1325

in India in 1946. Returning to Glasgow he resumed post-graduate study in the surgical professorial unit at theWestern Infirmary, and was elected to his surgical fellow-ships in 1948. An appointment at Glasgow Royal Infirmaryin 1949 saw the start of duties at Law Hospital, where hebecame consultant in 1955. In 1953 he obtained a travellingscholarship to America from the Royal Infirmary; hevisited centres for hand surgery there and founded a

lifetime study which brought reputation and friendshipsin many countries.The family talents in education were strong, and many

publications, including work on replacement of the missingthumb and reconstruction of the spastic hand, followed.A member of the Second Hand Club, Bill White alsobecame a council member of the British Society for

Surgery in the Hand and a fellow of the British OrthopxdicAssociation.

It is for his friendships that he will be most missed,for they were based on an unobtrusive good sense ofhumour and an exceptional faculty for remembering namesof patients, nurses, and colleagues.He is survived by his wife, four daughters, and a son.

J. G.

PATRICK JOSEPH MacNAMARAL.R.C.P.I.

Dr. Patrick MacNamara, a well-known generalpractitioner in Bedford, died on Nov. 18 at the ageof 62.

He qualified in 1936 and during the war years servedwith the R.A.F. Medical Branch as wing commander.Since 1950 he had been in joint practice with his wife,Dr. Maura Fitzmaurice, in Bedford.He is survived by his wife, a son, and a daughter.D. L. writes:

"Patrick MacNamara, known as ’Mac’ by his col-

leagues and Dr. Mac’ by his patients, was an unusualbut remarkably good general practitioner. He did not

profess to have an exhaustive knowledge of medicine-thesecret of his success as a family doctor lay in his abilityto communicate and in his concern for patients as indi-viduals and not as cases. His rapport with patients and hismany friends and colleagues was immediate and com-pelling. In assessing patients he was remarkably shrewd:he instinctively knew when a patient was ill, and hedepended more on what patients had to tell him than ontheir reply to leading questions. He always had time tolisten.

" Although he was severely ill two and a half years ago,after three months of enforced restriction of his normalactivities he insisted on returning to full work to sustainthe joint practice which he and his wife had establishedmore than twenty years before. His love of hunting andhorsemanship was, after his happy and united familylife, closest to his heart. For the last two years he hadworked and lived life to the full-and it was in the saddleof his favourite horse, Speed, that he died.

" His life possessed great quality to the last. His passingwill be a grievous blow to his patients and to the com-munity which he served so well."

LORD ROSENHEIM

B. J. H. writes:" I had the good fortune to know Lord Rosenheim

initially whilst a student in those far-off 1930s-when heexplained the niceties of renal disease in its many be-

wildering forms with such clear simplicity at bedsidetutorials. As students we heard dimly of his pioneer workon the treatment of urinary-tract infections which now, inretrospect, seems to have opened the present bacteriostaticand bactericidal era of medicine.

"

During the war he laid the foundations of his laterinterest in underdeveloped countries: journeys made toencourage the struggles of local medical services andmedical teachers against odds and on return to illuminatetheir problems to the West.

" In later years, after he had accepted the chair ofmedicine with characteristic modesty, one recalls manymeetings over seriously ill patients in the small hours.

Always he would be there, with dangling stethoscope anda cheerful greeting, guiding the youthful surgeon towardsa proper decision. The young had never to fear if theywere mistaken-his judgments were made quietly and tohimself, and his judgment of people was perhaps his

principal strength. As professor he gathered round hima talented group, each with his or her own special sphereof interest and each financed (if one may be forgiven)’ the Lord knew how’. In this way the Medical Unitbecame unsurpassed for combining personal clinical care,research, and teaching. In his later years he saw beyondthe needs of purely scientific medicine and believed thatthe community-that much overworked word-was whereour best efforts should be placed."

Appointments

Birmingham Regional Hospital Board:ACLAND, J. D., B.M., M.sc.Oxon., PH.D.: consultant pathologist,

Walsall hospital group.ARTHUR, KEITH, M.B.Birm., F.F.R., D.M.R.T. : consultant radiotherapist,

West Birmingham hospital group.BAILLIE, RITA M., M.B.Aberd., M.R.C.PSYCH., D.C.H., D.P.M. : con-

sultant in mental subnormality, South Birmingham and Mid-Worcestershire hospital groups.

BRAMLEY, J. E. D., M.B.Sheff., B.D.s.Birm., F.R.C.S., F.R.C.S.E. : con-sultant orthopedic and traumatic surgeon, Mid-Staffordshirehospital group.

DAS, R. N., M.B.Dacca, F.F.R., D.M.R.T. : consultant radiotherapist,Coventry and South Warwickshire hospital groups.

DYDE, J. A., M.B.Cantab., F.R.C.S. : consultant cardiothoracic surgeon,Coventry hospital group.

GOODALL, JANET, M.B.Sheff., M.R.C.P.E., D.C.H., D.OBST.: consultantpsdiatrician. North Staffordshire hospital group.

JONES, E. J., M.B.Wales, D.P.M.: consultant in mental subnormality,Mid-Worcestershire hospital group.

JONES, N. 0., M.B.Lond., F.F.A. R.c.s.: consultant anesthetist, SouthWorcestershire hospital group.

Josm, R. C., M.D.Punjab., M.R.C.P. : consultant physician, Walsall

hospital group.JowETT, A. W., M.B.Cantab., F.R.C.S., F.R.C.S.E.: consultant thoracic

surgeon, Wolverhampton hospital group.MELIKIAN, VARAZDAD, M.B.Lond., M.R.C.P., M.R.C.P.E.: consultant

physician, West Birmingham hospital group.PILCHER, JEREMY, M.B.Cantab., M.R.C.P., D.C.H.: consultant cardiologist,

Coventry hospital group.REED, M. F., M.B.Brist., M.R.c.O.G.: consultant obstetrician and

gynecologist, Coventry hospital group.RYDER, G. H., M.B.Lond., F.F.A. R.c.s.: consultant anaathetist,

Coventry hospital group.SHENOT, P. M., CH.M., F.R.C.S., F.R.C.S.E., D.L.O.: consultant E.X.T.

surgeon, East Birmingham hospital group.TAYLOR, R. T., M.B.Cantab., M.R.C.P.: consultant physician, liid-

Worcestershire hospital group.THACKER, BETTY V., M.B.Birm., F.F.A. R.C.S., D.OBST.: consultant

anaesthetist. North Staffordshire hospital group.WILLIAMS, B. N., CH.M.Birm., F.R.C.S. : consultant neurosurgeon,

West Bromwich hospital group (Medical Centre for Neuro-surgery and Neurology).

VE’,ESS, A. M., M.B.Birm.. F.F.A. R.c.s.: consultant anaesthetist. WestBirmingham hospital group.

WILSON, R. J., M.B., B.sc.Edin., M.R.C.P., M.R.C.P.E.: consultantphysician (with a special interest in endocrinology), East Birming-ham hospital group.

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Notes and News

NURSES FROM OVERSEAS

OVER 20% of student nurses and over 25% of pupilnurses in Britain are not born in the United Kingdom, andthe Briggs Committee on Nursing accepted that thesenurses have special problems. A survey has been carriedout by interviewing a number of overseas nurses whichpinpoints some of these problems, with regard both totraining and to the difficulties of settling down in Britain.P.E.P. (Political and Economic Planning), which has pub-lished the results of this survey, claims that the basis ofthese problems is the ambivalent attitude of the NationalHealth Service towards overseas nurses-on the one hand

regarding the training provided as a form of overseas aid,and on the other desperately needing the manpower. Thenurses questioned felt on the whole that they were nottreated as well as British nurses and that their competencewas often underrated. In fact, 40% of overseas nurses inthe survey had 0 levels and A levels, or their equivalent,compared with 35% of all hospital nurses in the U.K., buta disproportionate number of overseas nurses were trainingfor the roll rather than the register, and in the less populartypes of hospital. The language problem may mean thatsome nurses from overseas are not given the chances theircapabilities deserve, but the survey also uncovered a vastamount of ignorance about training-many were unaware,when they applied for training, of the difference betweenthe roll and the register, and many others, believing thatthere was only one kind of nurse training, found themselvesdoing psychiatric nursing when they had intended to dogeneral nursing.There is little doubt that this ignorance is sometimes

exploited by hospitals, but P.E.P. does not believe that theproblems are insuperable. It suggests that hospitals shouldnot continue to recruit individually on a competitive basis,and that the present system whereby a nurse is given aletter of provisional acceptance by the hospital to satisfy theimmigration authorities should be modified. Instead, theypropose that intending nurses should be able to apply to acentral body (run on the lines of the Universities CentralCouncil for Admissions) which would offer them, on thebasis of correspondence, a provisional place in nurse

training (rather than a place in a particular hospital). Whenthe nurse arrived, assessment would be made to find outwhich kind of training and hospital the nurse wanted andwas suited to. This assessment period could also be usedfor orientation courses, and for instituting English-language courses where necessary.

TOBACCO CONSUMPTION

THE U.K. and the U.S.A. are the only countries, amongthose for which fairly reliable figures are available, of whichit can be confidently said that tobacco consumption is

falling. Annual consumption for adult males in the U.K.was 8-0 lb. in 1971 2-a figure first surpassed in the 1914-18war when smoking was on the increase. For a decade now

consumption of tobacco, though not necessarily of cigarettes,has been on the wane. For women, tobacco consumptionhas been steady, at around 3-6 lb. per head, for more thanten years. But U.K. smokers still got through 132,315million cigarettes last year. Filter-tip cigarettes came into

1. Overseas Nurses in Britain. A P.E.P. Survey for the United KingdomCouncil for Overseas Student Affairs. By MICHAEL THOMAS andJEAN MORTON WILLIAMS. P.E.P., 12 Upper Belgrave Street,London SW1X 8BB. £1.00.

2. Todd, G. F. (editor). Statistics of Smoking in the United Kingdom:Tobacco Research Council research paper no. 1, sixth edition.1972.

their own in the mid-’50s, consumption overtaking thatof plain cigarettes in 1965, but now they too seem to beon the down-turn.

Switzerland emerges top of the league table for annualconsumption per adult, but the figures are thought to beartificially raised by sales to tourists and at the border, sothis doubtful honour probably belongs to Canada 3:

Annual

In countries such as India and Morocco, where con-sumption is very much lower (1-7 lb. per adult), it tends tobe stable.

University of BirminghamMr. S. J. A. Powis has been appointed lecturer in

surgery.

Flinders University of South AustraliaDr. M. N. Berry has been appointed to the chair of

clinical biochemistry, the first of three foundation chairsin the new School of Medicine at the Flinders University.

Dr. Berry, who is 38, graduated M.B. at the University ofOtago, New Zealand, in 1955 and was awarded the M.D. in 1961.In 1961 he joined the research team of Sir Hans Krebs in Oxfordas Nuffield Dominions demonstrator in biochemistry, and in1964 he obtained the D.PHIL. from the University of Oxford. Hesubsequently became assistant professor in biochemistry andnutrition at the Graduate School of Public Health, Universityof Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and lecturer in chemical pathologyat the Royal Postgraduate Medical Scheol, London, before

taking up his appointment in 1967 as associate clinical professorin the division of clinical pathology and associate member of theCardio-Vascular Research Institute at the University of Cali-fornia Medical Center, San Francisco. His research interests areliver metabolism and enzymes.

General Medical Council

At a meeting of the Disciplinary Committee the name ofArnold Beaufort Cowan was ordered to be restored to theMedical Register. The name of Satya Prakash Datta wasordered to be erased (with immediate suspension), and thename of William Gordon Miln was ordered to be erased,subject to appeal within 28 days. The registration of thename of John Kenneth Rees was ordered to be suspendedfor 6 months. The suspension of the name of Arthur Slorawas ordered to be extended for a further 3 months fromDec. 31. The case of James Patrick Kelly was adjourned athis own request, and the suspension of his name was there-fore extended for 2 months from Jan. 20.

Dr. M. F. R. Waters has been elected president of the Asso-ciation of Physicians of Malaysia.

3. Beese, D. H. (editor). Tobacco Consumption in Various Countries;Tobacco Research Council research paper no. 6, third edition.1972.