The road less travelled…

‘Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention’

In the autumn of 1969 I went for an interview at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, having recently graduated in Psychology and Social Anthropology from Bedford and Birkbeck Colleges at the University of London. Having been asked if any of my family had been doctors, my father (no), grandfather (no), anyone? (no), I was sent a short note rejecting my application. So fired was I by the perceived unfairness of this rejection that I applied to several other medical schools, having not previously been all that keen on studying Medicine anyway. University College Hospital Medical School (UCHMS) sent me a letter saying I was on their waiting list as they were awaiting the ‘A’ level results that year, but I phoned them and said I really couldn't wait around for these results so could they kindly give me an immediate answer. To my surprise they said, yes, and so I ‘fell’ into medicine. Not that I had never thought about it. My grandparents had come to the UK from Poland, Russia and the Ukraine at the end of the 19th century, and I had thought about becoming a doctor at the age of 8, and of being the first person in my family to enter university. I had applied from school in North London to Cambridge to study Medicine, been accepted, and then switched at the last minute with an Open Exhibition to St Catharine's in Natural Sciences. I then left after a few months as my father had died and I felt compelled to live in London, and then changed yet again to Psychology at the only colleges in London which had places mid-term. I was not very good at that age at taking decisions.

But after …