Another Dundee story

When people ask my why I chose geriatrics as a speciality, my first reply is “stories.” I love speaking to patients – which is the reason I so enjoy the practice of medicine.

Stories propelled me to change my original plan to study engineering. Two books; A.J. Cronin's The Citadel and Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters that fascinated me. The next part of my story resulted from a junior year traversing Europe during my Brooklyn College studies. I ended up in Copenhagen where I befriended several female medical students. Invited to attend a few of their sessions at medical school, I was impressed with how much they enjoyed their studies and the brightness of their attitudes towards medicine; a sharp contrast to the American medical students I knew, who always seemed so serious and complained about the weight of their studies.

An example of this special story experience occurred when I reviewed a file of a patient who came to the Toronto Memory Clinic at which I was working part-time after I retired from the 44 years at the Baycrest Geriatric Centre. I read, “Place of birth: Dundee.”

I knew that this was going to be a special visit. Ian, an older gent, came in, with his daughter, born in Canada but who had twice visited Dundee with her father. As soon as he opened his mouth, I recognized the distinctive regional accent. How I ended up in Dundee rather than in the United States, my home country, was a story.

My decision to study in Europe, preferably Copenhagen, was not rejected by my liberal-minded parents. It was long before the internet; thus, the investigations required hours in our public library. I applied to medical schools in Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, England, and Scotland. As the answers returned, I was disappointed that the Danish schools did not accept foreign students; many of their own citizens studied needed to study abroad. I received acceptances from Basel in Switzerland and Louvain in Belgium. All the Scottish schools accepted me for the following year, when I would graduate from Brooklyn College.

That late August a telegraph delivery man came to my door. I ripped open the envelope. (remember telegrams??) “You are offered a position in 2nd year of the University of St. Andrews Medical School, beginning on the 1st of October 1961. Please indicate by telegram if you would prefer to do your pre-clinical period at St. Andrews followed by your clinical years in Dundee, or would you prefer to do your pre-clinical and clinical period in Dundee?”

I could not believe it, my dream. That evening after telling my parents, I sent the return telegram and the next day arranged to meet with my local US Army selective service branch to get permission to study overseas rather be drafted which in 1961 meant Vietnam.

My years in Dundee were among the most wonderful of my life. The studies were engrossing, the teaching outstanding and my classmates amazing. Of the 70 students in our class, about half were from Scotland, a quarter from England and the rest from the Commonwealth. Only one or two were Yanks, as they called us. Two Dundonians Ian and Doug, befriended me within the first 2 days and became among my closest friends throughout the 5 years of study. We kept up our relationship with reunions until COVID when the 50th year reunion was canceled, not to be rescheduled.

I used l my 5 months vacation each year (three for the summer and one each for Christmas and Easter) to travel all over Europe and Israel. Through the International Federation of Medical Student's Associations, I would choose a country, a city and a medical speciality and spend a month with full room and board. I did surgery in Copenhagen; emergency room, surgery, and midwifery in Londonderry; orthopedics in Athens; pediatrics in Warsaw; midwifery in Israel; and forensic medicine in Portsmouth. Every rotation was a story.

I have visited Dundee many times since graduation through our annual reunions as well department of geriatrics three-day meetings with local geriatricians and one or two from McMaster University; lastly in 2016.

While you can take the boy of Scotland, you cannot take Scotland out of the boy. One of my recent patient interactions show how true is this old axiom. The patient, Ian, reminded me of my stories: After I told him I had studied in Dundee, the conversation focused on everything I could recall that might resonate with him. He had moderate dementia, likely due to Alzheimer's disease which meant that he would often ask me to repeat myself. Despite that, as expected, his long-term memory was still reasonably intact. He could accurately recall important Dundee landmarks. We talked about the Deep-Sea Restaurant, a favorite among university students, and he could name the street the Nethergate on which it was situated.

His daughter, Fiona, said when she had visited Dundee with him, her father relished walking the streets and old neighborhoods pointing out familiar buildings, especially churches and pubs. I asked him at the Queen's Hotel, which was opposite the University on the Nethergate.

“It weren't such a great place anymore. A bit rundoon.”

I answered with an “aye.” When I asked about the jute industry,

“That were the biggest business in Dundee- lots of lassies working there.”

“Aye,” I dutifully responded, and added,

“When I was there, only one mull (mill) was left.”

Ian replied, “What a din, those looms clanking away.” “Were you at St. Andrew's” he asked for the third time.

“Aye, but I was in Dundee for the medical school.” “The year after I graduated, the two got divorced and Dundee became its own university.”

“Did it?”

“Do you remember the sailing ship Discovery?”, I asked.

“Of course, down by the Tay, it went to the south pole. I think they got stuck there and had to be rescued” “Can't remember the name of the captain?”

I took out my smartphone and looked it up, “Robert Scott” an “English navy officer.”

“Really” he answered, “an Englishman, with a name like Scott?”

“Well, my name is Gordon but I'm not a Scot”, I replied.

“Really” he answered, “do you know the song “A Gordon for me?”

“Of course,” I replied, “but although I have a Scottish name, I'm Jewish.”

“Really, how's thot?”

I explained how my Lithuanian ancestors lived in a small village (shtetl). Czar Peter the Great hired a famous Scottish mercenary General Patrick Gordon, born in 1635, in Aberdeenshire (home of clan Gordon). He was a very successful soldier and was awarded the rank of general in the Russian army. My ancestors took the surname Gordon hoping that because of his friendship with the Czar, they might be protected against the many pogroms frequently perpetrated against the Jews of Lithuania. I remarked, “It didn't help; my ancestors had to leave Lithuania at the turn of the 20th century because of continued pogroms; most went to the US with many to South Africa.”

“Did you say you studied at St. Andrew's?” (for the fourth time).

His daughter looked at me winking “Just answer matter of factly each time, don't say ‘I told you three times already’” I counselled her to change the subject if she could. I looked at Ian, “Do you remember the Tay Bridge Disaster?”

“It was long before my time”, Ian replied, but I recall Willy (pronounced Wully) McGonagall's Tay Bridge Disaster and started to recite for me, “Beautiful railway bridge of the silv'ry Tay, Alas! I am sorry to say that 90 lives have been taken away….”

He then smiled and said, “He weren't half the poet as was Rabbie Burns,” “Wee sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's om the breastie….The best-laid schemes o'mice an'men gang aft agley.”

His daughter smiled and said, “he loves Burns.”

Ian then added, “I had Gordons in my family, my late wife's family were connected to Gordons.”

“Well, we may find out that we're relatives” I replied. I consider myself an honorary Dundonian, and almost a Scot. I finished the interview with, “You are doing just fine.” Your next appointment will be with your regular doctor who just had a wee baern (baby). As he got up, I shook his hand and I said, “Lang may your lum Reek” (long may your chimney smoke). He gave me a big smile and said, “you too.”

As Jimmy Durante said about jokes, “I got a million of'em, a million of ‘em.” I may not have a million stories but after 44 years doing geriatrics, I have hundreds of them and when given a chance like a “guid Scot” will tell them to you anyone who might listen (Figure 1).