A doctor who spent 45 years as a transplant surgeon in Scotland has written his memoirs.
As a surgeon who trained in Glasgow, worked in Oban and now lives in St Andrews, Dr David Hamilton has a first-hand insight into the Scottish NHS.
His new book Waiting for the Urine: Reminiscences of a Scottish Transplant Surgeon, takes a look back at his time in the NHS and some of the major changes he has seen along the way.
Dr Hamilton graduated in Medicine at Glasgow University in 1963, at a time when surgeons smoked in theatre, doctors were exclusively male, there was an emphasis on ‘bed rest’, and drinking tonics – the health myths that disappeared.
After obtaining his PhD for research work in Physiology/ Pathology, he took the surgical fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
David researched with Nobel-Prize winner Sir Peter Medawar for two years in London, before becoming a consultant surgeon in 1976 in Glasgow.
He held an honorary position at Oxford University’s Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine and was the visiting surgeon to the transplant unit at Baghdad’s Ibn Al-Bitar Hospital.
He was the director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine in Glasgow. After retiring from the Western Infirmary in 2003 and moving to St Andrews, he became an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Bute Medical School and a medical panel member for the Appeals Tribunal Service.
David’s insights are useful to young medic students today, as he reveals the life lessons, memories and what he wishes he had known before a career in surgery
Waiting for the Urine: Reminiscences of a Scottish Transplant Surgeon is available for £12.99 from The Patrick Press.
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