Medical Lives: Memories and Musings

Published in 2022, this anthology of reminiscences and reflections by members of the Senior Fellows Club of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh tells, in 10-themed chapters, of young medical experiences, of adventures abroad, of diagnoses missed and clever ones made, and of fascinating contributions to research . . . and more.

There is much humour, a lot of instruction and intriguing snippets of information, like how the Profumo affair affected hospital staff; the graphic pen-picture of one author’s role model, a distinguished London gynaecologist who drove a small sports car, ‘a long cigarette holder clamped between her teeth and a smile which rarely extended to her eyes’; and the scarcely believable fact that the post Great War Peace Treaty of Versailles included international agreement on the acoustic definition of tuning note A!

We learn from doctors’ hobbies that the bird song of the willow warbler ‘is almost operatic, like a downward-flowing aria’, while its contact call ‘is simpler, a sweet, upwardly inflected, single note’; that serious book-collectors don’t buy books to read; and that magnolias are ancient plants from the dinosaur era that evolved before bees and were probably then pollinated by beetles. We could, however, have done without hearing about an unholy form of treatment for haemorrhoids!

The whole is interlaced with delightful poems and illustrated. Readers will be entertained.

It is good to be publishing this anthology during the 30th anniversary year of the Senior Fellows Club’s inauguration in 1992.