Medicine My Vocation, Fishing My Recreation: Memoirs Of A Physician And Flyfisherman - Hardcover

Gilbert Thompson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 178634811X ISBN 13: 9781786348111

Publisher: World Scientific Europe, 2020

Synopsis

This book is about the author's life motivated by two pursuits: medicine, his profession and flyfishing, his favourite recreation. Each in their own way has provided him with challenges, enjoyment and fulfilment.

The book recounts the author's experiences as a wartime school boy, post-war medical student, army doctor in Ghana, and medical research worker at Hammersmith Hospital, London, the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, the Methodist Hospital, Houston and McGill University, Montreal. It describes his drastic change in mid-career from gastroenterology to clinical lipidology and his subsequent efforts to promote the lipid hypothesis of atherosclerosis in the face of entrenched opposition from some members of the cardiological establishment. Among his achievements was the introduction of plasmapheresis to prolong the lives of severely affected patients with familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH), a hitherto fatal disorder, and he was among the first to describe the efficacy of statins in FH patients in the UK. The book also describes his leisure time activities including running in the London and New York marathons, and the hazards thereof, and his flyfishing expeditions to catch Atlantic salmon in Scotland and Russia, bonefish in the Bahamas and brown trout in England.

The narrative covers the period from the Second World War to the present day, during which there have been dramatic changes in medical practice and social attitudes. It reflects the author's experiences during the latter half of the 20th century, stretching from the early days of penicillin to the introduction of statins, and it concludes with his up to date appraisal of recent and exciting advances in cholesterol-lowering therapy for cardiovascular disease.

About this title

About the Author

Gilbert Thompson was born in 1932 and educated at Downside and St. Thomas's Hospital Medical School, London, where he qualified in 1956. After military service he joined the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London in 1963 where he worked for most of his career except for periods spent at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, the Methodist Hospital, Houston and the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, where he was Visiting Professor and recipient of the Lucien Award. He was also a Visiting Professor at the Mayo Clinic in 1997. He led the Medical Research Council Lipoprotein Team and was Professor of Clinical Lipidology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, where he was Honorary Consultant Physician in charge of the Lipid Clinic until his retirement in 1998. Currently he is Emeritus Professor in Clinical Lipidology at the Hammersmith Campus of Imperial College London.

He is a Past Chairman of the British Atherosclerosis Society, the British Hyperlipidaemia Association, the Forum on Lipids in Clinical Medicine of the Royal Society of Medicine, and the Simon Broome Heart Research Trust. He has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of Lipid Research and was the first Editor of Current Opinion in Lipidology. He is the author of 9 books, 30 chapters and more than 250 peer-reviewed papers, mainly in the field of lipoprotein metabolism and atherosclerosis.

Edition details

• Publisher: World Scientific Europe
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 178634811X
• ISBN 13: 9781786348111
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200