This is the 22nd of July 2015, and it's two birds being interviewed by carefully to thank you very much for the marvellous curriculum vitae,
but I think I'll just plunge right in the middle of things, as it were were.
When did you first get interested in dermatology? Oh, great.
Aunt Elsie was a dermatologist.
So, you know, no, she was one of the first women dermatologists and she was actually based in Liverpool and she trained in medicine.
I think her husband died and he had been in medicine, I think.
And then she went into medicine. So she went in slightly late.
But she was a dermatologist with an interest in vulval diseases in unworked practised in Liverpool.
Yes. So I actually met great Aunt Elsie on a number of occasions.
And there is a photograph of me sitting talking to go on to see who lives when she was 103.
That's a good start. Yes, I know. Still doing the Times crossword crossword very late in life.
So she knew I was a medical student, but she never knew I went into dermatology. But dermatology was a and that it was a fairly practical choice.
In fact, I had a very interesting bit of career counselling. Right.
I wondered. Yes, well, it was hilarious. You know, we look after our medical students all the well.
Now I make lots of career advice. And I had two children pretty rapidly alcohol.
And so I was practising part time on Rosemary Ruth's wonderful part time training scheme in Oxford, which really helped so many of us.
She was a trailblazer. Yes, indeed. So. And I did some diabetes.
Yes. Yes. At that stage. But yeah, I had two small children, so I wanted to find something that was medical.
I definitely was the surgeon. When you came to Oxford from school, you didn't sign up for a dermatology.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was all medicine because I got my chance.
Well, you know, I've been preclinical in Bristol and then clinical in Oxford, which was slightly unusual.
Yes. And then I'd met Peter, who was going to Bristol, of all places.
So I had to go back to my job.
And then we had our first child and we came back to Oxford again because I'm following Peter and I got membership because in those days,
you got it very quickly. What? You could do it without any medicine.
It's not a pooling risk when I seem to find that, say you could, but you had to know some medicine to get the exam.
No, not much. I mean, you know, I was doing a time job.
I don't know what kind of medicine at all. I guess things have changed for the better.
So I came to Oxford having done house jobs, a years of full time pathology with membership,
and then went through various medical jobs so I could broaden my medical experience.
And then the question was what I should do.
So I, I remember going talking to the general practitioners about being a GP and thinking about paediatrics, haematology, rheumatology.
They were all in the back of my mind and pathology because I really like pathology.
So I went to Peter Monod and I, I said to Peter, you know, what about me doing histopathology?
Because I really do enjoy that. And he told me, he said, Susan, we've had enough part time women and pathology go and be a dermatologist.
I don't think it was quite as bad as that. That's how I ended up in dermatology.
Yes. Did you talk to mom? No. She must have been a few years ahead of you know, I just don't Margaret.
I must have done an essay. So there must be some I must have done a bit of dermatology before that because it was definitely on the agenda.
But Peter was very firm that I should go there. I'm told he was right because I like people and patients that have been lost as a pathologist.
But dermatology, of course, combined the pathology because you can see the skin, you can take the biopsy.
We looked on the microscope and the interaction with people because when you say you can take the biopsy,
I mean that to me, summarise is ironic because because in my time,
as it were, people looked at things and decided what they were saying to me, if it Lizzie knew immediately is a big thing about it.
And look at it now. It was he there in the different challenges for Mr Ruddock.
I met as a medical student tonight. And do you remember his name Buttons?
Yes, absolutely. Yes. He was marvellous. He was a gentleman, dermatologist.
And Terence, I must have been a consultant then as well.
But by the time I came into dermatology, Rannoch had retired. So Terence and Rodney Dalva.
Yes, my mentors were brilliant because I'd had some woman working part time before.
But in fact, I think I'm Agfest and had gone through ahead of me. Yes.
So they were familiar with.
These women who came and went and I went and had my interview with them, I think when I was still pregnant with Denny, that's right.
And then I started in the department and they said when I was no longer pregnant, I said, who are you?
So who would you say really transform docs with dermatology?
It was a remnant because it turned into an ordinary elevator. I was 30.
I think it was a steady progression because Panalpina Oscar then came as a consultant and she made a huge difference.
So even for now, did you have I mean, Falana? No, Fernado, another Oxford graduate, actually was a third consultant.
And what was his voyageur? Rostker. Well, okay, very English.
But her father was Polish. So W.J. Iska.
Yes.
So she brought modern research, I say, into Oxford where she had trained in London, but and brought the new techniques of immunosuppressant staining.
The monoclonal antibodies were just arriving and so we did also. She was a very great expert on immuno Bullis diseases.
So Oxford took off in that direction. Rodinia down a huge amount of hair and nails.
And Tarrant's is a lateral thinker, you know, Terence. So he would take Neitz moves.
You were never quite sure the conversation in terms of where he was going to end up,
but he transformed the church with they are and how he did that was a major contribution.
And, yes, useful. Or let's go back to the beginning that when you came from Bristol, what did you think of the admissions process?
Selection. But I didn't have an admissions process, so.
All right, I'm a Belfast girl. So I applied to Bristol and was accepted on the basis of my application, no interviews.
And I did my three years in Bristol on my third year. I was A, B, C when my external examiner was Charles Phillips.
He is. Yes, I understand you the first what I did.
And yes, I mean, also Bullough was my professor of physiology in Bristol.
So when I done well and a lot of my friends had not interconnected, they'd gone on to do clinical.
And I think the first year medicines, quite bruising. And a number of them were a bit disillusioned.
There were lots of medical students that had difficulty finding a theme, just as our students do.
And I think it was on the he said, well, why don't you go to Oxford?
So this was in July. Why don't you go to Oxford?
And I said that I haven't applied to go to. No, no, no.
I think I think they might have a space for you, but I didn't know he and Charles must have discussed things.
So I went to Belfast and said to my parents, what am I going to watch?
What they said, what went on? Then I got a letter saying, please come over to be interviewed.
And I met Jim Holt. I remember arriving, flying over from Northern Ireland.
I must have got the train and walking down St Giles and those wonderful flower baskets.
I've never been in Oxford and the colleges. It was just yes, it was extraordinary.
I'm walking in to the medical school and finding the hot Snezana.
It wasn't it was it was a Portakabin, wasn't it is.
That's what you saw in an interview with Jim. I don't remember anybody else interviewing me.
And he said, I think we've got a space for you now. We need to find a college. I know you got on the telephone.
And he said, I think sometimes I've been quite good to us in the past life. I was me a place really.
Did you ever see Charles Phillips again? I didn't know what he actually he lived in the village when we arrived, but then he moved out.
I must have met him, I think, perhaps briefly, twice when he was here.
But he was quite old by that is. And so then you did you tell me about your student is fantastic.
There weren't very many of us there and there were many, many girls either.
You know,
in Bristol it was fifty fifty and there were one hundred and twenty of us in Oxford I think in all year there were forty maybe right out of it.
No, no, no. Forty altogether in the year. Yes. I think there were ten of us got had a bull.
There was wonderful. The clinical school, the clinical side of things.
It was so friendly because everybody knew everybody else.
We were cherished. People would meet in the house at the end of the day.
Do you remember we don't have a glass of beer together.
And I sat behind the bar and those type of football and tea on the lawn.
I mean, that's not remembering much about the medicine, is it? But the certainly the the atmosphere was wonderful.
How many with the V on a four or five straight. Yes.
And counting. That is Tim Dolan was with me and right without turning Wendy back, very good at organising farm parties, as I recall.
He was very good looking this. So I stopped off on true baby, true love, baby.
And it was the other one that should have been in bed.
I'm sure it helps when this one is threat. It would be that I can't remember.
So that was my first medical phone and I remember sitting in Truelove with his moustaches.
And what do you remember about him and what did you smoke a pipe before?
I smelled smoke a cigarette. So I remember the smell of nicotine is that he smoked them in the middle of the night.
You know what I mean? He was good. And he was he had quite a twinkle.
Yes. And I mean, he taught us quite a bit, but I can't remember anything.
I didn't more specific, the right hand, the smell of cigarette and yes, I think got the surgeons,
as you said, I remember doing a must have been in the Fontanet doing a we could act up as hostile forces.
Couldn't wait long time Moloney's for. Yes. And I think Roger Bodney was going on holiday and had got me lined up to do his week when he was away.
And I was told what I had to do and I pitched up and everything I thought was organised.
And I took that patients to theatre and I had to send the first patient back because I hadn't done the crossmatch.
So last night I researched. Good to know they want to be cross, that could have been very close, and I remember Melanie was told, right?
Yes. And I remember actually going to Swindon where I had an accent attachment.
This must have been in the family. And somebody, a very good urologist, told me to catheterise absolutely perfectly.
So when I moved to Bristol and I was a house officer in urology,
catheterisation was something I could do with no problem at all if I remember Joe Smith.
And so I must have done some urology as a medical student was back in the Churchill.
Yes, I remember that. First, the dermatology you, which is something I think.
Yes. In that I think it was to the medicine next door.
It was infirmary and there was a big table and all the discussion with the patients was done in front of them.
There were two tables and both patients could hear what was going on and then they were taking aside into another room and stripped off.
Yes, there was no privacy with that patient. Yes.
So what about finals? Do you remember? I know.
I know that we were the one who didn't do finals. We were on the fast track and you course introduced in Oxford and it only lasted two
years because they realised nobody knew anything and they had to extend it again. I do.
I mean, so we are be keen on that.
Well, we qualified in January. Right. And we had no revision, of course.
And I think our exams were all staged. So, you know, it all disappeared in a blur because I was getting married immediately after it.
And it led to cause pathology was getting a big place with that,
because there would be some big idea that after a clinical introduction, you've got a big slab.
But we did get the energy and I remember very much enjoying that, obviously tied in with my translator looking at pots and pitchmen.
I was actually my teacher in pathology. Yes.
So that was quite right. I was right at the beginning doing that. And there were lots of pots.
They were above the hot spot like. Yes, they were.
Yes. And that you actually didn't get examined.
You say, oh, well, we must have had some sort of exam, but I can't remember anything about it at all.
But everybody passed because, of course, it was this very short course.
And then I when I went to Bristol and to do my house job, so I sort of caught up by six months.
And in fact, I started my house jobs in February with people I started Bristol with who were in their second house job.
I understand the question was how do I get the job in Bristol? That was interesting because Bristol had a gap.
I mean, these things are all very fortuitous.
What I said was that Peter was going to Oxford and I decided I think by that stage we must to get engaged or Peter was going to Bristol,
so I need to get my job.
So I wrote to Bristol, to Alan Reid, who is the professor of medicine, and and he said and I went home and I said, I will interview you.
And I think they were short because a lot of my year, more than normal, had indicated or done something there was rigorous anyway.
And he said, oh, yes. He said, why should why should we take you responding with the confidence of you?
Because I'm good. Isn't that terrible?
So this is a great thing. So you did the rest of it then when you came back to this, you've known several.
You a great husband, Duke. Yeah. Bristol, Oxford Street, Winterville.
Two, in a sense. How do they compare the right to compare with the others as well?
So the Radclyffe in fact my working in the Radcliffe, it all moved up to I think it had moved up to the John Radcliffe when we came back.
So they all Radcliffe I never actually worked in apart from being a student.
So I did all these different medical attachments, short bursts.
I'm a part time basis. So I was never a full time physician in Oxford.
I know it's a renal medicine, diabetes. A lot of it was based at the Chacho.
And my memories are of we're doing emergency medicine mean I had to do some
emergency medicine because I was in this anomalous position of having membership,
but actually having had moxie, no experience medicine.
So I remember working with Nick Nick White, who is still a very good friend to the other day, saying, Nick, how far does this go back?
And John Paul is actually around and I think as well and Nick said, yes, you did come in.
So I remember working at, you know, junior registrar level with Nick being a real registrar and really not having much clue.
I think that was a big problem with my education. And I think I you know, I.
Skated rather thin ice ever since.
Well, you going to just say yes now they need to know a lot of medicine because we're using Panopto to diminish drug dermatology.
The medical centre dermatology is very different. Not right.
When we started, you couldn't do because that interested me because toads in your funding measure go down.
Tell me exactly what the damage is.
I mean, there's a lot, you know, doing things to people in know 50 percent of my dermatology surgical no tumour walk.
Oh, it's gone through the roof. It's completely changed. So our registrars do huge amounts of surgery would tell me about it.
Is that just the removal make incisions? I know they're doing graft, skin grafts, flaps, all sorts.
Yes. The entomologist does not that the plastic surgeons are overwhelmed as well, that there is just so much skin cancer.
Melanoma has rocketed up. Yes. A man who used to be rare. Yes.
I got him one a week. It's just because it seemed been as much.
Well, that's a very interesting point. Yes. It's a bit like breast cancer, prostate that they're making the call much earlier.
They've got to not called it a microscope. So you can actually magnify the pigmented lesion in in situ, blow it up and really see the network,
a pattern of pigmentation and make a call very early on in the normal course.
What we don't know is if these minimally abnormal tumours were left, what they did.
Exactly. Exactly. Yes.
So I understand about that. But I'm no surgeon, so I got out of the surgical side as soon as I could.
But to go back to that first and you must have seen enough to make you, you know, what was the nursing back in Oxford compared to, say, Bristol?
And the difference the next thing in dermatology was I did do a little bit of dermatology in Bristol because I did it actually as a hospital.
Yes, that was my first contact. I forgot about that. But I the last thing in David's college in Oxford was pretty end of it.
And Terence was a great one for advancing nursing training.
Up next, politicians in a SO, yes, we had very we worked very closely with the nurses and we were extremely good nurses.
And so that's my memory. But then the pathologist must be very important, extremely important.
That link is vital in dermatology. And who did you work with? People are wondering if you will.
Yes, he was our deputy apologist. That's why he said to me after that apology.
And that was that was great. The research, of course, that I did. That was I mean, when did you start that?
Well, that was Fanaroff pushing that another water Oscar came and she was very good at pushing women and making us do things.
And so she said, you need to learn how to do immunised standing.
So I went off to London and did used to get the train down to the London hospital to work with Henry Lee,
who was developing monoclonal antibodies to different keratin.
So this was all at the start of the monoclonal antibody. And so how long did you go to London to try?
I must have done that for, I don't know, six, nine months. They're going up.
No, no going out. I think it was several days a week.
Yes. But learning the new techniques and doing some work on this on a condition called Dario's.
Yes, vaguely. Remember, the title I don't remember to do is I do remember who it is that.
Well, that was very interesting because that was when I arrived in the dermatology department.
You had to do you had to cut your teeth by doing pharmaceutical type studies.
Do you remember everybody was told they had to do this because, of course,
it generated a bit of income from the car and generally they weren't terribly inspiring.
But it just so happened that John Wilkinson, who had been a registrar in the department and gone off to see Thomases had been involved in.