LMITransactions&Report2014-15

LMI Transactions and Report 2014 - 2015
‘The Missing Chapter’
The Inaugural Address of the 176th Session of the Liverpool Medical Institution
Thursday 16th October 2014
By: The President - Mr Max S McCormick
Prof Linda de Cossart and Mr Max McCormick
Introduction
Members, colleagues and guests; first of all I would
like to thank you all for attending tonight and giving
me the honour of being your President for this 176th
session. Thanks especially to the management
committee for putting their faith in me to do this.
My talk will cover various aspects of my schooling,
training and passage through Medical School, Junior
Doctor training, Senior Doctor training and finally this
appointment. The title of my talk ‘The Missing
Chapter’ relates to my work as a Consultant Surgeon,
whose main interests are in training new doctors and
senior doctors as apprentices and hopefully making a
difference to my trainees as to how they practise
medicine.
Born in Belfast to George and Jessie, my background
was fairly humble. I attended State primary school
and subsequently Methodist College Belfast, a State
grammar school. There was a strong history of
working with ships and indeed my grandfather won
many trophies building model yachts sailed at a local
reservoir. We still retain one cup, larger than the FA
Cup. He was a shipwright and worked on the building
of the Titanic. Having achieved success in the 11-plus,
I entered Methodist College Belfast, a large mixed
school of almost 2,000 people with two prep schools
and fairly large sporting grounds. Achieving some
success in sports activities, mainly in cricket, I managed
to achieve sufficient ‘A levels’ to enter medical school.
The choice of medical school was not straightforward
in that had I chosen Queen’s University Belfast, I would
have had an offer from them and nowhere else. As it
was I chose Edinburgh, Liverpool and various others
and ended up without an offer. Eventually Liverpool
agreed to interview me and after a short meeting
with the then Dean, Jack Leggate, an offer was made.
The grades were achieved and I entered medical
school in 1968. I really enjoyed medical school in all
aspects, academic, social and artistic, taking part in
many activities including being President of the
Medical Students’ Society in 1971-72. Marriage and a
young family commenced shortly after this. Early jobs
as a House Officer and Senior House Officer in
Whiston were followed by periods of plastic surgery,
gynaecology and eventually time in the
demonstrating room, time well spent to obtain
primary FRCS.
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