Memoirs of an Oxford medical student 1967-70

More than 50 years after graduating from Oxford University Medical School, I found a boxful of letters and diaries which I had written during my clinical course. To a naive 20-year-old from a rather sheltered home background, whose first degree at Leeds University had involved more work than play, life in Oxford was a revelation – intellectually, socially and emotionally. My memory for the past is fairly patchy and though I clearly recall some of the people, places and events described, I have forgotten many others which were obviously significant at the time. I was known by my maiden name, Jenny Collins.

The course was mainly based at the old Radcliffe Infirmary in Woodstock Rd. For some attachments we visited the Churchill Hospital, where I would later become a junior doctor and eventually a consultant, Cowley Road Hospital, and the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre. The Radcliffe Infirmary was closed in 2007 and its site is now occupied by university offices. The hub of student life was Osler House (not to be confused with the present clubhouse of the same name on the John Radcliffe site) an 18th century listed building in the hospital grounds. Downstairs was a lounge, bar and kitchen. Morning coffee and afternoon tea were provided free. Upstairs were bedrooms for use when on call. There was an attractive garden with a croquet lawn. Each student also had an attachment to an Oxford college – mine was Somerville – but being postgraduate did not live in. My first few months were spent lodging in Summertown with the mother of a family friend, the widow of a bishop and a keen supporter of Moral Rearmament. After I had moved into my own flat, my former landlady continued to invite me for dinner on Sunday evenings.

Our intake contained only 18 or 20 students. Being divided into even smaller groups for clinical attachments, we got a great deal of individual attention from our teachers. For me, as one of the few women in a male-dominated environment, this was often of a kind which would not be tolerated nowadays. As well as clerking patients we were given considerable responsibility for practical procedures such as taking blood, putting up drips, lumbar punctures, delivering babies, and assisting with surgical operations.

There were periods of intense activity – on take for medicine and surgery, night deliveries in obstetrics, preparing for exams. But otherwise the pace of work was fairly leisurely and allowed time for a vibrant social life. Lunches, dinners, parties and outings were frequent and usually involved vast quantities of food and drink. I sang in the hospital choir and in my final year played a good fairy in the students’ pantomime, Tingewick. I must have done a certain amount of studying but most of my free time seems to have been spent entertaining friends for supper or afternoon tea, making my own dresses, listening to pop music, or walking around Oxford which was then a peaceful place with few cars. Several of my friends did have cars, and when they were driving north would give me lifts home at weekends. It was a privileged and mostly hugely enjoyable life which, I imagine, was far more relaxed and informal than for clinical students today.

Much of what I wrote is too trivial, personal or libellous to publish, but maybe I will adapt some extracts for a series of blog posts, a memoir of a novel. Meanwhile I’d be pleased to hear from anyone who remembers those times.