Several students who intercalated a B.Sc en route to qualifying in medicine found their year away from laboratories and lecture theatres a relief, an opportunity to reflect on their futures. Inevitably, a few of them had deeper problems to confront. Because they comprised a small group we got to know them well and became sounding… Read More »
The University of London’s inter-collegiate, intercalated B.Sc in ‘Basic Medical Sciences with Medical Sociology’ (I think) straddled the 1980s. I made its acquaintance very early on, in 1975, although I was not among its founders. It survived until 1997 and during that time afforded an exceptional teaching opportunity for we sociologists employed in London medical… Read More »
I have alluded to a publication or two issuing from the epilepsy research. Neither of these was my first, and therein lies a tale or two. Anthony Hopkins was keen that we give a joint talk to the neurology section of the Royal Society of Medicine. We had no results, but hey! They were his… Read More »
In 1978 I was appointed full-time lecturer at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, which was to be my base until UCL chewed up and spat out a few bits before swallowing the rest whole in 1987. My office was a dark, dusty, dingy room in, if I recall rightly, Hanson Street. In my desk I… Read More »
I did not meet Margot Jefferys immediately on crossing the threshold at Bedford College in 1972. Based then in Peto Place, it was George Brown’s office I entered. But this was her Unit, and I came to know her well and to appreciate – no, more than that – the deftness of her political touch,… Read More »
We had moved to a rented flat – 45 Sandown Lodge – in Epsom in 1972. In fact we could have moved anywhere south of the Thames, it just happened that an opportunity arose in Epsom. We were to spend nearly 20 years there as our family multiplied. Three of our four daughters were born… Read More »
As my allotted three year stint as a research officer at St Bart’s neared its end, the Dean of Charing Cross Hospital Medical School contacted George Brown to enquire about any suitable candidates for a half-time lectureship in sociology. The appointee would join David Blane who already occupied a half-time post there and had no… Read More »
Asher Tropp at Surrey had urged us to get our hands dirty doing research rather than sign up for a taught Masters. Now, esconced at Bedford College and taking stock, I began to wonder if anyone lacking Margot and George’s M.Sc in medical sociology could land a teaching post! But in the meantime I had… Read More »
Such was my enjoyment of philosophy at Surrey that I determined to continue my studies. Pat Smart suggested that I apply for the B.Phil at Oxford and garnered the enthusiastic support of Daniel O’Connor at Exeter. In the event – once again – I tripped up in my examinations (it seems, embarrassingly for an academic,… Read More »
In my second year at Surrey, 1969-70, the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein cropped up on Irene Brennan’s reading list for metaphysics and epistemology. He was the first genius I had encountered, at least in the guise of a thinker. I lapped up Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, notwithstanding the fact that Anglo-Saxon philosophy had moved on. It remains… Read More »