Ian Donald School Book 09.indb - World Association of Perinatal ...

Chapter 2. THE HISTORY OF IAN DONALD SCHOOLProf. IAN DONALD LectureSpeech of the Prof. IAN DONALD at the opening School in Dubrovnik in 1982.That memorable occasion at the first Ian Donald Inter-University School was vividlyillustrated in the following lecture given by Prof. IAN DONALD.There is a saying in the English languagethat some men sow and othersreap. It has been my own priceless privilegethat I have been allowed to reap what Ihave helped to sow. This is exemplifiedtoday in the foundation of this School ofMedical Ultrasound which bears my name.Now, at the end of my days, I could ask forno better epitaph.All this is thanks to the University of Zagreband to Professor ASIM KURJAK whosevision of the future has brought aboutwhat I would never myself have thoughtpossible. My wife Alix has always been includedin these happy Yugoslav meetingsProf. IAN DONALD during the opening speechof the Ian Donald School in Dubrovnik,1982.and she is with me here today to join me in our best wishes for your success.ASIM is a good friend to us all and, like Yugoslavs in general, he gives generoushospitality whose warmth far exceeds what we deserve, but he has also succeededin bringing together delegates from 17 different countries in fruitfulunison. In this respect, this school may stand as a memorial to the preeminenceof Yugoslavia in the field of ultrasonic diagnosis.Any alleged success which I may have had can be attributed to the fact that Iwas the first to apply ultrasonic techniques to gynecology and obstetrics.I must also acknowledge the engineering expertise which I was able to enlistin the city of Glasgow.Being a professor in Scotland is a highly privileged position, unlike in the USAwhere professors tend to be regarded as a lower form of life. My professionalcolleagues took a characteristically patient and lenient view of what theydoubtless regarded as my eccentricities in those early days. I doubt if I wouldhave got very far in London, for example, and it was my good fortune to happento be in the right place at the right time. In fact, my original intention awayback in 1954 was to seek a more reliable method of differential diag nosisin cases of very gross abdominal distension in females, a common problem inclinical practice in which humiliating mistakes are frequently made by employingthe standard diagnostic techniques.Common causes often pose diagnostic problems because of their very size, forexample, gross obesity, massive ovarian cysts, benign as well as malignant,other very large tumors of all varieties —renal, splenic, hepatic, aneurysm,24