LMSS on Radio Merseyside - 20 January 2020

Towards a successful future

I love it when patterns from history come full circle. I feel privileged to be a member of the LMSS Board of Trustees, the only medical student society in the country (I've been informed today) to have achieved charitable status. 

While the reasons for this evolution and journey will probably one day be a footnote in a history book, right now the aim is moving forward. Our aims to one day reunite the medical student society with the University were always talked of as something in the distant future, the long-term goal over many years. Recent developments, however, mean this has suddenly taken a giant leap forward in what I can only describe as a positive and hopeful way. The details aren't yet finalised. But the implications are astounding.

I say patterns from history, because the story I'm writing follows 23 Victorian doctors in Liverpool who were the first staff members of the Medical Student Debating Society in 1874, several of whom went on to help establish a University in Liverpool. Over the years there seemed to be key periods where a strong relationship between the medical faculty and its students meant the medical student subculture flourished. My suspicions are that a similar relationship is being forged and that history is being made.

I've started plotting the 1874 Victorian doctors' addresses and hope to add to this in the coming months. You'll soon be able to take a Victorian doctor digital walking tour of the Rodney Street area ! Click here to check out the 1874 map

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the LMSS Annual Ball on 2nd February 2019 at the Adelphi Hotel (one of those infamous locations from which medical students have been banned in previous generations, but where I also did my MRCP part 1 written exam as a postgrad amongst the chandeliers - mixed emotions). But had I been there, I would have been cheering with the rest of the crowd at the announcement from Professor Hazel Scott, Dean of the School of Medicine, University of Liverpool, that LMSS was to be reinstated; the University and its medical students reunited once more. 

(Thanks to Hamish Baxter and Eddie Lane for sharing this video on social media)

I feel I may be over-sentimentalising somewhat. But these developments are brilliant and exciting. LMSS means so much to so many people, Liverpool Medical Graduates who are now scattered in far flung corners of the globe, or have settled and made Liverpool their home. We're excited as a society to be reconnecting with and growing our Alumni Network, using that momentum to take LMSS as a charity to another level. 

I'm very much looking forward to the first LMSS Alumni Dinner on Saturday March 2nd 2019. Both Professor Hazel Scott and Professor Louise Kenny (Executive Pro Vice Chancellor of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool) have been invited as guests. It's just been announced that the dinner will be a sell out. Hopefully it will become established as an annual event on the LMSS calendar. 

I can't say too much more. Only that I'm excited for what the future holds. I hope this history project helps create a backdrop to give greater context and understanding to what is going on with LMSS in the present and that lessons can be learnt from the past. Here's to the next 140 years !