magnificent Medical Sciences Teaching Centre, a project he oversaw from inception to completion with meticulous attention to detail. But less visible projects were no less important. He led pre-clinical teaching through a period of significant change, responding equally to the challenges of reorganisation into the Medical Sciences Division and the external scrutiny of the General Medical Council and the Quality Assurance Agency. The Review Committee for the Medical School fittingly paid tribute to the conspicuous role played in the success of the school by his ‘enthusiasm and dedication.’ Dr Goss is succeeded by John Morris, fellow of St Hugh’s College and Professor of Human Anatomy. Professor Morris, an experienced medical educator with recent interests in computer aided learning, took up his post on 1st January, 2006. Professor Morris writes:
‘I have often been asked by students why, having qualified as a doctor, I decided to spend my life in the anatomy department of medical schools. My answer has always been that it was because I loved both research and being involved in medical education, helping bright young minds gain understanding of fascinating and complex ideas. In particular I was concerned, even in 1969, that too few qualified doctors were involved in preclinical education. The anatomy aspect was partly serendipity — I had done an intercalated BSc research year in the Anatomy Department at Bristol during my medical course, and joined the staff there as a demonstrator to decide whether or not to go into surgery. Anatomy is a fundamental of medicine, which too often was being taught in isolation from its clinical relevance. I relish the prospect of helping guide the preclinical course, hand in hand with the clinical course, through what are challenging times ahead. “Teaching smarter” as the Review Committee puts it; for students so that we help them learn what they need, when they need it, in the face of a rapidly changing clinical world; and for staff so that they can maximise their effectiveness both in research and in education – the joint and inseparable fundamentals of any medical school.’
University review concludes Medical School ‘in very good shape’ The Medical Sciences Division recently received the report of the University’s Review Committee for the Medical School. The Committee, a panel of internal and external experts in medical education chaired by pro- vice-chancellor Dr Bill Macmillan, visited the Medical Sciences Division in June 2005 to review educational policy and quality of learning and teaching in the medical school, including the six and four year medical courses and graduate courses. The report took account of the Division’s self-assessment document, written evidence from individuals, and two days of meetings with faculty, administrators, students and graduates. The report’s conclusion was a heartening one: ‘the Medical School, which like its peers, is almost always in a state of transition, was in very good shape. It benefited from excellent divisional leadership, from the work of key dedicated and enthusiastic academic
and administrative staff, and from excellent students. There was also a clear responsiveness to the views of students, professional bodies and external examiners.’ The chair of the divisional Education Policy Standards Committee, Richard Boyd, commented: 'It is useful to have an expert group, the majority external, to look critically at what the University tries to achieve, whether the outcomes are supportive or critical. This group was perceptive in its focus on areas needing further debate. They were complimentary about those who hold together the medical school's education activities, not least the course directors, their academic and their administrative colleagues. The Division is keen to develop its thinking on the issues identified and will do this through the involvement of heads of departments, of divisional board members and particularly through work done at the Divisional EPSC.
Guardian Ranks Oxford first for medicine — again Oxford has been named Britain’s best university overall for the second year running in The Guardian’s 2006 university rankings. This annual league table which assesses teaching quality, staff-student ratios and graduate job prospects ranks Oxford first, beating
Cambridge to the top spot with five London institutions in the top ten. Oxford is ranked first again for its teaching in anatomy and physiology, medicine and psychology as well as first in thirteen other subject categories.
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Development news • We are very honoured that the Michael Davys Family Trust has recently donated £2 million to Oxford medicine to endow a new Chair in Neurosciences. The late Dr Michael Davys came up in 1940 (St Edmund Hall) to read Medicine and went on to become a distinguished psychiatrist. To honour his life's work and his particular interest in schizophrenia, the Trustees of his Estate decided to endow a Chair in Neurosciences and we are delighted that Oxford is the recipient of this magnificent benefaction. The Medical Sciences Division has identified the Neurosciences as a key focus for Oxford medicine and over the next 5 years will develop the outstanding work of our clinical and basic scientists at Oxford. This new Chair will play a critical role in achieving this objective.
• Student prizes provide valuable encouragement and reward for outstanding performance. The late Dr Dennis Gath (St Catherine’s 1953), a long standing friend of the University's Psychiatry Department, was very aware of this and we are delighted that his widow has endowed a Psychiatry Prize in his honour. This annual book prize will be awarded for outstanding performance by Year 5 clinical students in their psychiatry studies. It is hoped that the " D e n n i s G a t h P s y c h i a t r y P r i z e " will encourage more students to consider a career in this important field and will be an appropriate lasting legacy to the work of Dr Gath.
about his nodes but not a great deal more. The Professor of Anatomy Dr K Ramachandra Rao has promised to call the students to a viewing of the DVD made by Angus McKnight.
receive a copy then please contact Jayne Todd It is vital that OMA has your current Prof Terence Ryan in Pondicherry
contact details to enable you to
continue receiving autumn (for graduate-entry applicants). It is expected that there will be a registration fee of about £50, and copies Please check the new test will be available widely at centres throughout the UK and overseas. and update your The Oxford undergraduate course will continue to use the BMAT, in company with Cambridge, UCL and details at: Imperial. The Oxford graduate-entry course will switch to the new test this year for a trial period of three years, so Oxford will have first-hand experience of both systems. On the graduate-entry course, the www medsci ox ac uk/contact UK-CAT will replace the existing written test.
Tea Party for John Spalding st March
At the end of March, a Tea Party was held in Balliol to mark the departure of John Spalding, who after many years in Oxford, is leaving to live with his family in Suffolk. A small gathering of his former Neurological and Neuro-Surgical colleagues heard Chris Adams give a glowing tribute outlining John's contribution to Oxford Neurosciences over many years. Those of us, who had the privilege of having been taught by John, remarked how
alumni of
If you would like to
New UK entrance test for prospective medical students A new common entrance test is to be tried this year by 23 medical, dental and veterinary schools in the UK. The test is called UK-CAT (Clinical Admissions Test, the "Clinical" reflecting the involvement of the three professions), and will be administered by Pearson, the company that runs the national entrance test for law schools (LNAT). Most of the schools using the new test have not previously used an entrance test at all, so the new test will represent a significant change in medical school admissions. The test will be held in the summer (of year 11, for school-leavers) and in the
sent to more than
medicine at Oxford
OSLER HOUSE! There have been many admirers of Sir William Osler but I thought only Oxford named its Medical Student’s centre after the great man. Not so, the Medical School (Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical education and Research) www.jipmer.edu/ in Pondicherry S India has an Osler House and a rather fine bust of Sir William installed in 1966 made from cement by a Mr. V Govindaraj. Speaking to medical students about Osler they, like Oxford students, knew
Oxford Medicine is
little he appeared to have changed during that time and how sprightly he still appeared! With the OMA First Team playing an away fixture in New York that weekend, John Ledingham and Richard Maxwell were hauled from the substitutes bench to represent the Alumni in the ensuing bun-fight, and join everyone else in wishing the Spaldings all the very best in their forthcoming East Anglian adventure. Richard Maxwell
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The University of Oxford Masterplan for the Radcliffe Infirmary Site
The four plans show the dramatic development of the Radcliffe Infirmary site from to The plan resulted from expansion initiated by Sir Henry Acland Development was carefully controlled at this time to protect views from the Observatory for astronomical purposes By further development had taken place together with the acquisition of the Manor House Estates at Headington
It is clear the site must be developed in sympathy with
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its surroundings and with reference to the heritage of the site
Dr John Radcliffe played an enormous role in the develop ment of Oxford albeit posthumously through a large bequest to the University Radcliffe acquired a fortune as a private London doctor treating the rich the royal and the famous He bequeathed the University the sum of — maintaining that his success sprang from his Oxford education and when he died the legacy became known as the Radcliffe Trust Radcliffe's main intention was to create a new library the Radcliffe Camera However upon the Camera's completion the Trustees were able to use the balance for 'such charitable objects as they in their discretion think best' The first was the creation of the Radcliffe Infirmary and the second was the Radcliffe Observatory
Ordnance Survey plan — Copyright Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive
t has been estimated that the University will need an extra 100.000sq m over the next 10 years to accommodate essential growth. It has purchased the Radcliffe Infirmary Site to meet this need and will take possession in mid 2007. Many Alumni had a chance to read about these plans at the recent reunion in New York. Oxford has had a recent preview of an exhibit in the University Museum. For several months there have been discussions with all interested parties concerned with planning permission. The 1770 building together with the St Luke’s Chapel, the 1913 Outpatients’ Building, the 1858 fountain of Triton and the gates and walls to Woodstock Road are listed as Grade 2 and cannot be pulled down, though internal additions of the last 100 years may be removed. Everything else will be demolished. The replacements have restrictions placed upon them with respect to height and relationships to important neighbours such as The Royal Oak and the Oxford University Press. The Jericho Health Centre will be given space on the site.
Model of the “Crescent“ for the RI
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There may be variations to the list of potential university users but at the moment it includes the Mathematics and Statistics, and the Humanities Faculties. A major development will be the use of the site for the University wide Library Strategy. The Environmental Sciences may be users and there could also be a Research Hotel. The design of the plan has the Radcliffe Observatory (Green College) as its most prominent feature; recently refurbished and acknowledged as of great beauty. It has suffered in the past by the placing of ugly buildings with out due regard to the “energy lines”. Strong radial geometry focuses on the Observatory. Now there is talk of sight lines and flow along corridors for long distance viewing, walkways and landscaping of its gardens for the users, as well as Oxford‘s citizens as visitors to the site. There will be due attention to spaces as well as to blocks of stone. There will be covered public areas and courtyard gardens. The Library occupies a glazed crescent form facing the observatory and a sunken garden. Natural light is brought to lower spaces through open atria and “light wells”.
Radial sightlines from the Observatory to Jericho Oxford University Press a future gate into Somerville College and the listed setting in front of the Radcliffe Infirmary
This is a very large development and adds to the new look of 21st century Oxford; a city that has recently restored the historic Castle and Prison complex , and which has a Science Division filling South Parks and the Headington sites with many new buildings. The most successful of old Universities is now competing with the most successful of new Universities that too is building and planning a new Campus. Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University and numerous English Language Schools provide a vast temporary population. The residents look forward to sharing their spaces and hope too to solutions to Oxford’s traffic problems and better shopping complexes to make Oxford a well balanced city with no weaknesses meriting prizes for the best putting into practice of its Master Plans.
It is planned to enhance the setting of the Radcliffe Observatory which has fared poorly over the
Professor Terence Ryan
years …
Proposed plan for the RI
Sound approach to learning anatomy A completely new method of learning is being explored in Medical Sciences, where students are using ultrasound scanning on each other to aid their study of human anatomy. The project is run by Dr Stephen Golding of the Nuffield Department of Surgery Radiology Group, in collaboration with Professor John Morris, the Director of Pre-Clinical Studies. Describing the genesis of the project, Dr Golding said: ‘At this medical school we put an emphasis on learning “real” anatomy in the living human. We have used medical imaging to do this for years and ultrasound is a marvelous tool because it is safe and gives a real-time demonstration of what goes on inside the body. The mental leap fuelling this project came when we asked what would the effect on learning be of giving the student the ultrasound probe and allowing
them to scan themselves. In effect this extends what doctors do when examining patients, but with instant, visible feedback of what is under the examining hand. Moreover, as medicine develops, doctors will in future do their own ultrasound scanning in their clinics.We are introducing tomorrow’s doctors to the technology in their first year.’ The project is funded by the Kodak Bursary of the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR), and is being run as a formal educational experiment, evaluating how it meets its educational objectives. The project finishes at the end of this term and the results will be fed back to the RCR in a formal paper for their journal, Clinical Radiology. The project leaders believe that their own positive experience of this new teaching method could mean other medical schools will want to follow suit.
Students using ultrasound scanning on each other to aid their study of human anatomy
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FRANCIS RETIEF "My" Oxford:
– I came up to Oxford (University College) on a Rhodes Scholarship in the autumn of 1956, having obtained my MB ChB (1955) from the University of Cape Town (UCT), and having done half of my obligatory one year internship. I had made arrangements to do the rest in the Nuffield Dept. of Clinical Medicine (NDM) at the Radcliffe Infirmary. With little knowledge of the Oxford system, I had not anticipated that it would be quite impossible to live in at college and complete the internship at the same time. However, through the good offices of the Warden of Rhodes House, (Bill Williams, a splendid man), Univ. agreed to postpone my entry for one year. As it was, my arrival at Univ. was quite an experience. The taxi from the station dropped me (quite intentionally, I'm sure) at the "wrong" Univ. entrance on the High. Understandably, my knocking on the massive closed gate produced no response — but in due course a porter walked around from the "real" entrance, and nonchalantly said: "Sir, would you mind coming around to the other entrance? The last time we opened this gate was for Elizabeth the First." Of my association with the NDM ("The Wittery"), an internship followed by a research project leading to a D Phil, I have nothing but very fond memories. Perhaps past its prime as an international centre for haematology and gastroenterology (Dr Sidney Truelove), it was still vibrant and full of new ideas. I found the Nuffield Professor, Leslie Witts, an old world gentleman, reserved, but widely respected and with a twinkle in his eye. My D.Phil supervisor, Dr. Sheila Callender, surprised everyone by marrying one of the many Hungarian refugees (a medical student) who arrived in Oxford, late 1956. She ran the clinical Haematology program, with the able assistance of Barbara Mallett (laboratory director) and from them I acquired a life long fascination with blood diseases. There was little formal contact with the Regius Professor (Sir George Pickering), even in the famous Haemophilia Unit (Biggs & McFarlane), but quite lively informal cross-pollination did occur, and at the regular biweekly NDM clinical meetings (Thursday afternoons, if I remember correctly) we had contributions from all hospital departments, the infectious diseases hospital, the local RAF medical facility, and even from private consultants. On my arrival the NDM was still centred on the Collier ward, but within months it moved into a brand new building erected at the western (back) entrance of the Radcliffe Infirmary. The new NDM included
ample laboratory and office space as well as two new wards named after physicians of years gone by, Willis and Lower. The heterogeneous staff, including many temporary visitors/ researchers from all over the world, in my time from Pakistan — two Rhodes scholars, and from Canada, Australia & Thailand, together formed an inspiring academic unit, but it was also a pleasant social fraternity. One still remembers the many informal gatherings at homes of staff members (including that of Prof Witts and his wife, Nancy), outings to plays at the Playhouse, even to London shows, like the then brand new "My Fair Lady" and "West Side Story". Consultants like John Badenoch and Keith Taylor took a personal interest in one's wellbeing, and I remember being a guest of Professor Witts at a very exclusive dinner of dons at Magdalen, where I was tactfully taught how to handle the port carafe! The two wards had a life of their own — very much conditioned by the two Sisters in charge who had rather different personalities: Sister Willis was popular, efficient and one found excuses to have regular tea on the ward. Sister Lower was also efficient but disconcertingly stem, and one had tea on the ward only when she had the day off. On my arrival as intern, when she was still Sister Collier, I got on surprisingly well with her for a couple of weeks, but then, when our problems started, I was told that it had taken her that long to grasp my South African ( Afrikaans) English! We later became good friends but the day I left for home, her Welsh honesty got the best of her, when she said: "Retief, do you know that after 3 years with us your words still come out square instead of round!" I still remember how much fun Christmas on the wards was — so different from South Africa where Christmas is in mid-summer with folks on the beaches, not indoors. On Christmas day patients were amused with carols, special treats, the senior NDM staff pitched up, and at dinner Prof Witts carved the turkey. At the very amusing annual Christmas pantomime, put on by the Osler House students, fun was poked at the year's events in the hospital. I remember a specific ward notice (surreptitiously removed from Lower ward) which became an annual fixture somewhere in the decor: "No urine to be discarded unless passed by sister". On applying for readmission to Univ. in my second year, I was accepted but then tactfully informed/reminded that with the abolition of compulsory military service that year, Oxford colleges were being inundated with
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applications. My moving into college would thus mean that someone would lose the opportunity of studying at Oxford. So the two weeks immediately after arriving in 1956 (and before moving into the doctor's quarters) were the only time that I actually lived in college. However, I made the most of visiting Univ. regularly, dining in college, and playing rugby for them. 1 even attempted rowing but with no success at all. The present Master of Univ., Lord Butler, sits next to me on the photo of the 1958 College XV — a picture on the wall in front of me as I type this story! Later I took up digs in Summertown, 29 Beechcroft Road, with a most kind, motherly landlady, Mrs. Alder (I never knew her first name!), who put a hot bottle in my bed on winter nights and brought me a "wake up" cup of tea every morning. Except on my birthday when she brought hot milk and rum. Like most of my friends I travelled everywhere (even up Headington Hill for rugby) by second hand bicycle, bought at a shop on the Woodstock Rd., opposite the Radcliffe and next to the Royal Oak pub. Osler House, the heart of the small Medical School only about fifty medical students in all, next to the Nuffield Institute in the Radcliffe Observatory (now Green College), was a hive of activities of all kinds to which I was welcomed — and which really replaced college life for me. The Director was a charming man, Rear Admiral Hamilton, who had seen service in the Far East during WW II. He also arranged postgraduate academic programs for those of us studying for Membership exams. I remember the many pleasant beers/ciders enjoyed in the gardens — the umpteen outings on the Osler House punt and balmy evenings on the Cherwell. Taking part in May morning festivities on the river were high lights. I became involved in the Christmas Pantomimes put on annually by the Tyngewyck Society, usually based on a Gilbert & Sullivan opera, and performed in the Nurses Home, if I remember correctly. One became a member of this very audacious organization (which constantly changed the spelling of its name — for instance on documents such as the Pantomime program) by way of a solemn midnight ritual. This entitled you to wear the Tyngewyck tie — black with pink elephants. I still wear it (possibly the only one in Africa) on very special occasions. I played at centre for the Osler House XV — always great fun although we did not seem to win too often. The outings took me to the London Hospitals, to Cardiff Medical School, even to Caius College, Cambridge on a very cold day, where I tasted crumpets
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for the first time. Sidney Truelove from the NDM was a regular supporter of the rugby side. And then there was regular tennis and cricket. Playing for the Osler House XI took me on unforgettable visits to the village greens of fascinating places like Great Tew, Bourtonon-the-Water and Upper Slaughter. And then there were the regular rugby and cricket games between students and staff. For three years Osler House and the ''NDM family" was home away from home, and on my last night in Oxford my farewell party was at Osler House. On a photograph of that occasion, which I treasure, the lads all sing together — and I often wonder which of our many popular songs we were then singing: perhaps "Ivan Skavinsky Skivar" (all 50 verses), "The red banner" (always sung in Italian: Baniera russa), "Bread of Heaven"(Welsh hymn) or "On Ilkley Moor bar tat". Looking back on it all, I was indeed fortunate to have been at Oxford at a critical but relatively uncomplicated, impressionable phase of my career. One absorbed the essence of true scholarship, but also breathed the richness of the Oxford culture — and made life long friends, with some of whom I still exchange Christmas cards. Even the final graduation ceremony, November 1959, had its non-academic vignette. It turned out that Osler House played a crucial rugby match that day, but the old hands calculated that I should be able to do my duty towards both events — on condition that I slipped out through a side door of the Sheldonian on the way back to my seat after the capping ceremony on the podium. The lads would be waiting for me in a car, with my rugby togs. It all worked out perfectly — in fact, Sir George Pickering slipped out with me. I enclose a photograph of me in my D Phil gown, taken right there...
"Sir would you mind coming around to the other entrance? The last time we opened this gate was for Elizabeth the First "
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Obituaries PROFESSOR FRANK ELLIS ( – ) Dr. Frank Ellis died in Oxford aged 100 on 3rd February this year. During an active career of more than 70 years he did much to take radiotherapy from the early years of empiricism to its structured and accurate use today. He founded the Oxford radiotherapy department in 1950 and by his drive and vision established it as a thriving centre for cancer treatment, research and training for the future.
…he did much to take radiotherapy from the early years of empiricism to its structured and accurate use today “
Ellis was persuaded to move to Oxford from the London Hospital because it was foreseen that the small radiotherapy unit run by G.D. Barnes in the basement of the Radcliffe Infirmary was out-dated. There was some opposition to the appointment: Arthur Sanctuary considered that “they can go to Reading for this” and Alec Cooke that new medicines would soon replace radiotherapy. But he set to work with vigour in huts at the Churchill vacated by the US Army, and soon acquired, with scant finance, the necessary radium sources and equipment. This included his own design and construction of the first telecobalt gamma ray therapy unit which despite its huge weight was capable of both vertical and angular movement. In this he secured the help of H C Husband, the designer of Jodrell Bank. This equipment treated patients very well for 25 years and is now at the Science Museum. Accuracy of radiation dose was one of Ellis’s strong interests. With the help of a keen physics and engineering staff he developed a stream of new inventions to modify radiation beams, continuing from his previous work in Sheffield. Most are standard in commercial equipment today. He also saw the importance of radiation delivered at the time of open surgery for dealing with known or probable tumour residues. In conjunction with J Pennybacker he implanted radium sources (temporarily!) in the brain, and with other surgeons radium needles and later iridum wires in the tumour bed for breast cancers and deeply placed sarcomas and other tumours. He even developed in 1964 a very high energy linear accelerator for intra-operative use: but sadly the manufacturer could not make its bending magnets work, and the electrons enlivened Fred Wright’s scanning unit next door. Frank Ellis was also an excellent organiser of cancer services. He set up oncology clinics in Swindon, Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Banbury, in all of which as at Oxford, he established joint clinics with relevant specialists such a general surgery, gynaecology and ENT. The resulting cross-fertilisation of thought was of huge benefit – though occasionally rather explosive
with strong characters like Ronald Macbeth and John Stallworthy. Usually however his calm reason prevailed, assisted sometimes by a game of squash and a pint of beer. The administration of the department he placed in the capable hands of Sister Dorothy Hodgson, his superintendent radiographer. A trained nurse, whom he had also trained in Sheffield as a radiographer, she organised his professional life and ensured that the large number of patients seen each day for treatment, investigation or consultation were cared for with compassion and efficiency. Perhaps Frank Ellis’s greatest contribution at Oxford was however that he collected around his a group of enterprising young scientists and trainees, who under his guidance were to contribute hugely to the understanding of the physical and biological basis of radiation therapy. They came from different backgrounds: Ray Oliver and Eric Hall from physics, Herman Suit and Roger Berry from medicine, and Laszlo Lajtha and Martin Brown from biology. All worked in the cramped huts behind the department on grants he energetically sought for them. They achieved together, with Ellis’s constant ideas and encouragement, many notable advances in therapy for patients. Most later headed units of renown in the UK and overseas. But Frank Ellis had a substantial career before and after his Oxford years. He was born in Sheffield, where his parents were Chapel keepers, and won a scholarship worth £5 per annum to King Edward VII Grammar school. In 1929 he qualified through Sheffield Medical School, and a year later was appointed the first Radium Officer to the Royal Hospital. Here in 1935 he was the first to devise wedge-shaped filters which when placed in a radiation beam allowed the beam to be angled to avoid sensitive normal structures such as the eye. They are an essential part of all modern radiotherapy units today. During the war, concerned that bombing might not only interfere with his patients’ treatment but also risk radioactive contamination, he hired a furniture van and moved his whole department, including the radium, out of Sheffield to a safer location. In those days, direct action was the best way to succeed. In 1970 his retirement from Oxford and the NHS at 65 came when his standing in his field was very high due to his success in combining his clinical experience with radiobiology to develop the concept of Nominal Standard Dose (NSD). This gave a basis for comparison
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of different radiation dosage patterns in different centres, and generated worldwide acclaim. It led naturally to visiting professorial appointments lasting in total for 10 years at several centres in the USA, concluding with the Memorial Sloane-Kettering Institute in New York. He was a strong Quaker, who took an active part in Meetings even in his 100th year. Throughout his life he believed keenly in progress through reasoned argument. He considered the NHS a triumph of national policy, and he was a very strong supporter of the peace movement. He married his wife Dorothy in 1932. She died in 1990. He was very proud of his family: his five children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Three are doctors.
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Frank Ellis was one time President of the British Institute of Radiology. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal College of Radiologists. He received an OBE in the Millennium New Year Honours for his contributions to cancer services over much of the 20th century. In his 100th year, Sheffield University awarded him an Honorary DSc which he received in person. To him, every patient was a new challenge to improve upon his previous treatments. This did not always find favour with colleagues who preferred the security of standard protocols. But it inspired his trainees and achieved excellent results for many.
Christopher Paine 18th June 2006
MICHAEL GWYNNE DOUGLAS DAVYS ( – ) Dr Michael Davys was a distinguished and popular consultant psychiatrist and physician with a varied professional practice based in London and Sussex. His greatest skill was that he was a truly brilliant diagnostician which, together with his ageless charm and gravitas and deep concern, contributed greatly to his success in private practice. His patients included members of what was termed the `Chelsea set' and were an eclectic mixture of writers, painters, actors, aristocrats and businessmen, many of whom later became personal friends. Davys was born in 1922 in Urchfont, Wiltshire. Davys was educated at Salisbury Cathedral School, then Marlborough College. In 1940, he went up to St Edmund Hall, Oxford to read Medicine, qualifying in 1946, and continued his medical training at Guy's Hospital. In May 1945, as one of the more senior medical students, he went to Belsen to help with the massive medical problems as concentration camps were freed. The death rate, which had been 4 per cent daily until May
1, fell in one week to half the total, and by May 22 had been reduced to 50 a day. His letter home describes ‘scenes of indescribable horror, filth, squalor and disease… they have been dying of starvation and typhus at about the rate of 500-600 a day… I have in my hut 300 patients. It is the size of a stable — about 100 are very ill but able to walk or crawl. 200 are lying huddled, next to the dead… I am very tired. We work a very hard 12-hour day. The scenes I have seen here will be vivid memories for the rest of my life.’ Davys' service was cut short because he caught typhus and had to be invalided back to the UK, which qualified him for the defence medal. After the war he returned to Guy's, qualifying as a consultant physician and psychiatrist in 1953. He remained attached to Guy's Hospital under Sir Arthur Fripp as Research Fellow in Psychiatry, maintaining contact with his colleagues right up to a few days before he died. He was also Ward Clerk and P/T RMO under Dr Macdonald Critchley and Dr Meadows at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases. Davys served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, attached to HMS President, from 1950 to 1970. He achieved the rank of Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander and was awarded the VRD (Volunteer Reserve Decoration, RNR), later becoming a member of the HMS President Retired Officers' Association (PROA). Upon qualifying, Davys worked mainly in the National Health Service as consultant psychiatrist in Brighton. Depression in children was a special interest of his: he amassed a great deal of clinical data and planned to publish some of his findings, with follow-up data. Alas,
“…as one of the more senior medical students he went to Belsen to help with the massive medical problems as concentration camps were freed ”
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he was not able to complete this work, but put in train plans to do so as a research project with the Maudsley Hospital. In 1964, after becoming disenchanted by the way psychiatry was being practised in the NHS, Davys established Bowden House, a private psychiatric clinic in Harrow-on-the-Hill, where he was Consultant Psychiatrist and Joint Medical Director until 1974. In private practice, patients were referred to him from all over the world, including the Middle East and the US, where he traveled regularly. In 1966, he was elected Corresponding Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and became an International Fellow in 2002. The US Government used him as a Panel Psychiatrist to vet visa applications, and he was also a member of the Anglo-American Medical Society. Davys did not marry until he was well-established in his profession, as he maintained that it would be a mistake to do so. When he did marry Clarissa Merton, daughter of painter, Sir John and Lady Merton, this ended unhappily in divorce. They had no children and his former wife died soon afterwards. A keen skier since the early `60s, firstly in St Moritz and then regularly in Zermatt, he was a member of the Kandahar, Downhill Only and Ski Club of Great Britain. Always a lover of climbing and walking, in the early `80s he met the climber Roger Mear in north Wales.This led to his involvement with the Footsteps of Scott expedition to the Antarctic, for which he was instrumental in gaining the support of Lord Shackleton as patron. He was also a trustee of the Wilderness Trust.
Davys always displayed enormous energy and vitality, and had great talent for converting properties, enjoying sharing his houses in both Sussex and Chelsea with guests from far and wide. He inherited his father's great passion for gardening, was particularly keen on Mediterranean plants, and was on the Committee of the Chelsea Gardens Guild. He was a popular member of the Chelsea Arts Club and the Chelsea Society, and an excellent raconteur who recounted his experiences with great wit. Davys could be relied upon not only for interesting and informed conversation on a wide variety of subjects, but also for tales of his time in the Navy which had taken him to many places and had been full of amusing incidents. Together this made him a very desirable dinner guest at fashionable London tables. He would go out of his way to help friends or their families, and continue to be concerned for their welfare. He had a great love of fine things, a good eye for paintings, and derived much enjoyment from antiques fairs and sale rooms, as well as patronising friends' galleries. He was a spontaneous traveller, liking nothing better than to take off suddenly, with minimal luggage, to seek adventure. Michael will be missed tremendously by his long-standing partner, Penny Buckland, and the many friends and patients to whom he was such a comfort and delight.
Penny Buckland
CELIA WESTROPP ( – ) Celia Westropp was charming and compassionate and wise. Her grandfather, Sir William Wilcox, built The Aswan Dam. Her childhood was spent in the shadow of the Great Pyramid. She was sent to Downhouse School near Newbury, but summer holidays in Egypt were idyllic with much riding and dancing. She was an expert belly dancer. Interest in Medicine was fired by a childhood visit to a temporary hospital in the Cairo Citadel where, at the time of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, she was taken in a horse drawn carriage to deliver flowers to the wounded soldiers. For entry into Somerville College she was exempted from the Divinity paper because she knew St Luke by
heart. In the anatomy school the class of six girls was taught separately from the boys by Alice Carleton on the top floor. Being an identical twin with her sister, Lena, reading PPE gave an opportunity for substitution; once tried out on the Zoology Tutor. Some clinical experience was gained “walking the wards” at the Radcliffe observing the different styles of Drs Mallam, Hobson and later Cooke. From Oxford, Celia moved to King’s College London, which was not especially welcoming to women and eventually she took up a post in Venereology where women were needed for the care of women. But the advent of the war led to better jobs during the “blitz” at Fulham Road.
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Membership of the Royal College of Physicians in1941 took her to Birmingham for a final viva. With trepidation she entered the room. No questions were asked and the examiners rose to their feet as one, bowed, and she was dismissed as� top of the year. After the war she obtained the post of physiology tutor at LMH. Here she was in charge of their science students and as well oversaw the University’s women medical students. She had by that time picked up a DM for studies of carbohydrate metabolism in thyroid disease She joined the new Department of Social Medicine working with Arthur Ryle and Alice Stewart, to study the effect of the exposure to X-rays during pregnancy on the growth rate of infants. It was also time to add a Diploma in child health and to publish the results of an Oxford survey of breast feeding. In the following year Celia joined Lionel Cousins at Cowley Road Hospital at a time he was establishing an international reputation for the organisation of Geriatric Services. In 1960 she co-authored, with Moyra Williams, “Health and Happiness in Old Age�. In1968 she took up an appointment as Physician in Charge at Rivermead Hospital and took a Diploma in Physical Medicine. She was a pioneer in the management of head injuries. Dr Lionel Cousins had begun the quest to house the young disabled in accommodation that suited their needs. He left Celia in the driving seat. Twenty years later an “Oxford Guidebook� stated, “By 1963 the former isolation hospital emerged as one of the leading rehabilitation centres in the country. Its excellence stemmed from its modern methods and the
expertise of its large staff which more than compensated for its antiquated buildings. In recent years a fine range of purpose built facilities for physiotherapy, occupational and hydrotherapy and comprehensive workshops for rehabilitation have been added.� Celia Westropp wrote in the Oxford Medical School Gazette, Trinity 1965, “some 120 patients attend at any one time for which we have 55 beds.� She emphasised the value of a therapeutic team; a concept that was to evolve over the next few decades for many other disciplines. Recently the WHO has promoted the term ‘dishabilitation’ to describe the destitution of persons not supported by their community. The pioneers, like Celia Westropp, who managed the psychological difficulties, as well as the physical problems, of a generation of motor bicycle head injuries have resulted in communities being much more welcoming to the young disabled. After retirement she provided medical supervision for an even younger age group of mentally handicapped at Bradwell Grove, Burford. In 1939 she married Francis Price, who after two years in Princetown, joined John Townsend at The Rutherford Laboratory as a part time demonstrator and a member of a team building a million volt accelerator He was subsequently awarded a Fellowship at Worcester College as their first Scientist.
Terence Ryan
COLIN MCDOUGALL ( – ) In 1970 Colin McDougall joined the Department of Anatomy at the invitation of Professor Grahame Weddell to begin 28 years of full time preoccupation in the field of leprosy to which he made many important contributions. He was born in Woolley, Northumberland and brought up in Kent. He learned from his father who had been a chest physician with an interest in tuberculosis. He went to Uppingham School and, when just short of 17 years of age, entered medical school at Edinburgh, qualifying in 1946 and was awarded the Burn-Murdoch Medal in Clinical Medicine. He did his first internship at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh before working for a year in the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford as a budding obstetrician. After a period in general practice he joined the Royal Singapore Anti-Tuberculosis Association in
Singapore from 1953-56. After his return to England he pursued post-graduate training in clinical (internal) medicine at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and then at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London before taking up tropical medicine interests, especially tuberculosis, and working in Sumatra, Aden and Zambia. He was appointed as Leprosy Specialist to the Ministry of Health in Zambia in 1967 where he developed the Government Leprosy programme and became familiar with the All Africa Leprosy Training Centre in Addis Ababa to which he sent his team of African medical assistants for training. He also adopted some of the Malawi initiatives after a visit there where he admired the developing control programme and use of motor bikes and bicycles. He established an effective programme in the East of Zambia.
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An alliance led by the World Health Organisation aimed to make the Elimination of Leprosy as a Public Health Problem a viable programme
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Colin McDougall returned to the UK in 1970 where he joined the Department of Human Anatomy working with Graham Weddell. He focused on the use of the microscope, first in the Anatomy department, and then at the Slade Department of Dermatology where an annex for leprosy research had been named after the leprologist RG Cochrane. The annex was for the isolation of patients but, within months of Colin’s studies on the effect of Rifampicin on eliminating Mycobacterium Leprae from the nose, isolation no longer became appropriate policy, having shown that it was effective if given only monthly, thus making it affordable.
Working in an expanding department of Dermatology in an equally expanding Medical School, Colin made the most of his enthusiasm for teaching about leprosy. This enthusiasm spread to organizing a National Prize Essay competition for medical students, supported by LEPRA, on a subject of current importance in leprosy. This was soon offered to all medical schools in the UK and continues today. Colin was equally enthusiastic about editing successful elective student reports from placements he had encouraged. Medical students from Oxford were amongst the first in the UK to go abroad during their elective period to work in leprosy centres.
Shortly after the move to the Slade Hospital, as a consequence of an exploratory partnership with OXFAM, WHO published their recommendation for the treatment of all leprosy patients with multidrug regimens of fixed duration. Delivery was to be via a blister pack of either dapsone and rifampicin, or dapsone, rifampicin and clofazimine, both daily and monthly
Colin McDougall retired in 1998 and continued to support Leprosy Review, having been editor for ten years from 1978, in revising and sub-editing manuscripts for possible publication and has continued to visit leprosyendemic countries abroad, mainly for WHO, to assess progress and advise on measures to increase case detection, wider implementation of multidrug therapy and better disability management. He was financed by LEPRA and was careful not to over spend. He travelled frequently for them and other Leprosy organizations and would have some miserable experiences by choosing to travel ‘stand-by’. He was an enthusiastic Board Member of a new scheme based in Oxford, the Global Project on the History of Leprosy, www.leprosyhistory.org
A steady stream of visitors came to Colin from many parts of the world to learn histopathology skills. An alliance led by the World Health Organisation aimed to make the Elimination of Leprosy as a Public Health Problem a viable programme. Supported by well trained technicians Richard Jones, Chris Gummer and Kate Schomberg he was able to give reliable reports on specimens sent from drug trials of the new anti-leprosy regimens. Colin moved from studying ‘nose blows’ and dust in the corners of rooms inhabited by persons affected by leprosy, to a study of why the bacterium liked the nose and especially why it could be found, not as was already well known in the Schwann Cell but also, in amateur phagocytes such as blood vascular endothelium. This included studies on the temperature of the skin, mouth and nasal cavity of dermatology colleagues. Some would race with him round the hospital with clips on their noses to encourage cooling of the hard plate on frosty mornings. Colin respected hard work and meticulousness in colleagues and was critical of any lack of focus or industry. He himself examined some 15000 histological specimens from the London Leprosy Study Centre. These were not mere glances but careful scanning of every nanometer under a high power lens. He worked closely with the similarly focused Dick Rees at the Mill Hill MRC research centre.
He and his wife Josephine, with two daughters, were generous hosts to many overseas visitors. He would play honky tonk piano music at each departmental Christmas party. There was often a Jazz band at his home and one played at the celebration of his life to an assembly of many friends at his home a few weeks after his death. He loved his home and fought furiously against environmental hazards in his garden even when he was beginning to suffer from the aches and pains of his final illness. He organized his life to a rigidly kept schedule and his preparation for death was equally meticulous with papers carefully edited labeled and bound with ribbon. Days before leaving us he was willing, and enthusiastically adding comments to manuscripts brought to him for an opinion. He was satisfied that the job he had done was well done, and that his family were all occupied in jobs which gave them satisfaction.
Terence Ryan
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ROBERT BUCHAN DUTHIE ( – ) Robert Duthie was an internationally renowned figure in academic orthopaedic surgery. For over 30 years he developed the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Accident Service in Oxford into one of the leading musculo-skeletal centres in the world. He recognised the wide scope in medical care of orthopaedics and musculo-skeletal injuries and developed methods of management, teaching and research that were novel. In 1980 ten of the nineteen Professors of Orthopaedic Surgery in the U.K. had been trained in Oxford as well as those in countries abroad so that his influence was worldwide. He was born in Detroit, U.S.A. in 1925, and following a distinguished undergraduate career in Edinburgh, due to the influence of Sir Walter Mercer, Robert Duthie decided on a career in orthopaedic surgery. Following his clinical training in Edinburgh and London, he spent two years as a research scholar, being awarded the ChM of the University of Edinburgh with distinction for his work on the histochemistry of osteogenesis. He was appointed Professor and Chairman of Orthopaedic Surgery in the University of Rochester, New York and Surgeon-in-Chief at the Strong Memorial Hospital at the age of 35, where he established a department outstanding for its clinical training, teaching and research. In 1966 he was the obvious choice for the Nuffield Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery and the Professorial Fellowship at Worcester College, in the University of Oxford. In Oxford, undergraduate and postgraduate courses of an exciting and demanding nature were set up at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and the Accident Service in the Radcliffe Infirmary. They were planned to stretch the imagination and intellect of the students and trainees so that they appreciated the full scope of orthopaedics. The undergraduate programme was for 8 weeks at the NOC and Accident Service and was a highly structured programme with a programme of the course issued at the outset and each day was planned to achieve the maximum for the students. Clinical work included cases presentations at the weekly clinical conference which was an excellent learning experience for the students and was complemented by two teaching seminars each day. All students then assisted at the surgical procedure on their patient and were required to write a report, including a review of the literature, on the topic. At the end of the attachment both a clinical assessment and assessment of the report was carried out. This was subsequently developed into a more structured examination which included external examiners from other university departments. The aim
of this course was to cover the principles of injury management which is relevant to all medical practitioners, and to establish the basis of musculo-skeletal pathology and management which is approximately 25% of GP referral practice. Similarly the postgraduate programme was established with rotational appointments, including fellowships abroad for one year, which was an outstanding programme in the United Kingdom and copied throughout the U.K. He established many collaborative clinical and research units in Oxford, notably those concerned with the management of haemophilia, arthritis, metabolic bone diseases and bioengineering. He made personal research contributions in haemophilia, scoliosis and joint surgery, and retained a constant interest in the MRC Bone Research Unit at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre. His textbook on haemophilia was a classic in its time and through his editorship, Mercer's Orthopaedic Surgery was recognised as the leading English-speaking text. The Journals of Bone and Joint Surgery, the British Journal of Surgery and many others benefited greatly from his membership of their Editorial Boards. He combined the need for excellent facilities for infection free surgery with the pressing need for efficient bed usage in the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre by conceiving the idea of an admission unit for all pre-operative patients, and sterile air operating theatres, a measure which reduced the surgical infection rate in the hospital by 50%. He was seriously interested in accident surgery from the point of view of training orthopaedic surgeons in the principles of traumatology and his deep interest in the prevention and causation and metabolic consequences of civil and weapon injuries. The Oxford Road Accident Group was based in the new accident unit at the John Radcliffe Infirmary which was established with 24 hour Consultant cover. In 1971 he was appointed Advisor in Orthopaedic Surgery to the Department of Health and Social Security and Orthopaedic Surgery owes much to his wise counsel. In 1973, as a member of the Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Personal Injury, he presented the balanced view of a clinician and academic. He was a Fellow of Worcester College and was an untiring worker for the cause of academic standards in all fields of university life. In 1984 he was elected President of the British Orthopaedic Association and in the same year was appointed CBE in recognition of his services to academic medicine and surgery.
“Robert Duthie was a trend setting academic who per sonally performed much original work and saw the potential for the academic side of what had until then been regarded as a surgical craft ”
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In 1985, in response to the Griffith report, he led the successful bid to establish the independence of the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre as one of the first NHS Trusts. He generated an appeal of ÂŁ1 million to establish an MRI facility and a new Girdlestone library. Robert Duthie was a trend-setting academic who personally performed much original work and saw the potential for the academic side of what had until then been regarded as a surgical craft. His facility for recognising the quality of individuals and ideas was exceptional. He recognised the general nature of orthopaedics and medicine and its multiple inter-relationships with genetics, clinical medicine and surgery, metabolic diseases, biochemistry and engineering. He was tireless in developing orthopaedics and devel-
oping ideas which were always original and sometimes unpopular. He was in some respects austere but he was always courteous and had steadfast qualities of loyalty and decency which are rare. He was deeply devoted to Alison and his family and the warmth of their hospitality to all students, postgraduates and visitors was always genuine. He will be remembered for his intellectual power and stamina, his energy, his vision, his ability to propose and defend what he considered valuable and worthwhile and for his intrinsic integrity. Those who knew and worked with him will never forget this extraordinary man.
Georqe Bentley DSc, ChM, FRCS, FMedSci
DR COLIN HENRY WOODHAM ( – )
â€œâ€ŚI vividly recall him using the first CT scanner to be installed at the John Radcliffe Hospital‌â€?
It was with great sadness that we heard of the death of our Oxford colleague, Dr Colin Woodham, on 23rd November, 2004. Colin, who ended his professional career as a Consultant Radiologist to the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, based at the John Radcliffe, was considered by his colleagues to be largely a local boy. He was born on 14th June and attended Abingdon School. I suspect that part of my affinity with him was that we both read physics before 'converting' to medicine, and both eventually specializing radiology, a discipline we liked to assume would be better practised with such a background. Colin took his BSc Hons at the University of Surrey (formerly the Battersea Polytechnic). This was a sandwich course and he spent his third year (out of four) in his first-choice practical placement in the Middlesex Hospital Physics Department. It was during this time, in 1964, that he met his wife, Jean, who was a technician in Professor Edward William's Institute of Nuclear Medicine at the Middlesex. He then spent two years as a radiation physicist at the Royal Sussex Hospital, following which he moved to the USA, spending three years at the Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville.
In 1970 he decided to change direction and read medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, University of London, graduating MB,BS in 1975. He did his preregistration housejobs at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Swindon in1976–7, followed by Senior House Officer posts at the Royal Berkshire and Battle Hospitals, Reading in 1977–8. He spent his student elective period in radiology at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, where he was greatly influenced by the late Dr John Hammill, who remained his mentor and until rheumatoid arthritis made life impossible for John Colin became a radiology registrar in Oxford, obtained his FRCR and was rapidly appointed to Consultant Radiologist in 1984. Colin was always a delightful and hard-working colleague. He had an infectious sense of humour, accompanied by an ascerbic wit, which often left us in stitches. He invented appropriate funny names for both his colleagues and the various examinations which we were called on to perform. For instance, he would refer to radionuclide images as 'confusograms" and the first two letters of Nuclear Medicine were always reversed. In these days of inevitable super-specialization in radiology, as in all branches of medicine, it is interesting to contemplate that in his prime, Colin could do almost anything. He was as much at home in interventional radiology as he was in the 'new' technique of CT. His lists were correspondingly eclectic.
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This ability had an upside and a downside for him. The upside was that we knew that, if there was anything unusual to be done, Colin would do it. The downside was that this was probably why he was often overworked at the expense of his energy and inroads into his personal time. One great advantage of his versatility was that. because he could do almost anything, he was able himself to carry out what today is regarded as best imaging practice: taking a patient through the gamut of imaging investigations from the least to the most invasive and balancing this against the swing from the most informative technique to the least. He cared intensely for his patients and always did his best for them. I vividly recall him using the first CT scanner to be installed at the John Radcliffe Hospital at a time when it was administratively not ‘open for business' for the simple reason that Colin regarded this as the only modality which could give him the right answer for that patient at that time. I think experiences of this kind left him with little taste for bureaucracy.
In spite of his excellent scientific background and wide clinical experience, Colin did little formal teaching and his research output was modest. This was a great pity, because he had so much information to offer and never imparted less than an expert opinion to the students, registrars and colleagues who consulted him or worked with him. Also, he was full of original ideas for both research and audit, but seldom took them to fruition. I don't think the reason for this was too hard to find — he simply had too much clinical work to do. He leaves his wife, Jean and two sons, Ben and Tom. Ben works in computing, installing databases throughout the world. Tom is in construction. He also leaves two much-loved grandsons, Joe (10) and Alex (5). Jean is a teacher in Oxford. Colin was charming, universally popular with colleagues and adored by his patients. We will miss him greatly.
Basil Shepstone. Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford.
DR MARGARET E DAVIDSON ( – ) We are especially sorry to record the death of Margaret E. Davidson, a graduate of 2005, who had just started as a House Officer at the Horton Hospital in Banbury. Dr Davidson died in a road traffic accident on 19 May 2006.
O M A re c o rd s w i t h s a d n e s s t h e n a m e s o f o t h e r c o l l e a g u e s a n d a l u m n i w h o h a v e re c e n t l y d i e d : Dr Alan H Cruickshank Dr Peter BA Kernoff Dr Pauline O’Neill (née Ripley) Dr Clare Passmore Grant Sir John Peel Dr David JD Perrins Dr Alan Pollock Dr Derek C Robinson Dr John G (Ian) Taylor Dr Michael FC Walker Dr Celia Westropp Dr David J Woolford
If you would like to contribute an obituary or to write a tribute then please contact Jayne Todd
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Oxford Medical Alumni Events –
Contacting OMA A d d re s s : Oxford Medical Alumni Medical Sciences Office John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford OX3 9DU Email: jayne.todd@medsci.ox.ac.uk We b s i t e : www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/oma Enquiries: 01865 221690 Fax: 01865 750750
15 September 2006 OMA Seminar "Diagnostics and Treatment: How Biomedical Engineering Makes It Possible."
25 A p r i l 2 0 0 7 O x f o rd O s l e r L e c t u re To be given by Professor Peter Ratcliffe Nuffield Professor of Clinical Medicine
15 September 2006 G ra n d R e c e p t i o n in the Boardroom, Radcliffe Infirmary
25 A p r i l 2 0 0 7 A n n u a l O x f o rd O s l e r D i n n e r 7.30pm, Rhodes House, Oxford
23 A p r i l 2 0 0 8 O x f o rd O s l e r L e c t u re To be given by Professer John Reid Regius Professor of Medicine and Therapautics, University of Glasgow
15 September 2006 7th A n n u a l O x f o rd M e e t i n g Neurosciences O M S s p e a ke r : S i r C o l i n B l a ke m o re 16 September 2006 7 t h O M A G ra n d R e u n i o n Dinner at Magdalen College Reunions for graduates of 1981, 1986 and 1996 17 November 2006 70th A n n i v e rs a r y o f the Nuffield Benefaction t o O x f o rd M e d i c i n e. The House of Lords courtesy of Lord Walton of Detchant
23 A p r i l 2 0 0 8 A n n u a l O x f o rd O s l e r D i n n e r
28 September 2007 OMA Seminar
19 September 2008 OMA Seminar
28 September 2007 G ra n d R e c e p t i o n
19 September 2008 G ra n d R e c e p t i o n
29 September 2007 8th A n n u a l O x f o rd M e e t i n g Cancer O M S s p e a ke r : S i r Paul Nurs e
20 September 2008 9th A n n u a l O x f o rd M e e t i n g Tropical Medicine
20 September 2008 29 September 2007 9 t h O M A G ra n d R e u n i o n D i n n e r 8th OMA Grand Reunion Dinner Reunions for graduates of 1983, 1988 and 1998 at Magdalen College Reunions for graduates of 1982, 1987 and 1997 Fo r m o re i n f o r m a t i o n o n a n y o f t h e a b o v e e v e n t s c o n t a c t Ja y n e Todd Tel (+44)1865 221690 jayne.todd@medsci.ox.ac.uk w w w. m e d s c i . o x . a c. u k / o m a
S a t u rd a y S e p t e m b e r 1 6 t h 2006, 5 p m , 2nd A n n u a l O x f o rd C a m b r i d g e N e w Yo r k / U S Alumni Boat Race We are excited to announce the details of the 2nd Annual OxfordCambridge New York/US Alumni Boat Race. The boat race will take place on Saturday September 16th 2006, the race starts at 5pm and a celebratory dinner follows. The venue is the Saugatuck Rowing Club in Westport, CT, USA Anyone who would like to be considered for one of the crews,
(we are hoping to get three crews — including male and female rowers,) should fill out the registration form which can be accessed under the S e p 1 6 B o a t R a c e event on the right side of the home page at www.oxalumny.org There is a small registration fee to cover costs.
the Sep 16 Boat Race event on the right side of the home page. For directions and more on the Club please go to: www.saugatuckrowing.com — the club is located within walking distance of the Westport Train Station with easy access from NYC.
Spectators are very welcome. Dinner at the Boat Club following the race can be booked and paid for online on the OAANY website www.oxalumny.org again under
Any questions should be directed to Lisa Curry at: lisa@lcurry38.wanadoo.co.uk or please call Amanda Pullinger at (+1) 212 716 1350.
Oxford Medicine is produced by the Medical Informatics Unit, NDCLS, University of Oxford. Telephone +44 (0)1865 222746. Ref: OxMed0706/7700