My wife has a habit of forgetting to tell me things. When she was at university, she neglected to tell me that her parents would be moving house before she came home for the holidays and I only found out by accident. She denies that this was an attempt to dump me and says she […]
Psychiatric Epiphany Part 1: Walking to Dartford Heath
By Catherine Robinson on 8th January 2022 in 1970s, History, Medical School, Mental Health, Psychiatry
When I was growing up, Bexley Hospital was the psychiatric facility for our part of London. “You belong in Bexley, you do!” was a regular childhood taunt. In 1968, when I was 12, my Auntie Peg was admitted to Bexley Hospital, where she was given a course of ECT and she was started on the […]
Freedom for Tooting Part 2: Desmond’s Hip City
By Catherine Robinson on 31st December 2021 in 1970s, Diversity, Hospitals, Medical School, Medical Values
At the start of the course, most of the medical students either lived in University Halls of Residence or, like me, with their parents. Over time, people drifted into shared flats clustered around the course of the Northern tube line through South West London. I had had enough of living at home, but I knew […]
Freedom for Tooting Part 1: The second worst job
I started the undergraduate clinical course at St George’s in September 1977, which necessitated a sensible haircut and the purchase of a tie. My grandmother bought me a stethoscope. We were provided with white coats that were the right size for nobody. Doctors’ ties and white coats were already known to be common vectors for […]
Northern Line Part 4. A bucketful of eels
By Catherine Robinson on 17th December 2021 in 1970s, Education, Life, Medical School, Politics, Social Mobility
During the two years that I attended King’s College London, I lived with my parents. Our relationship had been turbulent in my mid-teens. There had been pointless battles over hair and clothes, the common intergenerational battleground of the time. These things mattered to them because they retained a fierce working class pride. I thought that […]
Northern Line part 3 Skinhead Moonstomp revisited
My years at medical school coincided with a hugely exciting period in the history of British popular music. I was living and studying around central London, which was exactly the right place to be. Almost without effort, I saw many of the best and most exciting young bands when they were still on their way […]
Northern Line Part 2. Jeremy Bentham’s head
I doubt that I would ever have bought a King’s College London scarf, sweatshirt or tie even if I had gone to university straight from school. Twelve months of intense life experience as a hospital porter had led me to believe that I was a fully formed adult, and I was positively disdainful of student […]
The Northern Line Part 1. The Spider Club
By Catherine Robinson on 1st November 2021 in 1975, Alcohol, Class, Hospitals, Junior Doctors, Medical School, Medical Values, Medicine, Social Mobility
Between 1733 and 1980, St George’s Hospital and its medical school were located at Hyde Park Corner, one of the best sites in Belgravia. The building was grand but neglected. In 1980, just before I sat medical school finals, we were allocated our pre-registration house jobs. I was not looking forward to working as a […]
Hospital porter Part 7: Remembering and forgetting
Sidney introduced himself to me early in my career as a hospital porter. He was a polite and deferential middle-aged man. He told me that he had been working at the Brook Hospital for 15 years, so if there was anything that I needed to know, he would be able to fill me in. Slightly […]
Hospital porter Part 6: How to cheat at cards
Looking back, my strategy to get into medical school was naive. I would probably have done better if I had engaged the skills that underpinned my flair for cheating at cards. Second time around I applied to five medical schools whose prospectuses seemed to convey liberal social attitudes. This included two London medical schools, both […]