23.04.24
Monday 23 August 2021
The following article was first published in this year's edition of The Wheel, the College's annual newsletter, in July 2021.
The College is rightly proud of its history of educating exceptional doctors and how its Members have advanced the quality of care for patients. Three of our younger medics kindly shared their reflections on the past, present and future of medicine at St Catharine’s.
Standing on the shoulders of giants
Among the many physicians who have graduated from St Catharine’s is John Addenbrooke, who was a Scholar, Fellow, Lecturer and Bursar of the College. He left a legacy of £4,500 in his will to build “a small physical hospital for poor people," which the College used to found the hospital in Cambridge that still bears his name. This history is a source of inspiration for MCR Co-president Souradip Mookerjee (2013, Medical Sciences):
“While the College’s central location was certainly a factor, I also applied to St Catharine’s because of its historical links with medicine. Now I have embarked on the clinical phase of my studies, it is a proud moment in my daily routine when I pass the plaque displayed at the hospital, which bears the names of John Addenbrooke and St Catharine’s. Alongside our very well-known alumni, it is important to remember the jobbing doctors who have dedicated themselves to improving the lives of patients every day, including those on the frontlines during the pandemic. This more recent legacy is equally inspiring for me!”
Rhiannon Osborne (2016, Medical Sciences) comments:
“For me, medicine is very much a social justice issue, so it was fascinating to learn that Addenbrooke specified that the charitable hospital founded in his memory should serve the needs of the poor, recognising that everyone deserves access to medical treatment. I am particularly grateful to have received the John Addenbrooke scholarship from the College, which I have used to fund a range of activism work focusing on health equity and access to medicines.”
The evolution of medical studies
Teaching and education in the 21st century would be unrecognisable for Addenbrooke and his contemporaries. The University Calendar for 1702 states that ‘A student of medicine in this University is not required to attend any lectures but is left to acquire his knowledge from such sources as his discretion may point out’.
Alumna Dr Caitríona Cox (2011, Medical Sciences), who now works as a National Institute for Health Research-funded academic clinical fellow at The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute in Cambridge, welcomes this progress and the support available to current students:
“I am very grateful to all the supervisors who provided such great teaching and support. Studying medicine was of course challenging at times (memories of our pathology exams are enough to bring on a cold sweat), but the support of the Catz community was enough to get me and my fellow medics through!”
Rhiannon adds:
“We have some brilliant teachers, researchers and a tight-knit medic community who look out for each other. Saying that, it hasn’t always been easy and there were plenty of times when I needed support, and I was grateful for the guidance available.”
Souradip is part of the MB/PhD programme, which enables student to integrate a three-year period of research with their clinical education. He has returned to clinical studies after completing his PhD and singles out our Fellows’ support:
“Catz students benefit from the expertise of our Fellowship in both medicine and the biological sciences more broadly. For example, Professor Stefan Marciniak (2011) leads the MB/PhD programme and I was delighted to have the opportunity to publish a paper with him.1 I have also gained a broader understanding of how the human body works than I would have anywhere else, thanks to Fellows who are so generous with their time and insights.”
Recent advances in modern medicine Since the College’s foundation, medicine has changed dramatically. Successive generations have been responsible for transforming medical practice, as exemplified by former Master and Honorary Fellow Sir Terence English (1993) who notably led the team who performed Britain’s first successful heart transplant and has since supported improvements to primary trauma care in Gaza. Sir Terence recalls:
“Having first qualified as a mining engineer in South Africa, I inherited sufficient money to decide I might be a better doctor and came to London to study medicine at Guy’s Hospital. I trained as a cardiovascular surgeon and was appointed consultant at Papworth and Addenbrooke’s Hospitals. It was at Papworth in 1979, after 5 years of preparation and overcoming various difficulties, that my team and I carried out Britain’s first successful heart transplant. We then went on to become recognised as one of the best and busiest heart and lung transplant hospitals in Europe. My subsequent role as Master of St Catharine’s (1993–2000) provided some very different and interesting experiences which I thoroughly enjoyed.”
Rhiannon pinpoints the admission of women as an important development:
“The Catz40 celebrations reminded us that the first female undergraduates arrived at the College in 1979, and the first female medical student was admitted in 1980 – a strikingly recent date! Sadly, some remnants of women’s exclusion from medicine are alive and well: from men making up the majority of senior NHS positions, to the underfunding of research into women’s health conditions. I look forward to more women practising and teaching in an equitable workplace as we work to dismantle all forms of discrimination in medicine.”
Souradip reflects:
“In the last five years alone, medicine has changed beyond recognition with the development and approval of immunotherapies for cancer, antisense oligonucleotides for genetic conditions and more. Amidst the excitement around scientific advances, it is important to remember that the human body has not changed very much in all that time, and neither has the core of empathy and trust that all good doctor-patient relationships are built on.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has understandably changed the work of alumni in medicine, as Dr Cox explains:
“The pandemic has necessitated research in diverse areas of medicine, and it has been rewarding to work on the ethical issues surrounding public health measures. I can trace my fascination with this field of research back to a medical history and ethics paper during my third year at Catz. Most recently, as part of the ethics of asymptomatic COVID-19 testing programmes, I have been studying the schemes introduced by higher education institutions, including the weekly testing available to students at Catz.”
1. Malzer, E., Dominicus, C.S., Chambers, J.E. et al. The integrated stress response regulates BMP signalling through effects on translation. BMC Biol. 2018. 16; 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-018-0503-x
