After my retirement in 2000, I plunged into family archives, wrote a 100-page family history illustrated with photographs, maps and documents. I went on from there to write a fictional trilogy based on my family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939. The third volume was published in 2020. Now, I’m writing more fiction—a series of short stories that illustrate a medical career which twisted and turned because I could not make my mind up about the kind of doctor I wanted to be. Writing is fun, stimulating and takes up loads of time which is very helpful in a time of COVID. I belong to two writing groups.
I and my wife Carolyn, and our 2 boys came to the USA in 1976. For that I can thank Malcom Forsythe who was enthused about America’s modest turn toward primary care and persuaded me to join Robert Smith, the chair of the new Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Medical School. I had been a GP near Winchester for 8 years and took a sabbatical year at UNC.
We were seduced to move permanently to the States by the fabulous outdoors, the incredible summers and beaches, an offer to double my income and the chance to change the direction of US health care. I worked in North Carolina for 28 years.
We moved west to Seattle in 2007. Wonderful mountains and Pacific forests. For a while we took advantage. Hiking, skiing, fishing and an IT city, now overpriced like San Francisco. It has been a great run for both of us. Carolyn went on to get a university degree and a great job running international clinical trials. I became a GP academic. The UNC department ended up the #1 department of Family Medicine in the USA. Sadly, US Health Care (I don’t use the term Health Care System – because there isn’t one) has only got worse through the wide inequality of services, over investigation and over-intervention, and mind-blowing cost. Carolyn and I are heavy consumers now: hypertension, osteoarthritis, cancer, pacemaker, knee replacements and so on. Now we watch the lives of our families, who by a wonderful chance, also live in Seattle.
At the same time, we have observed the NHS from a distance. Difficult to judge really, but I have the impression there is less commitment and effectiveness than 40 years ago. Still have great memories of rural practice in Hampshire.
Here we are with Pacific NW wolf:
No comments:
Post a Comment