Sir Stanley Peart FRS in interview with Dr Max Blythe: Interview 1, Part 1

Part One At the start of the interview, Sir Stanley Peart, professor of medicine at St Mary's Medical School 1956-1987, talks about his childhood and family background, and his education, first at Bradford Grammar School and then at King's College School, Wimbledon. The decision to study medicine was taken after failing to get a scholarship to Oxford, and seeing an advertisement for scholarships at St Mary's Medical School. Lord Moran's (dean of St Mary's) recruitment policy is outlined. The interview moves on to Stanley Peart's pre-clinical studies at St Mary's from 1938. He acknowledges the influence of particular teachers - especially Grey and Pritchard (professor and junior lecturer in anatomy), the physiologists Hugo Huggett and ADM Greenfield, and the pharmacologist Harold Stewart - and an ethos of getting students close to the research bench. He speaks of the difficulty of deciding to pursue medical studies rather than join the armed forces. In the final part of Part One, Stanley Peart starts to describe his clinical course, which began in 1941. He discusses the high levels of responsibility that fell on trainees during the war, the all-round nature of the training which included wound-dressing, taking blood, and close contact with patients, and an early interest in surgery