Volume 24 - The Society for the Advancement of Anaesthesia in ...

PROFILE
spent my undergraduate years at
I the late lamented Royal Dental
Hospital situated in the heart of
London’s theatreland in Leicester
Square. Academically, I was fairly
undistinguished, but to my credit I
did represent the hospital in tennis,
soccer, table tennis, cricket and, on
one occasion only when the team
arrived at the ground one man short,
hockey.
On qualifying, I was persuaded by a
dentist friend to help him out for a
few days following the sudden loss of
his associate with health problems.
Two days into my associateship my
friend/boss informed me that he was
off on a three-week holiday to the
south of France. Suddenly, I was in
charge! (VTs eat your heart out.)
Forty-five years later I am still in the
same practice.
In the early years we used to do
some 10 or 12 GAs a week solely
for extractions, and I gave the
anaesthetic while my, by this time,
partner would do the extractions.
The nitrous oxide/oxygen mixture
was administered using a Walton
Derek Ryan
3 anaesthetic machine. Actually, I
think the more accurate term for
the piece of kit would have been
‘asphyxia machine’. However, we
had had it fitted with a vaporiser
and were among the first users of
halothane in general practice. This
enabled me to give the patient a
decent percentage of oxygen!
About this time, 1963, I first
heard about SAAD and decided
to join, attending my first meeting,
a Saturday/Sunday seminar, at
UCL. Suddenly a new world was
opened for me: Jorgensen technique,
intermittent Brietal, etc. I went on
my first practical course and then
introduced my new-found expertise
into the practice.
This situation remained pretty much
unchanged until ‘the’ report. I did
not do sufficient numbers of GAs/
sedations to justify the necessary
financial outlay to continue and
so, in partnership with the late Dr
Colin Poggo, became a referral clinic,
changing from mainly GA to wholly
sedation in 1998 and presently doing
some 5–6,000 cases annually.
My life outside
dentistry
Although I was still playing
badminton into my middle sixties,
the death of my partner and one
of the opponents of our regular
‘four’ brought this to a halt.
Retrospectively, giving this up was
probably just as well for me!
I have always had a fascination with
things nautical and three years ago
bought myself an aging 37-foot sports
cruiser. Off I went to evening classes,
and in the next three years went from
‘competent crew’ to ‘yacht master’.
However, I would best describe
myself as a ‘petrol-headed
Francophile’, and for me nothing
compares with driving around France
in a sports car, stopping from time to
time to sample the local gastronomic
and vinicultural delights of the region.
I hope that I can, by my wealth of
experience if nothing else, be of some
assistance to our great Society.
SAAD DIGEST | VOL.24 | JANUARY 2008 23