In this interview, Professor Richard Schilling looks back on a career in occupational medicine spanning fifty years. He talks of his upbringing as the son of a general practitioner in Suffolk, and education at Epsom College and St Thomas' Hospital Medical School, London. He describes the experience, immediately after qualifying, of running a rural general practice for six months after his father's unexpected death. The interview then moves to house jobs at St Thomas' and Addenbrookes, Cambridge, followed by his entry into occupational medicine in 1937 with his appointment as assistant industrial medical officer for the ICI metals factory in Birmingham. He speaks of a period, interrupted by wartime service in the RAMC, as an inspector of factories, in Manchester. Professor Schilling then talks of his appointment in 1942, by Sir Edward Mellanby, as secretary of the industrial health research board of the Medical Research Council. He discusses his involvement in setting up new MRC research units, including the Social Medicine Research Unit, directed by Jerry Morris, and the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit in Cardiff, directed by Charles Fletcher. He then speaks of how a decision to enter academic medicine led to postgraduate training in 1946 at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine [LSH&TM], where he was strongly influenced by Austin Bradford Hill. There follows discussion of his time from 1947-56 as deputy to Ronald Lane in the Department of Occupational Health at the University of Manchester, where he began a study of the dust-related disease, byssinosis, in cotton workers. The interview progresses to 1956 and his return to the LSH&TM, where he was Professor of Occupational Health from 1960 until his retirement in 1976, and there follows a discussion of the organisation of postgraduate teaching programmes in his department. He discusses research studies undertaken during this period, including an investigation of cardiovascular disease in British rayon workers. He goes on to describe how a research study of trawlermen, which began as an investigation of an occupational skin condition, led to the finding that for all fishermen, the standardised mortality ratio for accidents at work was 17 times greater than that of all men in England and Wales. This led to an official inquiry into trawler safety. In the final part of the interview, Professor Schilling talks of how, in 1968, the Department of Occupational Health became the TUC Centenary Institute of Occupational Health, with teaching and research programmes, and an information advisory service for industry. He concludes the interview with a discussion of his work as a consultant to Possum Controls Ltd., a company making electronic equipment for the disabled, and there is a final reflection of the future of occupational medicine.
Occupational medicine, the Medical Research Council, Sir Edward Mellanby, Social Research Medicine Unit, Jerry Morris, the Pneumoconiosis Unit, Charles Fletcher, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Department of Occupational Health (later the TUC Centenary Institute of Occupational Health), Sir Austin Bradford Hill, byssinosis, occupational risk in the trawler industry, Possum Controls Ltd
Health services administration, Occupational medicine, Research,
vid-289, MSVA_028
Permanent link to this resource: https://doi.org/10.24384/000433
Schilling, RichardBlythe, Max
Learning Resources
Original artefact: 1988 RADAR resource: 2017
© Oxford Brookes University; The Royal College of Physicians Published by Oxford Brookes UniversityAll rights reserved.