Richard Gordon: DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE

When St. Swithin's began to find its feet as a teaching hospital at the beginning of the century the staff were as aware of their lack of presentable antecedents as a newly rich family. These two gentlemen had therefore undergone a process of medical canonization and were invested with professional abilities and intellectual qualities certainly not indicated by their true histories. Shortly after they had been elected to the staff a quarrel broke out between them, and for thirty years afterwards they refused to speak to each other. Communication was necessary on professional matters, and this was conducted by short notes in the third person carried from one to the other by a hospital porter specially employed for the purpose. In the later part of his life Sir Benjamin refused to utter the name of his colleague at all, and gave no indication that he was conscious of the other's existence until he saw one New Year's Day that Larrymore had been given a barony and immediately died of apoplexy.

The two doctors now stared in placid, set annoyance at each other across the court, and were disturbed only by an occasional painting-up from the students and the indiscriminate droppings of the London pigeons. What they originally quarrelled about had long ago been forgotten, but it was probably too trivial to be of interest.

My attention wandered from replicas of St. Swithin's staff to their living counterparts. The personnel of the hospital seemed to be in a state of constant transition across the courtyard. The consultant physicians and surgeons could easily be picked out, for they always moved from one spot to another in public as if they were in a desperate hurry. This gave the impression that their services were urgently needed in many places at once, and was good for their professional reputations. The junior practitioners had quickly picked up the habit from their superiors. The housemen strode importantly across the courtyard, their' short white coats flying behind them, their stethoscopes trailing from their necks, wearing the look of grave preoccupation seen only in the faces of very fresh doctors. This drab, hurrying band of physicians was sprinkled with nurses in long mauve dresses and starched white caps that turned up at the back like the tails of white doves. They tripped smartly from one block to another and to the Nurses' Home in the rear. Of the people in the court they were the only ones genuinely in a hurry, for they had so little time to themselves they devoured their lives with a perpetual rush to get on and go off duty.

The bulk of the pedestrians in the courtyard was made up of almost equally important-looking and hasty people whom I was unable to identify. Apart from the doctors and nurses, a hospital has to employ men and women from a good many other occupations to run it. There must be chefs to prepare the food and dieticians to tell them what to cook; girls to work the X-ray machines and wardmaids to scrub the floors; physiotherapists to prevent the patients' muscles melting away in bed, and occupational therapists to stop their minds being similarly affected by showing them how to make mats, rugs, stuffed horses, and other unexciting articles while they are imprisoned in the wards. There must be liftmen and laundrymaids, porters and padres, stokers and statisticians; and as all these people must be paid and controlled there has to be a large number of clerks, typists, and secretaries to do so. The staff at St. Swithin's had come to outnumber the patients by four to one and now seemed to be expanding naturally, like a water-lily covering a small pond.

There were patients, too, in the courtyard. A couple of them lay on each side of the statues in their beds, tucked up firmly in red blankets and sucking convalescence from the dirty London air. A few more hobbled about on their sticks, tossed helplessly in the strong cross-currents of hospital activity; one or two fortunate ones had found quiet alcoves and stayed there, like trout backing under the bank of a rocky stream. And, as I watched, there passed through the whole lot a cheery-looking man jauntily propelling a six-foot barrow with a stiff canvas cover towards a small door in one corner labelled 'Mortuary.'

I asked for the office of the Dean, Dr. Lionel Loftus, F.R.C.P. A porter showed me into a small bare waiting-room decorated only by framed black-and-white pictures of past deans, which ran along the walls like a row of dirty tiles. As there were no chairs I sat on the edge of the dark polished table and swung my legs. The surroundings, and a week of my father's coaching, had made me depressed and nervous. My mind was filled with the awkward questions that Dr. Loftus was even then contemplating asking me, and I found to my surprise I could give no satisfactory replies to any of them. I wondered what I should say if he simply asked me why I wanted to be a doctor. The answer was, I suppose, that neither my parents nor myself had the originality to think of anything else, but this didn't seem a suggestion likely to help me into the medical school.

This disheartening introspection was interrupted by the waiting-room door opening. An old man stood on the threshold, looking at me silently. He wore a heavy black jacket buttoned high in the chest, narrow trousers, and a two-inch collar. In his hand he held a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez, which were attached to his right lapel by a thick black silk ribbon. He was so thin, so old, so pale, and so slow he could have taken his place in the nearby post-mortem room without attracting attention.

He clipped his glasses on to his nose with a slow, shaky movement and inspected me more carefully. I leapt to my feet and faced him.

'Gordon?' croaked the old man from the doorway. 'Mr. Richard Gordon?'

'Yes, sir. That is correct, sir,' I replied with great respect.

'So you have come for entrance to St. Swithin's?' the old man asked slowly.

'Yes, sir, I have.'

He nodded, but without enthusiasm.

'Your father is a Swithin's man, I believe?'

'Oh yes, sir.'

'I am not the Dean,' he explained. 'I am the medical school Secretary. I was Secretary here long before you were born, my boy. Before your father, probably. I remember well enough when the Dean himself came up to be admitted.' He removed his glasses and pointed them at me. 'I've seen thousands of students pass through the school. Some of 'em have turned out good, and some of 'em bad-it's just like your own children.'

I nodded heartily, as I was anxious to please everyone.

'Now, young feller,' he went on more briskly, 'I've got some questions to ask you.'

I folded my hands submissively and braced myself mentally.

'Have you been to a public school?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Do you play rugby football or association?'

'Rugby.'

'Do you think you can afford to pay the fees?'

'Yes.'

He grunted, and without a word withdrew. Left alone, I diverted my apprehensive mind by running my eye carefully over the line of black-and-white deans studying each one in turn. After ten minutes or so the old man returned and led me in to see the living holder of the office.

Dr. Loftus was a short, fat, genial man with wispy white hair like pulled-out cotton wool. He was sitting at an old-fashioned roll-topped desk that was stacked untidily with folders, copies of medical journals, letters, and reference books. On top of these he had thrown a Homburg hat, a pair of yellow gloves, and his stethoscope. He was obviously in a hurry.

'Sorry to keep you waiting, old man,' he said cheerily, 'I was held up at a post-mortem. Have a seat.'

I sat down on a hard leather chair beside the desk.

'Now,' the Dean began. 'Have you been to a public school?'

'Yes.'

'Your people can afford the fees and that sort of thing?'

'I believe so.'

'You play rugby, I suppose?'