No . 130
The Trusty Servant on old chums for other issues - a GP , a psychiatrist , a lawyer , a film buff . And finally , the WhatsApp group established by my anaesthetic workmates was a rich , real-time source of interesting COVID – 19 minutiae , news , research , images , jokes and – once or twice – genuinely moving prose about the pandemic .
My other motive in starting The Plague Pit was to encourage pupil writing about science . Doctors increasingly provide written information for the public about diseases and treatments - in hospital information leaflets , websites and research protocols . Science writing is an increasingly popular career in itself , judging by the many MA degree courses in Science Communication . Jobs in media , museums , advertising , drug companies and research bodies abound ( or used to …).
An April call for pupil articles , then , was enthusiastically answered by
Wykehamist authors and some from St Swithun ’ s School . Contributions were coordinated from lockdown by the website ’ s VI Book editor , and former Winchester College Medical Society president , Travis Chan ( H , 15-20 ). He is now a first-year medical undergraduate at the University of Hong Kong .
Pupil COVID – 19 correspondents wrote about soap , Chinese technology , environmental damage and much more . Honourable mentions go to VI Book men Adrian Tsui ( three articles !), Alfred Beadman , Ed Lucas , Kit Redfern , Te Pungpapong , Xavier Khalid and Xavier Machado among others . By the time we took a summer break , we were up to 39 issues and more than 5000 views .
So , where now ? Although COVID – 19 will be around for a while , I have decided to broaden the remit of The Plague Pit this term . Wykehamist medics will shortly be sitting at the sharp end of admission interviews , so the site will be covering the sort of topical material that might crop up there .
As for the Fellow ’ s role - it ’ s been consistently enjoyable . My FRCA ( Fellowship of the Royal College of Anaesthetists , 1994 ) is a professional qualification – hard-won but unremarkable . I was also Wellcome Trust Visiting Fellow in History of Medicine in 2014 , which was rather more entertaining . The Wykeham Fellowship in Medicine , though , with its responsibility to enhance the education of Winchester ’ s future doctors , is the best by far .
It ’ s an unusual challenge , certainly , but one that entails an academic freedom rare in today ’ s university posts , let alone secondary schools . On top of that , the view from Science School is a good deal more attractive than the one over Lambeth that I see the rest of the week .
A Life of Six Lockdowns
The Plague Pit # 32 , by Mr Harvey White ( G , 49-54 ), retired surgeon and oncologist , and founder of the Old Wykehamist Medical Society , which now has more than 300 members .
Lockdowns , pandemics and epidemics have been with us through history and identifiably so in my own lifesome minor but others of greater significance .
This image is taken from a Pathe News clip on August 1 st , 1940 ( www . britishpathe . com / video / a-newhome / query / evacuees ) and shows me with my older brother arriving as evacuees in Sydney , New South Wales . I was playing my mouthorgan ; presumably in the absence of a piper ! Subsequently we were both in
The author with mouth organ
Winchester College ( G , 47-52 and 49-54 ) – arguably a form of lockdown !
My brother was nobly carrying all our possessions in two wicker baskets although , in company with many others on board , he was feeling ill . They were then all taken to an isolation unit and found to be suffering from scarlet fever ( a Streptococcus pyogenes infection – often fatal in that pre-antibiotic era ). Thankfully , I was rejoined by my brother when he recovered after an enforced period in hospital . Youth was on his side , as has also been noted with COVID – 19 today .
We were both marooned in Sydney , unable to return to England for five years until a passage home was found
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