On being a pathologist: how does one plan a career, or does one?

Abstract

My decision to go to medical school, made in 1949 when I was 12 years old, resulted from an interest in photography and a series of illnesses with numerous x-rays. Thus, I decided to become a radiologist. Getting into medical school was not an easy task when only 10% of the medical school classes had to be women according to the National Health Act of 1948. Since I was at a small boarding school, my ambition meant my father forcing the school to recruit a senior master from nearby Tonbridge boys' school to teach me physics and chemistry. I also benefited from vacation chemistry tutoring at King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. By the time I was interviewed in 1955 at Durham University Medical School in Newcastle upon Tyne, now Newcastle University Medical School, I had forgotten my real reason for becoming a doctor, but I was accepted dependent on passing 4 “A-levels.” On a Mediterranean cruise in August, I learned that I had passed the 4 subjects and would enter the “second year” of medical school that October. In those days there were ostensibly no grades, but later I found out that I had only passed my chemistry by 1 mark (pass was 40/100) and physics by 5. Botany and zoology were easy passes. The next hurdle was “Second M.B.” after 15 months of anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry. Approximately 10% of the class would be eliminated by this examination. Pathology, Public Health, Pharmacology, and Introduction to Clinical Medicine began during our “third year.” Pathology