farmdoc's blog post number 455

My first post about my medical influences was this one on 25 May 2008 when I wrote about Drs Bell and Doyle. Today I write of another man who had a major effect on the way I doctor. Richard Robert Haynes Lovell (pictured) was born in England in 1918, trained at St Mary’s Hospital in London, and graduated in Medicine in 1941. After five years as a Royal Navy surgeon, he undertook postgraduate studies in London. In 1950 he returned to St Mary’s – first as a Lecturer and then a Senior Lecturer – where his life-long interest in epidemiology began. In 1955 he became Melbourne University’s inaugural Professor of Medicine – based at Alfred Hospital and then at The Royal Melbourne. He was the first Professor of Medicine in Melbourne and, I think, Australia. Though a good clinician and researcher, he was an outstanding teacher. I first experienced his teaching as a fourth year student in 1966. He was a stickler for thorough and rigorous clinical (i.e. interviewing and physical examination) skills. I took to his approach readily, and the book he co-authored, An Introduction to Clinical Medicine, was my clinical bible. In 1971, my second year after graduation, I worked a term in his department as a Senior Resident. It was he who arranged for me to study Statistics and Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene in 1972. From 1973 to 1977 I was on his staff as a Junior Lecturer, during which time I wrote my PhD thesis. After that I had little to do with him. He retired from his Department in 1983, and he died in 2000. The main reason for whatever success I enjoy in my work today, is the scrupulous clinical method he taught me. Thanks, Prof.