My Dad died. It happened in 2022, long after my Mother had gone. In the final few years, he lived with my sister. He remained remarkable fit until he was 90, then he gradually died, always good humoured, until he final passed away aged 94. He had a good life. This blog is my tribute […]
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At Windsor House, years later.
By Catherine Robinson on 4th November 2024 in Mental Health, Psychiatry, Service User, Uncategorised
It is now fifty years since I started working at the Brook Hospital in Woolwich, and more than forty years since I picked up my Springfield Hospital pager on my first day as a psychiatric trainee. I have done a lot of different things as a psychiatrist. Amongst them, I am most proud of what […]
Community care
By Catherine Robinson on 21st October 2024 in Life, Mental Health, Policy, Service User, Social Work, Uncategorised
When we first moved to our flat in Bromley, the adjoining Victorian villa was divided into two maisonettes, one of which was occupied by a young family. The street was designated for redevelopment, and when the occupants moved on, the building was left empty. After a while, we began to notice signs of activity and […]
I had a stroke
I have a good excuse for the hiatus in this blog. Firstly, my Dad went and died. Not a great surprise (he was 94 years old), but he was my loyalest fan. He thought this blog was great. Then I had a stroke, which sounds alarming, and for a while, it was. Mainly, “a stroke” […]
Swamp ‘81
By Catherine Robinson on 17th November 2022 in Brixton uprising, Criminal justice, Junior doctors’ dispute, Music, surgery, Uncategorised
As the spring of 1981 arrived, the end of my general surgery ordeal came into sight. My spirits lifted, because the second three months of my surgical house job was to be in orthopaedics, which I expected to be dull but civilised. Easter fell at the beginning of April, and it included Steve Hammond’s birthday. […]
Bounded in a nutshell
It was a General Medical Council requirement that I should do surgical on-call whether I liked it or not. My main duties were at St George’s Hospital, Tooting, looking after patients admitted for elective surgery. No emergency work meant no on-call, so a bizarre arrangement was contrived in order to satisfy the GMC. One night […]
A cut-and-shut affair
By Catherine Robinson on 26th October 2022 in Hospitals, Junior Doctors, Medical Values, surgery, Uncategorised
Lanesborough House, the historic St George’s building at Hyde Park Corner, closed suddenly in 1980 when its state of disrepair became a danger to the public. The new hospital was not yet finished, so the consultants had to temporarily occupy Victorian wards in Tooting that were awaiting demolition. I did my surgical house job in […]
Everything was changing
Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles’ first LP Philip Larkin. The Beatles first LP starts […]
Not in the prescription
I have a framed picture on my dining room wall that was left to me by my grandmother when she died. It was given to her for her 17th birthday by a friend when they were both training to be nurses during the First World War. My grandmother married before she qualified and, as a […]
The tyranny of the Bleep
I have no recollection of walking into the Mayday Hospital in Croydon on my first day of work as a qualified doctor. I do not think that it felt especially momentous. In fact, after such a long journey to that exact moment, I am sure it felt anticlimactic. In 1980, there was no organised induction […]