Photo: President Gordon Ward greets Richard Burns, with Club Members Ross Torrens (L) and John Dobson (R)

Talk by Dr. Richard Burns on 'Good Practice'

Club President Gordon Ward welcomed members and guests to the meeting and then introduced our speaker for the morning Dr. Richard Burns. Richard began his talk on 'Good Practice' by saying he would be mainly speaking about his memories of his father and situations with various patients over the years. He likened the talk to a W. F. Marshall poem, "Me an Me Da'", and then gave a short reading of his version of the poem, much to everyone's enjoyment. What followed was then another 40 minutes of highly entertaining anecdotes from TWO lifetimes of GP practice.

Richard's Dad was born in 1908 to a farming family, but none of the boys stayed in farming. Most went into socially useful jobs, but one, the 'Black Sheep of the family' started as an Estate Agent then went downhill into politics and eventually became a MP. After leaving school/college Richard's Dad went into Teaching before taking an interest in medicine. After a rather itinerant earlier career he work his way back to Portstewart about the time the NHS was starting. This 'saved' Dad, as he had a regular income, and gave him chance to develop his interest in acting with the Coleraine Drama Society, as well as meeting Richard's Mum.

Having settled down, the family grew as first Richard then two sisters came on the scene. Going to school locally and in Belfast, Richard followed in Dad's footsteps into medicine - there were some very pretty Nurses around, so it looked like a good choice. Medical training was in Birmingham, followed by getting experience in various hospitals before working his way back to Coleraine and joining his Dad's surgery, just to 'help out' (Dad having a little heart trouble at the time) - and that was that for the next few decades!

The new GP induction was then a rather steeper learning curve than it is today. What now takes about three years was condensed down into 'there's your patients list, there's you proscriptions, that room there, go to it!'.

(And here your reporter must apologise, for he spent so much time laughing over the 'one liners', the observations of patient behaviour, the situations and the anecdotes, that the notes for this report sort of 'got forgotten' - SORRY, we should have recorded the talk)

At the end of the talk a vote of thanks was proposed by Ross Torrens, who reflected that Club member, brother in law and good friend, Sam Barr, had been kept in good health for all 25 years on active Probus membership by Richard Burns. Laughter must be the best medicine, and we had plenty of that today, in Richards' excellent and extremely enjoyable talk. The thanks were passed on by the President, and the members showed their appreciation.

(The Doctor takes aim with another joke)

(Our guests enjoyed the talk as much as our members)

Mike Turner - Secretary
With extra photos by Ken, as ever!