Simon has sent Malcolm Forsythe this group photo of half our year, and we hope someone has the other half, and that Simon will send some of his news too.Click on the image to enlarge it.
This is a forum for exchange of news and reminiscences for the Guy's graduates of 1961 and 1962, belatedly (in the case of 1961), celebrating the 60th anniversary of our qualification this year. See the panel on the right for details of how to contribute. You can enlarge some of the pictures by clicking on them. Please send your news, or that of others you know in the years.
Wednesday 16 February 2011
Simon Brook
Simon has sent Malcolm Forsythe this group photo of half our year, and we hope someone has the other half, and that Simon will send some of his news too.Click on the image to enlarge it.
Tuesday 8 February 2011
Peter Curtis
On graduation from Guy's I got house jobs there for a year-- Resident pathologist/radiation therapy/experimental medicine and then Urology. The first job was harrowing and Dickensian and turned me into a whistle-blower in the form of writing an exposé in the Guys Gazette--of the inefficient and primitive emergency pathology services, corruption (Consultants charging private patients for NHS services) and the lack of adequate training. I was on the point of being fired but Prof Butterfield, a wonderful role model, saved me!
Frankly, after that, I had little idea what field I wanted to pursue, but after a series of haphazardly planned house jobs I ended up as a registrar in Physical Medicine/Rehabilitation back at Guy's. After getting the MRCP, I found I was bored by the repetitiveness of Physical Medicine (Rheumatology was in its immunological infancy then) and took a 4 week locum for a single-handed GP in the wilds of Northumberland. Loved it! Especially the close relationship with the community. So I switched to General Practice and did 6 months Obstetrics at Winchester before entering Hampshire country practice, thatched cottage villages, rich stockbrokers, farmworkers and two military camps. It was hard work, fun and rewarding.
8 years later, in severe financial distress because of the awful pay to GPs I took a sabbatical year in the USA, proposed and mentored by Malcolm Forsythe who was already in the upper echelons of the NHS. The year, spent with my wife, Carolyn and 2 boys at the University of N Carolina was fascinating--a cultural and eye-opening bombshell. I returned, but as my senior partner had wisely predicted--I had changed.
In 1976, I was recruited back to the USA to help set up a Department of Family Medicine at the same university medical school(UNC), create a residency training programme and start a research unit. I spent the next 33 years at the medical school, seeing patients and doing research in primary care education, low back pain, telephone medicine, and complementary and alternative medicine. It is now one of the top departments in the country with Family doctor faculty heading all the school’s student and graduate programmes as well as the business administration side of medical services.
My wife, Carolyn, a Guy's nurse no less, flowered in America getting a top notch degree in Sociology and then being hired into the nascent software/computer industry. She went on to coordinate international clinical trials in vascular and cardiac disease for the School of Public Health
I retired in 2003 and 5 years ago we moved to Seattle to be near my son Elliot and his family. He is a senior executive with Microsoft. My other son, Matthew, is a sommelier and and ran a cheese emporium in San Francisco until this year. Now he is traveling Asia with a view to getting a job there. Seattle is a great city, surrounded by beautiful mountains and water, full of cultural activities and wonderful seafood. Carolyn and I busy ourselves with grandchildren, gardening ( British climate with hot summers) volunteering for different organizations, hiking trips, annual visits to Europe and writing fiction.
We are always glad to see visitors, so come on down!
My wife, Carolyn, getting ready to climb a tree on Vancouver Island
Me, rescuing a stray cat in the middle of the Dolomites, Italy
Frankly, after that, I had little idea what field I wanted to pursue, but after a series of haphazardly planned house jobs I ended up as a registrar in Physical Medicine/Rehabilitation back at Guy's. After getting the MRCP, I found I was bored by the repetitiveness of Physical Medicine (Rheumatology was in its immunological infancy then) and took a 4 week locum for a single-handed GP in the wilds of Northumberland. Loved it! Especially the close relationship with the community. So I switched to General Practice and did 6 months Obstetrics at Winchester before entering Hampshire country practice, thatched cottage villages, rich stockbrokers, farmworkers and two military camps. It was hard work, fun and rewarding.
8 years later, in severe financial distress because of the awful pay to GPs I took a sabbatical year in the USA, proposed and mentored by Malcolm Forsythe who was already in the upper echelons of the NHS. The year, spent with my wife, Carolyn and 2 boys at the University of N Carolina was fascinating--a cultural and eye-opening bombshell. I returned, but as my senior partner had wisely predicted--I had changed.
In 1976, I was recruited back to the USA to help set up a Department of Family Medicine at the same university medical school(UNC), create a residency training programme and start a research unit. I spent the next 33 years at the medical school, seeing patients and doing research in primary care education, low back pain, telephone medicine, and complementary and alternative medicine. It is now one of the top departments in the country with Family doctor faculty heading all the school’s student and graduate programmes as well as the business administration side of medical services.
My wife, Carolyn, a Guy's nurse no less, flowered in America getting a top notch degree in Sociology and then being hired into the nascent software/computer industry. She went on to coordinate international clinical trials in vascular and cardiac disease for the School of Public Health
I retired in 2003 and 5 years ago we moved to Seattle to be near my son Elliot and his family. He is a senior executive with Microsoft. My other son, Matthew, is a sommelier and and ran a cheese emporium in San Francisco until this year. Now he is traveling Asia with a view to getting a job there. Seattle is a great city, surrounded by beautiful mountains and water, full of cultural activities and wonderful seafood. Carolyn and I busy ourselves with grandchildren, gardening ( British climate with hot summers) volunteering for different organizations, hiking trips, annual visits to Europe and writing fiction.
We are always glad to see visitors, so come on down!
My wife, Carolyn, getting ready to climb a tree on Vancouver Island
Me, rescuing a stray cat in the middle of the Dolomites, Italy
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