Dr Robert Hutchison died in 1960, seven years before I was born. However, his appearance as depicted in the portrait (above) reminds me of Roald Dahl. One of his closest friends and colleagues described him in this way:
Dr Robert Hutchison, like Roald Dahl, is recalled for his wonderful way with language. One of my favourite quotes – about the profession in which we have shared across centuries – is by Hutchison. I still find it extraordinary that he wrote this in 1897:
Robert Hutchison was born at Carlowrie Castle, Kirkliston, in 1871.
In the early 1990s I lived with Sian in Kirkliston, at Humbie farm cottages. I was then studying Landscape Architecture at the University of Aberdeen and Sian was completing her GP training in Livingston:
In 1893 Robert Hutchison graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Edinburgh. Like me, he was a very young medical student, but unlike me he was far more promising.
Robert Hutchison delivered his first baby in 1894 at the Simpson Memorial Hospital Edinburgh. I was born in this same hospital 70 years later.
1897, aged just 26 years of age Robert Hutchison co-authored: Clinical Methods: A Guide to the Practical Study of Medicine:
This is still used and is now in its 23rd Edition!
Robert’s sister Isobel Wylie Hutchison was quite amazing. She was a poet, polyglot, painter, botanist and Arctic traveller. She could speak Italian, Gaelic, Greek, Hebrew, Danish, Icelandic, Greenlandic and some Inuit. Carlowrie remained a home for her to return to from travels, although the upkeep was hard and the castle did not have electricity until 1951. Isobel died at Carlowrie in 1982, aged 92.
I was delighted to see Dr Robert Hutchison quoted in a recent BMJ response by Dr Amr K H Gohar. This was in response to this BMJ Analysis:
Dr Gohar titled his response: Primum non nocere (first, do no harm). He summarised the potential harms from early detection which he said may include: overdiagnosis and overtreatment, false positive findings, additional invasive procedures, negative psychosocial consequences, and harmful effects on bodily function.
Dr Gohar confirmed his view [that]: “This does not mean that such early detection should be ignored but it means, as this article stresses, that early detection should be balanced. Critical assessment of early detection including early detection technologies and strategies in clinical practice is indispensable to avoid the persisting bias that early detection is only beneficial.”
This returned my thoughts to communications that I have had with Healthcare Improvement Scotland an NHS Board that is primarily guided by the American organisation: the Institute of Healthcare Improvement.
I have in Hole Ousia expressed my concerns about the approach taken to detection by Healthcare Improvement Scotland. My concerns have related to the lack of consideration of harms of “National Improvement” drives and the continued marginalisation of consent.
Robert Hutchison may have died seven years before I was born. But in 1897 he wrote words that I consider to be most prescient:
"From inability to let well alone;
from too much zeal for the new and contempt for what is old;
from putting knowledge before wisdom,
science before art,
and cleverness before common sense;
from treating patients as cases;
and from making the cure of the disease more grievous than
the endurance of the same,
Good Lord, deliver us."
