At the start of the lunch Chairman John Goodhead was pleased to present Norman Rodda with a bottle of claret in recognition of his joining the ranks of octogenarians in the Club.
Then we enjoyed our lunch of Slow Cooked Braised Steak with a Red Wine Sauce and Mashed Potato followed by some rather good Profiteroles with Chocolate Sauce.
Our after lunch speaker was Dr Michael Nightingale who told us of his life and work as a GP in Ewell Village. Michael trained at Barts Hospital and was very pleased to find two fellow 'Barts' men in his audience. Apparently you can always spot a Barts doctor if you're in The Know!
After qualifying Michael specialised in Anesthetics at Redhill hospital, making sure the patients stayed asleep and the surgeons stayed awake during the operations! After a few years he wanted a change and so after completing an extra but not an essential year of specialist training, together with a colleague set up the Ewell Village GP surgery in 1971.
When they started out there was just the two doctors and a receptionist. They offered 24hr cover, seven days a week. Patients turned up at the surgery in the morning and waited to be seen. In the afternoon they offered home visits and Michael said he had plenty of regular runs around the neighborhood. Emergency call outs usually came just after he'd got into bed and were often for young children with ear-ache. There were no mobile phones so his wife had to know where he was in case another emergency call came in at the same time.
Apparently the number of patients on the GP's list back in the seventies was 2500-3000, exactly the same as a GP in practice today. Of course today's GP Practice has computers, mobile phones, Paramedics, Nurses, Secretaries, and Admin Assistants to help but unfortunately there is also plenty of regulatory paperwork to be completed by the mainly part-time Doctors.
Thank you Michael for a most entertaining and amusing look back at your career in Ewell, and for covering our planned speaker Brian Bennett who unfortunately had to cancel at short notice.
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