1 00:00:02,320 --> 00:00:14,340 Joe, this is talking on the 18th of November 2003, talking about your cell phone interactions with the Oxford Medical School. 2 00:00:14,340 --> 00:00:26,400 What really made you come to Oxford in the first place? Well, I had always wanted to work at a teaching hospital and live in the country. 3 00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:32,730 And Oxford and Cambridge were the only two places where you could do that in those days. 4 00:00:32,730 --> 00:00:37,980 And there was an excellent man in Cambridge doing urology. 5 00:00:37,980 --> 00:00:52,140 And I was about to go off to the States for my year doing the PTA. 6 00:00:52,140 --> 00:01:02,430 And so I went to see the secretary of the hospital, Jumba, 7 00:01:02,430 --> 00:01:19,410 and I said I would be very grateful if he would let me know because the job wasn't decided a year before I was appointed and 8 00:01:19,410 --> 00:01:38,930 author Elliot Smith was about to retire and he did the paediatrics and the urology and they decided to split the job in two acts, 9 00:01:38,930 --> 00:01:49,230 making both general surgery, both general surgeons, one with an interest in urology and one with an interest in paediatrics. 10 00:01:49,230 --> 00:01:55,920 And I got the urological one and Malcolm Golf got the paediatric one. 11 00:01:55,920 --> 00:02:01,080 And it's quite important that, you know, 12 00:02:01,080 --> 00:02:12,990 that the British Association of Urological Surgeons had been around the country 13 00:02:12,990 --> 00:02:21,630 aiming to adopt pure urology and therefore on my appointments committee, 14 00:02:21,630 --> 00:02:33,210 as it wasn't a purely urological job, they refused to appoint an outside assessor and they had gone around the 15 00:02:33,210 --> 00:02:41,380 centres in the country where they thought there ought to be urology to people. 16 00:02:41,380 --> 00:02:49,110 Mr Howard Handly and Professor Lesley Pyra had gone around talking to people about 17 00:02:49,110 --> 00:02:57,210 the need for pure urology and clearly upsetting my general surgical colleagues, 18 00:02:57,210 --> 00:03:10,860 particularly Ted Maloney. And so they wouldn't appoint an outside success assessor for this job. 19 00:03:10,860 --> 00:03:23,070 And so a chap called Sarah Richards, who has no idea he was by the outside assessor and he, 20 00:03:23,070 --> 00:03:29,630 incidentally, was a general surgeon to the end of his life, 21 00:03:29,630 --> 00:03:36,480 I think, because if you were a senior surgeon at the Middlesex in those days, 22 00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:44,400 you automatically got a knighthood, whereas the lesser specialities didn't. 23 00:03:44,400 --> 00:03:53,520 And so anyway, it that caused me a bit of trouble settling down feathers, ruffled feathers. 24 00:03:53,520 --> 00:04:04,110 When I arrived here, I had spent the last year in the USA. 25 00:04:04,110 --> 00:04:09,900 I was working as a foreign fellow at UCLA. 26 00:04:09,900 --> 00:04:18,390 Right. And Jamberoo was as good as his word. 27 00:04:18,390 --> 00:04:23,850 And he let me know and sent me the advert for the job. 28 00:04:23,850 --> 00:04:32,220 And so I was able to apply actually from Los Angeles. 29 00:04:32,220 --> 00:04:43,620 And I came back from Los Angeles in February and the job interview was in March, tried to start in April. 30 00:04:43,620 --> 00:04:53,040 Now the. Uh. 31 00:04:53,040 --> 00:05:08,060 After the job interview on the job interview was in March, and so I was home in time, so I didn't need to fly back from America for the interview. 32 00:05:08,060 --> 00:05:16,850 And I can remember coming over and we were living in London at the time. 33 00:05:16,850 --> 00:05:23,780 I'd got a temporary job at U.S. age where I qualified initially. 34 00:05:23,780 --> 00:05:30,830 And then and we were living in London. 35 00:05:30,830 --> 00:05:41,310 And I drove over with Mafalda to the Markus's house in time. 36 00:05:41,310 --> 00:05:49,430 And RIMPAC were very old friends of ours from age, from UCLA of that actually qualified. 37 00:05:49,430 --> 00:06:02,480 But but I known Andrew and indeed he'd looked after me when I had TB and he was in charge of the TB annexe. 38 00:06:02,480 --> 00:06:10,160 And so we were very friendly and we kept in touch with them. 39 00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:23,860 And Mafalda, when we stayed with the Marcos's team, went into the local church and prayed for me to get the job. 40 00:06:23,860 --> 00:06:33,350 I mean, I did. And and then I started at the beginning of July. 41 00:06:33,350 --> 00:06:43,910 I think he was on the 7th because there had been difficulties with my two senior colleagues and Tim Cahill and Ted Malone 42 00:06:43,910 --> 00:06:51,590 because they'd been appointed on the same day and there was continual bickering about who should be senior surgeon, 43 00:06:51,590 --> 00:07:03,650 although everybody recognised Tim Taylor, who was a much nicer man as a really sensible chap, and he was generally regarded as a senior surgeon. 44 00:07:03,650 --> 00:07:13,600 But in order to stop this, because Malcolm Gough was over the not older than I was and they made us start a week apart. 45 00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:17,720 So anyway, no, no question about it. 46 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:24,110 Fighting over seniority because being Savir surgery was quite an important thing in those days. 47 00:07:24,110 --> 00:07:34,550 Hmm. So this is back in 66 says and I started on the 7th of July, 1966. 48 00:07:34,550 --> 00:07:59,000 And I that was the one way I thought I could establish urology as a distinct speciality was by doing no general surgery and in private practise. 49 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:30,760 Right. I didn't do any private practise for the first couple of years because. 50 00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:42,170 I didn't think that was a very good idea, but when we were appointed, I got, uh. 51 00:08:42,170 --> 00:08:46,310 I got two sessions with the university. 52 00:08:46,310 --> 00:08:52,970 Yes, now there were two surgeons and three physicians, 53 00:08:52,970 --> 00:09:04,400 you were one appointed at the same time and the three physicians all got 500 pounds for expenses. 54 00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:08,660 I don't know if you remember that. No, I'd forgotten my health. 55 00:09:08,660 --> 00:09:17,060 And but George Pickering, who dished out the money, didn't think surgeons knew anything about research. 56 00:09:17,060 --> 00:09:32,300 And so we got nothing. Indeed, when we started in private practise, which was largely at Backlund, 57 00:09:32,300 --> 00:09:41,120 we had Malcolm and I had to buy our own instruments, yosh because those instruments were there. 58 00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:44,960 But the general surgeons wouldn't have what with the. 59 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:49,030 Of course, I think it was about 600 pounds. 60 00:09:49,030 --> 00:09:53,640 Well, it's a lot of money and a lot of money. Yes. And it's quite a lot of money. 61 00:09:53,640 --> 00:10:12,800 And anyway, I thought I would just politely decline general surgical referrals as they seemed to me the way to slowly build up urological practise. 62 00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:19,640 And indeed the general practitioners around were absolutely marvellous. 63 00:10:19,640 --> 00:10:24,080 They were particularly download record, Richard. 64 00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:36,530 Yes. And Headington, he was in Headington and he recognised that the urology really wasn't up to scratch. 65 00:10:36,530 --> 00:10:48,800 And so I used to get a lot of referrals from him, from David Birch, who was in practise in Islip, and from Deqi, who was in practise in Bedford. 66 00:10:48,800 --> 00:11:03,140 Yes. And and I could remember James Barrett, who said to me this trying to read from this section is prostate. 67 00:11:03,140 --> 00:11:12,260 Prostate is no good. And so I said, well, that's not my experience. 68 00:11:12,260 --> 00:11:20,990 And every time I he sent me a patient and I did it to you are on the patient. 69 00:11:20,990 --> 00:11:34,760 I sent him back to him with a little thing. He's dry exclamation. 70 00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:49,590 And I think of the early years because I was the junior surgeon very definitely, and there were six surgeons at the time, 71 00:11:49,590 --> 00:11:58,030 Tim Tebow, Ted Maloney, David Tibs, Charles Webster and then Malcolm and myself. 72 00:11:58,030 --> 00:12:00,750 Yes. And the professoriate team. 73 00:12:00,750 --> 00:12:18,120 And yes, there was the professorial team and where the reader was, Milo Canes and Alf Gunning was attached to the surgical unit. 74 00:12:18,120 --> 00:12:22,890 And he is a great man. 75 00:12:22,890 --> 00:12:28,620 And he would tackle and he would I can remember one thing. 76 00:12:28,620 --> 00:12:37,290 The one thing I would not tackle was a ruptured optic aneurysm because I hadn't done it during my training. 77 00:12:37,290 --> 00:12:51,720 And so one time my houseman rang up when we were on duty and said, oh, there's a patient and we've got it ruptured aortic aneurysm. 78 00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:56,290 I said, oh, give Mr. Canning a ring. 79 00:12:56,290 --> 00:13:08,760 Says, This isn't something I've done. And I rang back later and I said, what's happened to that patient? 80 00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:15,120 And the chap said, Well, I'm getting theatre ready at one o'clock in the morning or something like that. 81 00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:21,010 I said, What did Mr. Gunnin think about him? Well, we haven't seen him. 82 00:13:21,010 --> 00:13:29,100 Oh, good. And then. 83 00:13:29,100 --> 00:13:38,670 And then but I I managed to establish urology as a separate subject, 84 00:13:38,670 --> 00:13:51,000 partly because I was inundated in the outpatients and partly because I never actually mentioned this to Ted. 85 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:57,080 But any neurological cases that came in on our take, I used to keep under my care. 86 00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:10,110 I had one operating list a week at the Radcliffe on the Wednesday and two operating lists at the Churchill, one on a Monday, one on a Friday. 87 00:14:10,110 --> 00:14:24,550 And it's interesting that David Tibs, who is the most polite and gentleman, if you meet him, is almost like a fiend in Carnot in the theatre. 88 00:14:24,550 --> 00:14:34,320 All right. And he used to share it was the next door theatre and there were terrible noises coming from. 89 00:14:34,320 --> 00:14:47,340 So did you have a ward of the general bedroom? I had beds at the Churchill and they were shared by Charles Webb, Webster, Malcolm Golf and myself. 90 00:14:47,340 --> 00:14:54,570 And we used purely logical end up there. 91 00:14:54,570 --> 00:14:58,690 Probably I. Oh, no, no, no. 92 00:14:58,690 --> 00:15:02,990 I don't think I did because I, 93 00:15:02,990 --> 00:15:14,100 I had to accept I didn't turn away general surgery from the outpatients because I regarded myself as a trained general surgeon, 94 00:15:14,100 --> 00:15:23,580 which is I've had rather unusual training, but it was perfectly adequate by the standards of the day. 95 00:15:23,580 --> 00:15:38,190 And then so I used to do the lists and that's a there's Radcliffe Mondays and Fridays at the Churchill. 96 00:15:38,190 --> 00:15:48,060 And Saturday morning I had to do my outpatients because there wasn't an outpatient slot free for Elliott Smith. 97 00:15:48,060 --> 00:15:55,470 Malcolm took over and said the only thing left was on Saturday morning. 98 00:15:55,470 --> 00:16:07,860 I was that sort of thing. When you start off in a place I spent and but I think Mafalda got a bit fed up because I had 99 00:16:07,860 --> 00:16:15,240 to go and do an enormous outpatient clinic and then I would have to go around the world, 100 00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:21,330 the Radclyffe and the Churchill. And I never got home until teatime on Saturday. 101 00:16:21,330 --> 00:16:26,010 Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it was it was quite tough guy. Different from now. 102 00:16:26,010 --> 00:16:38,230 Oh yes. And. Yes, sorry. 103 00:16:38,230 --> 00:16:44,590 All right. You were saying being a junior surgeon was a bit difficult. 104 00:16:44,590 --> 00:16:52,720 Well, you just got the worst slot in the operation last week, and that was it was all right. 105 00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:58,780 And I enjoyed doing our patients. I've enjoyed all my working life. 106 00:16:58,780 --> 00:17:15,100 And so then gradually, the urology being built up and general practitioners who had a wide variety of general surgeons to send their patients do, 107 00:17:15,100 --> 00:17:21,400 they gradually stopped sending urology. 108 00:17:21,400 --> 00:17:27,280 To me, it was a gradual process and it took several years. 109 00:17:27,280 --> 00:17:40,840 Charles Webster was very good at referring urology to me, as well as Tim Tebow and the other and David Tips as well. 110 00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:55,330 The others less so. But, uh, then we, uh, gradually built up urology and I started doing some research. 111 00:17:55,330 --> 00:18:09,280 I had to because I was doing some private practise and, uh, and the money went into a university fund. 112 00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:23,050 And gradually as this built up, I as I started employing a research chap and he did some, uh, 113 00:18:23,050 --> 00:18:31,270 he did some work on rats, kidneys, and, uh, I don't think it never amounted to very much. 114 00:18:31,270 --> 00:18:36,580 But he got an M.S. out of his nose. 115 00:18:36,580 --> 00:18:41,600 He was medically qualified. Oh, yes. Yeah. Paul Hammond, his name. 116 00:18:41,600 --> 00:18:44,500 I remember him. Yes. 117 00:18:44,500 --> 00:18:53,380 When you came to Oxford, you know, after you've been there a few months, what did you think of the standard compared with World America and usage? 118 00:18:53,380 --> 00:18:57,570 Well, I wasn't very proud of you, S.H. Urology. 119 00:18:57,570 --> 00:19:09,340 And I think they had had the practise, I think, almost uniquely, in the London teaching hospitals of not having specialists. 120 00:19:09,340 --> 00:19:23,710 And my urological mentor, Uncage, was a man called Deeyah Davis, and he was a great expert in parathyroid. 121 00:19:23,710 --> 00:19:26,710 So. Right. Because he worked with Charles Dowd. 122 00:19:26,710 --> 00:19:42,070 Yeah, but I got involved at New S.H. with the with the unit that were looking after children with the psycho urinary reflux. 123 00:19:42,070 --> 00:19:46,780 And the leading light in that was gene smell, etc. 124 00:19:46,780 --> 00:19:58,810 And, uh, but Max Rosenheim was in overall charge and I had been doing my thesis before 125 00:19:58,810 --> 00:20:06,040 I went to America in the X-ray department with a chap called David Edwards. 126 00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:15,190 In those days, it was thought quite dangerous to catheterise patients. 127 00:20:15,190 --> 00:20:24,250 Paul Basan wrote a great letter, an article on the case against the catheter, 128 00:20:24,250 --> 00:20:36,910 and it was thought that you couldn't possibly take taken a normal person or even a child with urinary infection and catheterise them. 129 00:20:36,910 --> 00:20:41,620 And so the only opportunity that we did, 130 00:20:41,620 --> 00:20:50,980 I had to measure the pressures and flows in the in the bladder was during the make treating 131 00:20:50,980 --> 00:20:57,270 Sister Gramp's sessions that David Edwards used to run weekly in the X-ray department. 132 00:20:57,270 --> 00:21:13,220 Uh, and I think that if I have made one really good contribution, uh, it is to. 133 00:21:13,220 --> 00:21:21,500 Show that small girls did not have obstruction of the urethra. 134 00:21:21,500 --> 00:21:27,230 It was easier to show that they were not obstructed than that they were obstructed. 135 00:21:27,230 --> 00:21:31,670 Right, because nobody knew about pressures and flows. 136 00:21:31,670 --> 00:21:44,480 Although I had a Swedish friend called both of the girls and he had done some splendid work in the 50s and measuring pressures and flows. 137 00:21:44,480 --> 00:21:50,360 And he came over to England. 138 00:21:50,360 --> 00:22:01,370 He spoke beautiful English. And he'd been living with an uncle in England during the war, I think. 139 00:22:01,370 --> 00:22:06,930 And he gave me all his work. 140 00:22:06,930 --> 00:22:23,330 And, uh, and I can remember one time he came over and he was out at our home in North London having dinner, 141 00:22:23,330 --> 00:22:35,360 and he said he'd been up the Thames that day and he'd seen a notice which said, Hennelly Pescatore. 142 00:22:35,360 --> 00:22:41,960 So tell me, Joe, is this an angling club for urologists? Splendid. 143 00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:48,140 But does that observation of yours make Jean Smellers story less likely? 144 00:22:48,140 --> 00:22:59,480 No, because the the thing is that people thought and those days, even people like David A. 145 00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:10,130 Williams thought that there was an obstruction because of the appearance of the urethra during a McTear rating system, 146 00:23:10,130 --> 00:23:18,890 which was called a spinning top areif. Retrade went in by the neck and then down at the bottom. 147 00:23:18,890 --> 00:23:24,960 And so people thought in those days that obstruction equals infection. 148 00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:39,710 Hmm. And that and David Williams had even published a paper on this, and they didn't come from the high ground on that. 149 00:23:39,710 --> 00:23:47,450 And so I then I by sharing that there was no obstruction. 150 00:23:47,450 --> 00:23:57,050 And I think this appearance, the spinning top urethra was actually caused because you couldn't I mean, 151 00:23:57,050 --> 00:24:04,700 it's very difficult to get little girls to pee in the company of the company. 152 00:24:04,700 --> 00:24:14,150 And so David Edwards, my colleague in the X-ray department, he had a thing called the Ed Wood sign, 153 00:24:14,150 --> 00:24:22,370 which meant that you had to fill the bladder up until the little girl's toes turned back and then they would produce it. 154 00:24:22,370 --> 00:24:26,270 And it was simply a question of that. 155 00:24:26,270 --> 00:24:36,620 They were bladder was over overfull and it wasn't representing the natural situation at all, but it produced the spinning top urethra. 156 00:24:36,620 --> 00:24:53,960 Now, that was being attacked, the spinning top urethra, which was thought to be obstructed, it was, uh, it was attacked on both ends. 157 00:24:53,960 --> 00:25:03,620 Some people thought it was an obstruction, the neck of the urethra and other people thought it was the land of the free throw. 158 00:25:03,620 --> 00:25:15,800 And the various people in this country were doing a plastic operation on the neck of the bladder. 159 00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:25,190 And then other people were doing widening out the urethra. 160 00:25:25,190 --> 00:25:33,740 And when I went to the States, they will naturally assume that infection meant obstruction. 161 00:25:33,740 --> 00:25:43,670 And a lot of these quite a few of these girls and I saw some of this when I was working at UCLA were permanently incontinent and incontinent, 162 00:25:43,670 --> 00:25:52,550 by the way, I can imagine about that. But then I can remember the early years if somebody annatto had retention. 163 00:25:52,550 --> 00:25:58,850 It was super pubic the time, wasn't it? Well, it had been no. 164 00:25:58,850 --> 00:26:03,770 I thought the catheter was very much better way of doing it. 165 00:26:03,770 --> 00:26:13,080 And I invented it superbly well. It wasn't much good, but by the standards of the babies, it was reasonable and. 166 00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:20,640 I used to work with a company who made medical instruments. 167 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:25,950 They were called Squibb, right. And they worked at High Wycombe. 168 00:26:25,950 --> 00:26:30,570 Right. And they had a big department there. 169 00:26:30,570 --> 00:26:34,320 And I used and they said to me, look, what should we be doing? 170 00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:41,520 I said, you ought to be teaching your sales representatives about basic urology. 171 00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:51,330 So I used to go and give lectures. And I mean, I was defending the sorry Jeff Veining Fenning Fenning. 172 00:26:51,330 --> 00:26:58,230 We know. Fine, fine. And what about the nursing care at at Oxford. 173 00:26:58,230 --> 00:27:12,000 Well, the nursing care was splendid, traditional nursing care and I suspect rather better than you get now because I've been brought up, 174 00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:19,740 as you would be, by a generation of sisters who lost their fiances in World War One. 175 00:27:19,740 --> 00:27:31,170 And they lived on the wards and they they guarded them with a fierce determination. 176 00:27:31,170 --> 00:27:39,240 And I remember there was a girl called Mary Wellington, 177 00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:48,210 who was always known as Mary Marlborough because she looked after Marlborough Ward and she was a 178 00:27:48,210 --> 00:27:58,710 splendid lady and fiercely protective of patients and wouldn't let you get away with anything. 179 00:27:58,710 --> 00:28:11,460 And what about the medical students? Well, the medical students in Oxford have always been very bright, and they were bright then. 180 00:28:11,460 --> 00:28:28,140 And I realised that they were much brighter than me and and that I could usually keep ahead of them because I got a bit of experience under my belt. 181 00:28:28,140 --> 00:28:33,840 But there were they were amazingly bad and have always been a delight to teachers. 182 00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:41,490 You didn't think there were too many of them towards the end, because in the beginning there were so few. 183 00:28:41,490 --> 00:28:53,880 So few is No. One in 66. We we I remember we used to invite the students from your farm firm for three months, 184 00:28:53,880 --> 00:29:01,770 and I always used to have them out to the house at the end of their time and give them a good good. 185 00:29:01,770 --> 00:29:11,420 And the operating theatres, what were they like? Well, do you remember a lady called Eileen Hurley or Trent? 186 00:29:11,420 --> 00:29:17,430 Yes, I did. And she was the sister in charge of the Radcliffe theatres, 187 00:29:17,430 --> 00:29:27,000 and she used to have a little office just opposite the theatres that because 188 00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:32,790 of the changing rooms and the theatres on either sides of the main rattly. 189 00:29:32,790 --> 00:29:46,770 Well, anyway, and trends I got on very well with and she was called Trex because she couldn't she was Irish and couldn't say thread's by 190 00:29:46,770 --> 00:30:00,730 name and but she used to sit in her little office opposite the theatres and nobody she knew everybody going up and down. 191 00:30:00,730 --> 00:30:11,640 The thing I can remember going in one night that the rent, the main card, all the radclyffe was in the square squares, a black and white. 192 00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:20,100 And I can remember coming in in the middle of one night and one of the cleaners 193 00:30:20,100 --> 00:30:28,980 was had a machine and he was cleaning all the white bits and ignoring the black. 194 00:30:28,980 --> 00:30:36,450 So. So then when did the new theatres get built, the ones that were across the theatre? 195 00:30:36,450 --> 00:30:47,340 Yes, they were built because Tyler was the chairman of the board when I was appointed. 196 00:30:47,340 --> 00:30:53,970 He wasn't actually on my appointments committee, although he claimed later he had been. 197 00:30:53,970 --> 00:31:05,550 That was a rather nice solicitor who was the deputy chairman of the court. 198 00:31:05,550 --> 00:31:12,240 Remember his name and. 199 00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:22,740 I forgot where we started off with one word about the new theatres, the way they came in in the early 70s and what they needed, as it were. 200 00:31:22,740 --> 00:31:29,370 Oh yeah. Well, they were a huge improvement on the old ones. 201 00:31:29,370 --> 00:31:39,480 And but you see, I always had quite good theatres at the Churchill because they were made as part of the 202 00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:49,050 American hospital originally and they were light and airy and had beautiful floors. 203 00:31:49,050 --> 00:32:04,350 And it was that other chap I think I ought to mention is Frank Ellis, because Frank Ellis was a huge enthusiast. 204 00:32:04,350 --> 00:32:20,250 Yes. And he, uh, he was one of the first people I met, apart from the interview, because he invited me out to dinner at the RSM. 205 00:32:20,250 --> 00:32:33,240 And when I was still living and working in London and I used to play squash with him and he was he was then in his 70s, 206 00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:45,660 I don't know, six days, six days. But because he lived to over one room and he I used to play squash with him and it was 207 00:32:45,660 --> 00:32:53,730 quite embarrassing for me as a young man because he used to hit the ball after that, 208 00:32:53,730 --> 00:32:58,530 bounced twice and carry on as if nothing had happened. 209 00:32:58,530 --> 00:33:08,310 And another story about him is that he told me this and he told me against himself he'd been during the war. 210 00:33:08,310 --> 00:33:21,900 He was in charge of the radiotherapy department in Sheffield. And then he'd gone to the London hospital and he used to go when he was in Sheffield. 211 00:33:21,900 --> 00:33:29,910 He used to drive his physicist to they had a facility in Buxton where they used to go. 212 00:33:29,910 --> 00:33:36,180 And I remember one night he was driving me back from London and he was a dreadful driver. 213 00:33:36,180 --> 00:33:39,570 I couldn't see where he was going and anything like that. 214 00:33:39,570 --> 00:33:53,880 And he told me the story about going up to Buxton and he'd hit a patch of ice and he the car had spun completely round. 215 00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:59,760 But as it was going in the same direction as it had started off, he thought he'd carry on. 216 00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:10,440 And the story got back to him in Sheffield through the grapevine that his physicist had said he wasn't going to drive with that man, 217 00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:17,010 but because he turned the car right round and never even noticed. 218 00:34:17,010 --> 00:34:22,380 And then we're going to of national meetings or meetings in London. 219 00:34:22,380 --> 00:34:30,870 Yes, I was I joined the National Association, which you couldn't do that until you became a consultant. 220 00:34:30,870 --> 00:34:39,810 And I think I joined as an associate member because I was an or urologist. 221 00:34:39,810 --> 00:34:51,330 But but I used to greatly enjoy the meetings of the section of urology of the RSL. 222 00:34:51,330 --> 00:35:00,270 Yes. And I used it when I was a lad in London. I used to say these people come up from all over the place. 223 00:35:00,270 --> 00:35:10,530 And I'm amazed really, because we didn't always get a particularly good programme. 224 00:35:10,530 --> 00:35:22,260 But one of the chaps who I great greatly admired and was hugely helpful to me when I came to Oxford was Conrad Lato, 225 00:35:22,260 --> 00:35:27,750 who was a general surgeon but did all the urology reading right. 226 00:35:27,750 --> 00:35:42,540 And he used to come up to the RSM with an arm full of x rays and ask the various people particularly bad, not my boss. 227 00:35:42,540 --> 00:35:51,810 And he I know the press that he would come all the way up to London for this. 228 00:35:51,810 --> 00:36:05,250 And they and but when I came to Oxford, I realised exactly what why they came up because you were very isolated, 229 00:36:05,250 --> 00:36:10,930 very lonely and nothing quite like this. And I knew needed someone to share your. 230 00:36:10,930 --> 00:36:16,700 Problems with so did you talk to John Bagno because he was a cousin of yours, wasn't he? 231 00:36:16,700 --> 00:36:20,320 Yes, he was. Yes, I got on very well. 232 00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:25,900 And on that note, I think, uh. And he was a nice man. 233 00:36:25,900 --> 00:36:50,380 Yes. Very good physician. Yeah. There wasn't much you could do for cancer of the prostate in those days, I'm not sure there's much you can do now. 234 00:36:50,380 --> 00:36:57,430 I think it's one of these diseases that's fairly, grossly over treated. 235 00:36:57,430 --> 00:37:02,470 And I thought it was grossly over treated in the States when I was there. 236 00:37:02,470 --> 00:37:06,160 When did you become knotted in opposition? 237 00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:11,230 Did you give that up eventually? I was never a physician. 238 00:37:11,230 --> 00:37:15,550 I was sorry. So sorry. No, no, no, that's fine. 239 00:37:15,550 --> 00:37:29,710 I gave it up when my seven years after I came to Oxford, I was working flat out and it was generally recognised that I couldn't cope. 240 00:37:29,710 --> 00:37:37,870 And so we appointed Grif fellows. We we didn't have facilities for him in Oxford. 241 00:37:37,870 --> 00:37:48,070 So I made a joint appointment with Stoke Mandeville and he did the the spinal unit in Stoke, mentally ill. 242 00:37:48,070 --> 00:38:04,390 And that was an interesting story in itself in that they. 243 00:38:04,390 --> 00:38:15,970 The advert, it said they wanted this as a urologist for Stoke Mandeville. 244 00:38:15,970 --> 00:38:19,570 And they didn't specify that it was for the spinal injuries. 245 00:38:19,570 --> 00:38:28,420 And I had severe flak from several general surgeons in Stoke Mandeville. 246 00:38:28,420 --> 00:38:41,950 And I can remember driving out with a chap called Pledger who used to work for the, uh, what would it be called? 247 00:38:41,950 --> 00:38:45,990 What Alex Gatherer became a community physician or public health? 248 00:38:45,990 --> 00:39:03,550 Yeah, public health. And this chap went out and one of a chap who'd been my registrar was his name. 249 00:39:03,550 --> 00:39:14,020 And he attacked me because he said he had to dip in and they were all up in arms. 250 00:39:14,020 --> 00:39:20,800 Yeah, Jeffrey had failed and it was the same. 251 00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:30,280 But they they attacked me and quite clearly wanted to protect their own private practise. 252 00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:43,000 You bet. And there was this chap Pledger, who I knew had I'd found out had six children and he was working on a salary right now. 253 00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:48,220 So I just said to him, well, you see what the sort of thing you're up against. 254 00:39:48,220 --> 00:39:57,610 Yeah. Yeah. And then once and then at the time, Gruskin, were you both entirely urological. 255 00:39:57,610 --> 00:40:02,380 Was Grif doing. No, no, no. Grif never did any general, 256 00:40:02,380 --> 00:40:17,500 but he was a well trained urologist and and he did the spinal injuries unit at Stoltmann Dorville, not the general surgical. 257 00:40:17,500 --> 00:40:24,370 And he used to do that two and a half days a week or something. 258 00:40:24,370 --> 00:40:29,380 He had four sessions there and five sessions in Oxford or something like that. 259 00:40:29,380 --> 00:40:37,510 But you gave a general surgeon general surgery seven years after his death. 260 00:40:37,510 --> 00:40:44,350 And looking back, have you ever worked as hard as in the seventies? 261 00:40:44,350 --> 00:40:54,100 I don't think I did that. I mean, I worked longer hours because when I was a housemen that you see, you were on call for six months. 262 00:40:54,100 --> 00:41:00,760 Full stop. Yeah. Yeah. And but I worked very, very hard. 263 00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:07,730 And my father used to say she'd brought our children up as a one parent family, but then we all did. 264 00:41:07,730 --> 00:41:15,940 They were always, always on call is and never off call. 265 00:41:15,940 --> 00:41:20,100 And how did you get on with the various professors. 266 00:41:20,100 --> 00:41:33,570 Um, well I got on well with uh I always got on well personally with Alison, although he was quite a strange man. 267 00:41:33,570 --> 00:41:48,220 Uh, and, uh. Judge Pickering, I got on quite well with him. 268 00:41:48,220 --> 00:41:54,100 Uh, hello, I can remember one time, uh. 269 00:41:54,100 --> 00:42:02,680 He he referred me a patient and. 270 00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:10,030 Did what was necessary in this chat, then went back to bickering and I think it was a private patient, 271 00:42:10,030 --> 00:42:19,150 and then George said, well, you guys in the ward now and this time didn't like it. 272 00:42:19,150 --> 00:42:30,250 So when did you give up the research sessions? Well, the research sessions were. 273 00:42:30,250 --> 00:42:42,040 They were they carried on for several years and one had to produce the research to justify them, although I wasn't being paid any money. 274 00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:51,190 But the real change in my research came when Alison Brading yeah. 275 00:42:51,190 --> 00:43:03,070 With whom I had a great deal of contact, I realised I was too busy as a practising clinician to even supervise research. 276 00:43:03,070 --> 00:43:13,900 And so that's one of my research chaps called Tim Philp, who I saw the other evening. 277 00:43:13,900 --> 00:43:33,670 And he, uh, he was doing a thesis on cooling the bladder as possible, cause treatment for bladder instability. 278 00:43:33,670 --> 00:43:40,150 And he went along and saw Alison Brading. 279 00:43:40,150 --> 00:43:51,010 Now, she had succeeded a remarkable lady who was in the pharmacology department and who was a world expert on smooth muscle. 280 00:43:51,010 --> 00:44:09,420 It will bring Edith Bilbrey to the gathering. Well, we were talking about Edith Bell Ring, 281 00:44:09,420 --> 00:44:25,980 and I went to see the bowl ring and I talked about the problem of the unstable bladder and she suddenly went very cold on me. 282 00:44:25,980 --> 00:44:32,910 And I had no idea why she did that, but I didn't think I could make much progress. 283 00:44:32,910 --> 00:44:39,660 But later, when she retired, I was asked, see her? 284 00:44:39,660 --> 00:45:40,310 And she was in Professor Morrises ward. 285 00:45:40,310 --> 00:45:47,750 And so I think it's only when you find out the whole history of people that you learn to explain. 286 00:45:47,750 --> 00:45:57,440 Absolutely. I quite agree. So, Alison Brading. Yes, I'm Alison Brading has been a great co-operator. 287 00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:09,050 And I used to when Edith Boring retired and Alison Alison became reader, 288 00:46:09,050 --> 00:46:19,760 then I got a real cooperation going and I used to supply her with raw young surgical registrars. 289 00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:28,910 And she she's a very stern lady, Alison Brady, and she used to turn them into proper scientist grade, 290 00:46:28,910 --> 00:46:34,020 which is something I could never have done a very good for everybody else. 291 00:46:34,020 --> 00:46:41,480 Absolutely. And I think that's the pattern that has been gradually, gradually taking place in Oxford ever since, 292 00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:47,570 is that there still isn't enough cooperation between the medical school and the university. 293 00:46:47,570 --> 00:46:54,330 I agree with you. So now you and I were fancying yourself doing transplantation of the kidney. 294 00:46:54,330 --> 00:46:59,030 Well, we did the first transplantation. 295 00:46:59,030 --> 00:47:04,760 I was involved in that. And this was before Peter Morris arrived. 296 00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:17,360 And I got the I've got the cutting from the Oxford Times, which first kidneys, which it's called. 297 00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:27,350 And it was a young girl from Abingdon who had and we'd been working up to this and practising. 298 00:47:27,350 --> 00:47:39,450 John Ledingham was the lead physician. Uh. Uh. 299 00:47:39,450 --> 00:47:50,070 Patterson, yes, he was a plastic surgeon, plastic surgeon, and now young lady was a physician, vascular surgeon. 300 00:47:50,070 --> 00:47:59,670 Yes, I'll of cunning, cunning did the thing and, uh, what's his name? 301 00:47:59,670 --> 00:48:04,230 He's got a beard and I see him walking around. OK, so he's still alive. 302 00:48:04,230 --> 00:48:08,450 But the pathologist or regular Patterson? 303 00:48:08,450 --> 00:48:12,660 Oh, yes. No, he's got a he's got a beard. Yes. Yes. What's his first name. 304 00:48:12,660 --> 00:48:17,370 I'm just trying to think they used to know. I know. Came or. 305 00:48:17,370 --> 00:48:33,010 No I forget and I. And that went well, your transplant? 306 00:48:33,010 --> 00:48:44,830 Well, if it went all right, the patient died, but I'm not sure the transplant produced much urine. 307 00:48:44,830 --> 00:48:51,800 Right, right. And then after that, they clearly needed to do something about it. 308 00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:59,680 And they appointed Peter Morris. And I was quite glad to back out of it, although I. 309 00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:08,470 I used to go and harvest the kidneys. So I remember going Northampton and Swindon harvesting kidneys. 310 00:49:08,470 --> 00:49:15,040 Were you on the appointments committee for Peter? I don't think I was. 311 00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:22,570 I think Tim Tebow was the surgical presence. 312 00:49:22,570 --> 00:49:26,560 I was on the Appointments Committee for Deaths. 313 00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:37,150 Oliver, right. Who was appointed as a as renal physician, ran the transplant, the dialysis. 314 00:49:37,150 --> 00:49:46,040 You had Nasrat. And, uh, but I don't think I was. 315 00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:51,350 No, I don't think I was on Peter Morris's point. 316 00:49:51,350 --> 00:49:56,420 No, I'm sure that was a university thing. Yes. They wouldn't have had a plan. 317 00:49:56,420 --> 00:50:00,050 Well, they were funny about that. Yes. 318 00:50:00,050 --> 00:50:09,560 And then also, I was on appointments committee for an anaesthetist had John Hayneville, who lives in Woodstock now. 319 00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:18,140 And you would never get a surgeon on the anaesthetics appointment committee down there. 320 00:50:18,140 --> 00:50:24,020 Then at some stage, you were president of the Urological Association. 321 00:50:24,020 --> 00:50:33,110 Yes. That wasn't till a lot later. Right. I've been president of both urological organisations and country. 322 00:50:33,110 --> 00:50:37,940 First of all, I was president of the section of urologic the wrong side, right? 323 00:50:37,940 --> 00:50:44,000 Mm hmm. And then I was president of Paris in 92 to 94. 324 00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:50,330 And following retirement, I became president of the Medical Defence Union. 325 00:50:50,330 --> 00:50:54,110 Right? Yes. Which has always been a big interest of mine. 326 00:50:54,110 --> 00:51:00,170 Well, that must've given you a lot of insights. Oh, and a huge amount. 327 00:51:00,170 --> 00:51:05,030 Yes. But how do you think the Oxford School was developing? 328 00:51:05,030 --> 00:51:14,150 Do you think? Well, I, uh, we used to talk about the dentist that had a big lift up in 66. 329 00:51:14,150 --> 00:51:26,270 Yes. When there were six new appointments and Bob Duffy, Malcolm and myself and surgery and yourself, John and Peter slidin. 330 00:51:26,270 --> 00:51:40,820 And I think that you can trace the, uh, the rise in eminence of medicine and surgery from from that 66, 331 00:51:40,820 --> 00:51:45,380 I think, and from getting the Cambridge students across. 332 00:51:45,380 --> 00:51:51,590 That made a difference. I think that made a huge difference. Um, no, no. 333 00:51:51,590 --> 00:51:58,070 It was, uh, uh, that's been great or anything with the way you feel. 334 00:51:58,070 --> 00:52:06,060 Oxford went wrong later on during it during your time. Uh. 335 00:52:06,060 --> 00:52:17,310 No, it was always that we were constraints, financial constraints, and I think given the facilities, we did pretty well. 336 00:52:17,310 --> 00:52:27,270 How did you enjoy the move to the John Radcliffe? Well, uh, I didn't actually move to the John Radcliffe. 337 00:52:27,270 --> 00:52:31,470 The surgeon who did the first move was Malcolm Golf. 338 00:52:31,470 --> 00:52:37,320 And and I've always maintained a strong base in the church hospital. 339 00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:48,060 And it's it's now a very strong base because I started urology on a part time basis, being a general surgeon. 340 00:52:48,060 --> 00:52:54,990 And David Cranston was in here the other evening and he told me that he thinks there are about 12 percent. 341 00:52:54,990 --> 00:53:01,380 Well, what about the husband? Do they falling to bits around your head? 342 00:53:01,380 --> 00:53:18,210 They were they were all right. And I can I can remember going to see patients in the hospital wards. 343 00:53:18,210 --> 00:53:23,470 And I they were just wards, as far as we know. 344 00:53:23,470 --> 00:53:26,760 No, indeed. They all seem to be all right to me. Yeah, no, no. 345 00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:30,090 I think they were all right. The room I have. 346 00:53:30,090 --> 00:53:39,480 I know what you want to say that I haven't asked you about. Well, I. 347 00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:53,400 I'm not sure. I've written out I'm writing my own story now and I've written out quite of course, my great grandfather did it in for his life in 1902. 348 00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:57,180 And I spent a lot of time last year typing that out. Right. 349 00:53:57,180 --> 00:54:04,350 Uh, some of it's in the last round. So did you grow up in Manchester in that area? 350 00:54:04,350 --> 00:54:15,780 No, I Lancaster. Right. Lankas and like Manchester was the big time when you wanted to go and see a specialist. 351 00:54:15,780 --> 00:54:22,050 My great uncle had been professor of surgery and thought, yes, in Manchester, 352 00:54:22,050 --> 00:54:40,320 and he was known as Fat Smith because he one time three housemen got together and put his some brown belt. 353 00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:44,460 He was a great territorial army. 354 00:54:44,460 --> 00:54:54,790 He'd been out to South Africa and, uh, and three housemen, got his brand belt around them and buckled it up. 355 00:54:54,790 --> 00:55:05,940 And Hugh Brown, I don't know if you knew Hugh Brown, but I used to play real tennis with him and his great uncle or grandfather. 356 00:55:05,940 --> 00:55:18,420 I'd invented the Sam Brown belt because he had a wonky hand and he needed this belt so he could get his pistol. 357 00:55:18,420 --> 00:55:23,670 And that's what made you train in London rather than in Manchester? 358 00:55:23,670 --> 00:55:28,590 Well, I thought it would. I thought it would be. 359 00:55:28,590 --> 00:55:32,760 I was at school in York. Yes, at a Quaker school. 360 00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:42,520 All right. And, uh, I went to I didn't know where to go. 361 00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:47,700 Uh, my great uncle died years before I was born. 362 00:55:47,700 --> 00:55:55,620 And, uh, and so I went I applied to a lot of hospitals. 363 00:55:55,620 --> 00:55:59,850 I don't think I applied to Manchester, but I applied to London hospitals. 364 00:55:59,850 --> 00:56:06,420 And the only one that they had an exam for was University College. 365 00:56:06,420 --> 00:56:15,750 And and there were a couple called Abercrombie, both on the faculty. 366 00:56:15,750 --> 00:56:23,250 And they decided that there would be a good idea to have an examination. 367 00:56:23,250 --> 00:56:34,830 And I always felt that it wasn't, uh, they never really followed that up because there was an anaesthetist who had been in Manchester 368 00:56:34,830 --> 00:56:41,430 who came here who did a lot of follow up of what had happened to people in various echelons. 369 00:56:41,430 --> 00:56:45,570 And I would have thought this was a very good way of finding out what had happened. 370 00:56:45,570 --> 00:56:50,820 Yes. Yeah. I mean, the trouble is, it's such a long time scale. 371 00:56:50,820 --> 00:56:57,840 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how much of the Oxford countryside did you see then? 372 00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:05,060 Well, we lived just south of Oxford in Wharton when we came here. 373 00:57:05,060 --> 00:57:13,430 And oh, I think Oxfords, the most wonderful place to practise, 374 00:57:13,430 --> 00:57:23,540 because this students are so good and your colleagues are so good and my contact with them and and and to 375 00:57:23,540 --> 00:57:31,210 you has made me realise there are a lot of very indifferent doctors around because the GP's are so good. 376 00:57:31,210 --> 00:57:35,140 They're absolutely quite exceptional. 377 00:57:35,140 --> 00:57:41,840 Yes. OK, Joe, you had enough and anything else you want to say? 378 00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:48,440 I mean, no, I don't think I I'm very glad about the timing of my life. 379 00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:58,370 Yes. Because I was born in 1931 and and I came into the health service. 380 00:57:58,370 --> 00:58:03,290 So I missed the war. And then I had TB and I couldn't get called. 381 00:58:03,290 --> 00:58:15,920 It was off the charts for this year. And I lived through I got TB originally at school with a plural effusion. 382 00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:22,010 And then it relapsed when I was a student and the old students were all put 383 00:58:22,010 --> 00:58:26,600 under the care of the senior physician who was a man called Andrew Moreland. 384 00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:32,880 And he, uh, didn't believe in these new fangled antibiotics. 385 00:58:32,880 --> 00:58:35,150 So. So after I qualified, 386 00:58:35,150 --> 00:58:48,770 I was sent home to Lancaster and told that I should not do a house surgeon's job because it meant spending long hours and I never did. 387 00:58:48,770 --> 00:58:59,750 But it certainly doesn't now. But I was very frustrated and I then was applying for all the jobs at the back 388 00:58:59,750 --> 00:59:06,540 of the BMJ and there was a locum job advertised in a place called Syntel, 389 00:59:06,540 --> 00:59:12,440 Fiji's Greenidge. And I applied for this and got it. 390 00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:31,700 It was a terrible hospital. I told some nurse to put up normal saline and went into the side room and found her spooning salt into the drip bottle. 391 00:59:31,700 --> 00:59:36,260 But it was like it was quite a good place to learn. 392 00:59:36,260 --> 00:59:47,750 And then there was a job advertised at the Miller Hospital, which was a very nice voluntary hospital just down the road from some Fiji site. 393 00:59:47,750 --> 00:59:53,480 And so I applied for a house physician's job there and got it. 394 00:59:53,480 --> 01:00:05,600 And that was a wonderful job for a Would-Be surgeon because it had skins, uh, 395 01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:17,840 cardiology and neurology, first half and chest's and children for the second half of the job. 396 01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:22,100 So that was a marvellous job to have is now. 397 01:00:22,100 --> 01:00:26,630 I'm surprised Andrew didn't get you some antibiotics. What was that like? 398 01:00:26,630 --> 01:00:31,070 Well, this was later because I then changed to him. 399 01:00:31,070 --> 01:00:40,370 He retired and I changed his junior man called Nicholson and and the third one was Peter Heve. 400 01:00:40,370 --> 01:00:44,120 Oh, yes, yes, yes, he does. 401 01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:49,040 Well, it was his father. He was in Wales. 402 01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:53,510 But ah, best of all, I met my father. 403 01:00:53,510 --> 01:00:56,810 They're very good. Very good. 404 01:00:56,810 --> 01:01:01,035 Note to end. And thank you very much indeed, David.