Immigration debate

Recently, there has been lots of debate about immigration from the countries in the European Economic Union. In the last few years or so, we have stayed in several hotels in England and invariably most of the staff are from abroad, usually from a country in the EEC. The first contact is usually at reception and then in the restaurant. Invariably the staff are polite, friendly and efficient and look as though they enjoy their work.

My mother was a refugee from Germany and arrived in England just before the start of the Second World War. She had to retake her medical degrees in order to practice and she passed the exams the first time. She came from a wealthy family and she and her brother had an English governess (called Miss Henderson!). My mother and uncle learnt English from her from a very early age.

We go to Italy a lot as we have a second home there. Certainly the younger people we have met all speak pretty good English and they learned this at school. I wondered how all the waiters and receptionist at hotels had learned their English.

I today found a statistic on the Internet in in 2010 about 92% of all secondary school students in the countries of the EEC were learning English as a second language.

I am convinced that this is a major factor that determines employment in the UK of people from Europe.

A very sad day today . Our friend Gill's father died yesterday. Patrick Kavanagh CBE was deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1977 to 1983. We met him many times over the years and had lots of Sunday lunches with him at Gill's. When he was assistant commissioner he was in charge of "traffic".

A few years ago I told him, at a party, that I was taking my advanced driving test. As we were leaving he shouted accross the room "Don't forget - mirror, signal manoeuvre".

The photo of him and Gill was taken by me at Gill's 60th birthday party at her house. We had called a private taxi to leave but were so enjoying meeting old friends that I gave the driver £20 and sent him away. I did the same to the second taxi! We went home in the third.

Earlier this year he took us out (and he was in his 90th year) for a lovely lunch near where he lived. He had to walk supported with one hand on my shoulder. I told him I felt as though I was being arrested. Kath and I are really pleased we met him again in his final year

He had a great sense of humour but also a steely determination. One could see how he rose from a PC to such a high police rank. There is an entry in Wikepedia outlining his career. There is a full page obituary in The Times of 13/12/13.

We will miss him greatly.

End of the PCT

I went to the farewell coffee and cake meeting at the NHS Wakefield PCT this morning. What a sad affair. It was the last day of its existence and the last day of Gill Galdins working there. She was responsible for my getting me job there as education advisor and appraisal lead and for 7 years of happy working for me. All the best, Gill.

Recent Italy visit

We had a cold weather experience in March in Umbria with our friend Gill, who was with us for the third year running. However warmth was created by our meeting Johnny and Janelle Apodaca and joining them in a few glasses of red wine first in our house and then Aldo's bar in Panicale. I am planning to sell Johnny's easel for a huge amount of money.

Feeding the ducks at the beautiful Fonti del Clituno

Birds

This sparrow hawk sat on our fence yesterday. Later in the morning I heard an owl and a woodpecker. Loads of interesting birds here.

The Hepworth Surgical Drawings

Yesterday a gang of retired GPs and a retired surgeon friend were given a guided tour of the Hepworth Surgical Drawings in the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. It was fabulous. There was a drawing of an orthopaedic surgeon who taught us at The London Hospital. Sir Reginald Watson-Jones - orthopaedic surgeon to the Queen. He had a maroon Rolls with his chauffeur in a matching maroon uniform. He once gave a lecture on amputation. Whilst brandishing a huge knife, he accidentally cut his leg and had to be taken to casualty.
Here is an interesting link:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61975-8/fulltext

The English Doctor: a medical journey

A couple of months ago I had my book published by Xlibris. Below is the introduction:

The intention of this book is to capture the essence of medical research and medical practice during the second half of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first. I have focussed on what happens behind the scenes as a student, house officer, undergraduate lecturer, research worker, GP, postgraduate educator, and NHS manager. I am sure the average UK patient, and indeed many health-care workers, including doctors, has no idea of what went on behind the scenes. Those doctors who were GP trainees in Yorkshire as well as those who were developed as trainers were so lucky to have some of the most interesting and skilled teachers in the UK.

This book is about my experiences, views, and the colleagues who have contributed to the direction of my medical journey. After the first chapter about my early life, I have purposely not written much about my personal life as the book is not intended to be an autobiography in the purest sense. I have included anecdotes and mentioned many people. This is because I do not want this book to be a text book. I apologise to those whom I have omitted to mention and who have contributed to my journey. I also apologise for not explaining fully some of the medical terminology used.

The British Medical Association has published guidelines for the medical profession when writing about patients. Written consent has been obtained for any named patients and an attempt has been made to anonymise the cases that have been described.

I am grateful to Dr Liz Moulton for feeding back to me on the final manuscript and advising me about any possible breaches of confidentiality and any other ethical matters.

Soon after I started writing, Dr Maggie Eisner and Prof. John Lord kindly read the first draft of Chapter 2 and gave me useful feedback.

I am most grateful to my wife, Kathleen, who gave me feedback after each chapter.

My godson, Nick Earls, a successful novelist in Australia, gave me valuable advice on a chapter in the very early stages of writing this book.

My good friend and colleague Grahame Smith gave me useful feedback on the chapter that covered our time together as preclinical medical students, Chapter 2.

Brian Lewis, an artist and writer, gave me valuable advice about publishing.

The last chapter involved talking to many people about their work. They gave up their valuable time freely, and I am most grateful for that.

Prof. Christopher Dean, professor of Anatomy at University College, London, kindly showed me around his department in March 2012 and introduced me to Daniel Wornham, a third-year iB.Sc. student. I am grateful to Daniel for informing me about the preclinical and B.Sc. courses as they were in 2012.

I am grateful to the dean of research at the Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Prof. Thomas MacDonald, for meeting me. He showed me the state-of-the-art research facilities and explained the situation with Ph.D. students and academic teaching. Prof. Mike Roberts, dean for students, arranged for me to meet three junior doctors working at The Royal London Hospital.

Drs Emile Khan, Natasha Atchamah, and Viyaasan Mahalingasivan told me about clinical medical students and work as foundation year-one doctors.

Thanks to Carol Ward (practice administrator Roehampton Surgery) and Sue Careswell (Leckhampton Surgery, Cheltenham) for talking to me on the telephone and telling me how these practice have developed since I worked there.

I am grateful to Anthony Nicholas (events manager), Linda Reynolds (quality outcome framework lead), Karen Tooley (performance improvement manager), Monica Smith (partner, Tieve Tara Medical Centre), Alison Evans (Wakefield District appraisal lead, NHS Calderdale, Kirklees, and Wakefield District), Adrian Dunbar (associate postgraduate dean, Yorkshire and the Humber Deanery), and David Brown (programme director, West Riding General Practice Specialty Training Programme) for meeting me in 2012 and informing me about their areas of work.

Thanks to the following at Xlibris who have supported me with the writing and publication of this book: Sophia Blake, publishing consultant, Naomi Orleans, author services representative, Chris Lovedice, author consultant and James Calonia, manuscript series representative.

The royalties from this book will be donated to charity.

The two charities I have chosen are:

Children of Peace is a UK based charity that works with both Israeli and  Palestinian children to build relationships for a future generation whose communities might live and work in peace, side by side. It is supported by all three UK mainstream political leaders as well as other worldwide leaders. For more details look at www.childrenof peace.org.uk

CAFOD is the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development. My wife, Kathleen, works for the Leeds office in a voluntary capacity each week. It works with partners across the world to bring hope, compassion and solidarity to poor communities to end poverty and injustice. For more details look at www.cafod.org.uk

Follow the link below to see the coverage in our local newspaper. 

Local newspaper

I have had positive reports from friends and relations.

It can be downloaded to a kindle and bought from various booksellers including Amazon.