In the second part of this interview Sir Roy Calne reflects first on pre-clinical and clinical teaching at Guy's Hospital Medical School, from 1947-52, particularly the initial culture shock of joining an intake mainly of ex-servicemen, and the impact of several distinguished tutors and clinicians including immunologist Peter Gorer and surgeons Nils Eckhoff and Russell Brock. There is also reference to a consolidation of surgical interests in this period and a case of Bright's disease provoking radical thoughts of organ transplantation, relating fundamentally to a lifetime's association with motor engineering and motor-part replacement. House jobs on medical and surgical firms at Guy's follow, somewhat unexpectedly for a student sometimes too forthright of viewpoint. There are recollections too of midwifery and the innovation of Donald Ross's system of 'venous cooling' in cardiac surgery. National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps follows from 1953-55, with surgical appointments in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaya. Prominent memories of a posting as medical officer to the 2nd Gurkhas and marriage in this period to army nursing officer (QARANC) Patricia Whelan complete this review of military service years. Clinical appointments not forthcoming, lean months in England follow, but an opportunity to teach anatomy in Oxford as a demonstrator in Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark's department is seized. The initial goal of this period was the primary FRCS, then FRCS, which soon followed. More important, however, was a reawakening of thoughts of transplant surgery, stimulated by an Oxford visit of Nobel laureate Peter Medawar. Transfer in 1958 to a surgical registrarship at the Royal Free Hospital, London, yielded initial opportunities of transplantation research, through the encouragement of head of firm, John Hopewell and support from David Slome, of Royal College of Surgeons, who extended modest research facilities at the College's Buckston Browne Farm. Here, Calne conducted a series of kidney grafts in rats, then in dogs, under somewhat primitive conditions, but with minor success. Problems of tissue rejection seemed insurmountable, perseverance with ineffective x-radiation of subjects almost inexplicable. The few pioneering transplants attempted in humans had all proved fatal, yet surgeons had not recoiled from x-ray immunosuppression. Possibly the first researcher to step aside from this futility, Sir Roy describes initial advances into the alternative field of drug suppression, an idea stimulated by Kendrick Porter's work on the anti-leukaemia drug 6-mercaptopurine. Out of this work and support from Medawar arose an opportunity to take up a Harkness research fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, USA, part of the Harvard Medical School, to work with Joseph Murray, architect of pioneering identical twin transplants.
General surgery, Geriatrics,
vid-036, MSVA_153
Permanent link to this resource: https://doi.org/10.24384/000459
Calne, RoyBlythe, Max
Learning Resources
Original artefact: 1996 RADAR resource: 2017
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, UK
© Oxford Brookes University; The Royal College of Physicians Published by Oxford Brookes UniversityAll rights reserved.