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Doctors

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nickcc101 said:
We had two Doctors at our surgery in Great Barr, Drs Calderwood and McConnel, the waiting room was always full when Dr McConnel was on duty but usually half empty when Dr Calderwood was on. We all lived in fear of Dr Calderwood as he was the Post Office Doctor and certainly didn't suffer fools gladly.
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I've just picked up on this thread - Dr McConnell was my family doctor, in fact he delivered me into the world!
My Nan's doctor was Dr Calderwood and my parents were living with her at the start of their marriage and my mother expected him to attend the confinement and was quite embarrassed when Dr McConnell turned up as he was a young man then and of a similar age!

They were originally in a house on the Walsall Road and later Dr Calderwood moved up to the Health Centre at Tower Hill. I believe Dr McConnell moved to the Derby area and Dr Calderwood was joined by his son and later his daughter in law, also a Dr Calderwood!

Old Dr Calderwood always seemed a bit scary, however when my grandad was alive and very ill with TB he was apparently brilliant, he used to call in to see him, unasked, and would sit and chat with him - I can't imagine any GP would do that today. My Nan thought very highly of him and after she moved to the Worcestershire countryside he always remembered her.

If my mother was at the surgery she used to feel very sorry when no one wanted to see him - he would come out of his office and look around - so she used to go in and see him!

After he had retired he sadly got dementia before he passed away.
 
johnny082 said:
Our doctor was Dr. Butler and his wife whose practice was in a house on Reservoir Road Erdington. It was a few doors from the shops, Stockland Green end. He and his wife were also surgeons and did small operations in the back room. I had an abcess on my ear and they put me to sleep and lanced it. I wont go into all the gory details of some days later. But before they lanced it I had to have it plastered with the old black jack ointment for a week before hand. It really stunk. But they were wonderful doctors and mom nearly had a heart attack when he told her he was retiring
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My grandmothers doctor.
Bob
 
johnny082 said:
Our doctor was Dr. Butler and his wife whose practice was in a house on Reservoir Road Erdington. It was a few doors from the shops, Stockland Green end. He and his wife were also surgeons and did small operations in the back room. I had an abcess on my ear and they put me to sleep and lanced it. I wont go into all the gory details of some days later. But before they lanced it I had to have it plastered with the old black jack ointment for a week before hand. It really stunk. But they were wonderful doctors and mom nearly had a heart attack when he told her he was retiring
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Your reply Johnny brought back a memory of both Drs Butler and an associate Dr 'Con' and the story of my boil on my stomach. In 1954 I had a boil on my stomach at my belt line and Dr. Butler gave me the black tar treatment X2 then on the third go-around he decided to lance it. Here I digest in 1943 at the age of two I had major surgery to untie my intestines which at birth had not untangled themselves. My boil was on my belt line but also at the top of my scar, Dr. Butlers' decision to lance it was made as he had a suspicion of its cause confirmed when he probed and found the knot from a stitch that had not completely pulled out eleven years prior.
I remember the different number of rings on the bell Dr. Butler 1 his wife 2 and Dr 'Con' 3 and how, if the made-up your medication, it was left in the box to the right of the front door a couple of hours later.
 
My Birth Mother's said her GP in Moseley was Dr Sanderland, a very empathetic man who came to see my Birth father who had PWT and because he refused to go to the surgery about his drinking and violence and anger management, and got a punch in the face for his trouble. The doctor was carpeted. No action was taken I wonder would it be now? I can only get a telephone consultation. But...the huge house their flat was in, the tenants were mostly professional people, including a young Dr Sanderson, two very similar names and a nurse, Mary Reilly. Next door but one was Dr Frank Alexander also a young GP and his wife Nancy.
I remember our own surgery not in Brum though, as a child, with real battle axe receptionists, you got a grunt if you were lucky, glaring over a half door, even Nan would hope not to get the matriarch with spectacles on a chain. Patients queued out in to the front garden which had a giant monkey puzzle tree in it, and then in to the street sometimes. In the office reception there was a cork board full of notes pinned on it, there was a vertical tiered file on the wall, to get your prescriptions from. Is my prescription ready? Have you looked! Was barked back, the spectacles chains dancing. The dragon glared over them at Nan and down at me, being very small. The waiting room was a living room, with leaded windows and a bay window, dingy, because of the huge tree, with an oilcloth floor, and rows of kitchen chairs and around the bare walls, and you had to ask who was waiting for who and am I after you,. Nan used to ask, who do I follow for Dr Bee? I found this funny and imagined a giant bee with clothes. I liked the buzzer and the red light came on. I never worked out how we got to see the correct GP.
 
BrumBum said:
This thread opens up lots of possibilities. Our GP when I was young was Dr Ezzat. His practice was a fairly large but poorly adapted house on the corner of Court Oak Road and Tennal Lane. There were no appointments and you would simply take the next available chair and wait your turn. Good job we were trained to queue from birth! The waiting room must have once been a sitting room or perhaps dining room. The chairs were a random mix of wooden dining chairs, but none of them was particularly comfortable. As the buzzer went (I think it was a buzzer) for the next patient, we would all move along one chair. I can picture the room very clearly even now. There was nothing warm or inviting or interesting about it. When you were called through, you would walk along a short corridor and knock on the door of the consulting room, already slightly high on the whiff of antiseptic. Dr Ezzat was a large, fairly genial Egyptian who knew all of my family and was prone to give advice on a range of things, whether you wanted it or not. My clearest recollection of him is when he treated me for a severe gash to my knee caused by newly pruned and dagger-like privet hedge at my Grand-dads house. I still have the scar, but I did not develop an infection.
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Yea. As a youngster I remember Dr Ezzat's and all the shuffling along the chairs. He was our main doctor from the early 1960s when we lived on the Moor Pool Estate and after we moved to Highfield Lane up at Quinton. I liked him and he actually seemed genuinely interested. I remember his kindly face with head tilted to one side as he meticulously checked our chest with his stethoscope and looked at our tongue ......whatever ailment we had. I wonder what his story was. My guess is that he came back with the 8th Army after the war.
 
When a lad in Weoley Castle, our Doctor was , Dr Judge, Castle Square, a big Irish man, and a genuine bloke, I worked at the Butchers on a Sat Morning and cut my thumb, quite badly, and went straight over to the Surgery, when he opened the door , he frowned, come in son, took me through to the office, lets have a look here , yes stitches I'm afraid, he cleaned and stitched the wound. he finished and said, did a lot of this in the Desert war, you were very brave, its ok now, and I went back to work all in about an hour, I was about 12/13 at the time, how different to today.
 
As a kid I was always taken to see Dr Heard/Herd/Hird at the surgery near The Fold at Pool Farm, Kings Norton. I remember him as a thin, balding man and I was told he had been taken prisoner by the Japanese during WWII, a horrendous experience. Anyone have any memories of him?
 
paul stacey said:
When a lad in Weoley Castle, our Doctor was , Dr Judge, Castle Square, a big Irish man, and a genuine bloke, I worked at the Butchers on a Sat Morning and cut my thumb, quite badly, and went straight over to the Surgery, when he opened the door , he frowned, come in son, took me through to the office, lets have a look here , yes stitches I'm afraid, he cleaned and stitched the wound. he finished and said, did a lot of this in the Desert war, you were very brave, its ok now, and I went back to work all in about an hour, I was about 12/13 at the time, how different to today.
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I run a FB group about the history of Weoley Castle. Would you mind if I shared this? I would do it as a screen shot.
 
Many of us remember the days when you went to " the doctor ".no group practices then because the one local doctor was enough to cover most situations.You just went to the surgery and sat and waited your turn.When you saw the doctor there was no rushing through matters so the next patient could be seen.As with many things,there was TIME.
Tojo.
 
Memory, is a funny thing in age, things come and go, can´t quite remember, the dates but about mid fifty´s, place Bartley Green, mom and dad were talking about a friends of mine sister, in Hasbury Road. The Dr, was called early morning, and became so worried about the child, that he operated for an appendicitis in the Kitchen. Now as I say the memory´´s fluctuate, but I am certain that this happened ??
 
Our doctors was a Dr. Butler and his wife, on Reservoir Road at Stockland Green. His surgery was an ordinary house just near the shops. Like others we just turned up and waited our turn. Mom had a long term sickness and saw him regularly for which he charged her 10 shillings a month. I was about 9 when I had an abscess on my right ear. I had to have some black ointment on it for a week [smelling like tar], and then went back, and he and his wife, who were both surgeons, operated in their back room to remove it. Too gory to go into details. They were wonderful people and cared about every aspect of your life.
Although like everyone else, have difficulty in getting a face to face consultation now, when I do see him he nearly always gets up as I enter and shakes my hand
 
Our local Doctors surgery was Spring road,Tyseley,and was run by two doctors, Dr Essen and Dr Allen. This was during the 1950s.
The waiting room was small with two doors leading off to the doctors.
The surgery ( or what we called,the doctors) was part of a terrace of flat fronted houses converted. The whole terrace row has now been demolished.
 
paul stacey said:
When a lad in Weoley Castle, our Doctor was , Dr Judge, Castle Square, a big Irish man, and a genuine bloke, I worked at the Butchers on a Sat Morning and cut my thumb, quite badly, and went straight over to the Surgery, when he opened the door , he frowned, come in son, took me through to the office, lets have a look here , yes stitches I'm afraid, he cleaned and stitched the wound. he finished and said, did a lot of this in the Desert war, you were very brave, its ok now, and I went back to work all in about an hour, I was about 12/13 at the time, how different to today.
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Hey Paul,my wife and I lived in Alwold road in the mid 60s and one time I cracked a rib at football practice.I went to see Dr Judge,a good bloke who,I imagine,would have been good to have a pint with at the Raven or the California.I thought he might put an elastic bandage on me but,instead,he sat in his chair with a large roll of plaster,got me to fix the end of it just under my armpit.Then I was required to rotate like a pirouetting ballet dancer until the top half of me was entitrely strapped in.I had a bit of trouble breathing going home but eventually got used to it.The biggest torture,however,was when it was time to take the plaster off ! There was lots of screaming,swearing and ooh ah ooh ahs sitting in the bath trying to remove the plaster an inch at a time.
I was glad to get through it but still glad to know Doc Judge.
Tojo.
 
Hi Tojo, yes he was a good GP, I believe a desert rat too, like most of his generation, they used their surgerys, for minor operations, when my young sister was very ill he came out in the middle of the night with a mac over his pajama´s to treat her. These stalwarts of the NHS are long gone now, not that there are so very GP´s about still!!
 
Found this thread by chance.
Dr Michael Massey jnr was our gp when I was a small child living off Aston Lane. Then we moved or he did and we changed to dr Larry Pike’s surgery in Birchfield. Dr Helmy was my mum’s doctor there. When she was 35 and feeling very ill he accused her of attention seeking, dad insisted on a second opinion and dr Helmy wrote to the effect she was attention seeking in referral letter to consultant at General hospital who then dismissed mum out of hand at the consultation. So Dad paid for mum to see Dr Massey as a private patient. Dr Massey knew what it was as soon as he saw her and called the ambulance immediately and saved mum’s life. I remember sitting in his surgery waiting room and him telling me mum was going to hospital and he’d rung dad at work to fetch me.
Mum was in hospital a long time and was unwell over a year. She got a letter that Dr Helmy was struck off and the consultant removed from his post. Dr Michael Massey saved her life just in time. He was a remarkable doctor. Mum lived over half a century after that. She passed away last year in her eighties. We have always been so grateful to dr Massey.
 
I think my earliest doctor was Dr Moreland. I vaguely remember the surgery being somewhere at the end of Digbeth High Street, where it turned under the bridge and on uphill towards the Kingston cinema and the Coventry Road I think a flyover was built there.
Up to date: I have just had an appointment with an advanced nurse. Like a nurse, but with 2 years extra university training. She is allowed to do some doctor things, such as prescriptions. For us regulars it is Doctor - Nurse - Doctor etc at 3 month intervals. One and a half hours going through my medications, and any problems. That is good value from the health system here. She speaks French, and .... French. I am exhausted now. Back home to practice my English with Julie.
Andrew.
 
mikejee said:
But unfortunately many today go to their doctors and to the A & E with fairly mild symptoms, which they would not have considered worth a visit then.
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All calls to our local surgery are triaged. I f the problem is not deemed urgent then you may possibly get a phone session with a doctor or more likely a nurse. When i recently come out of hospital i phoned my surgery to say i was still in pain & needed some more pain medication. I received a phone call from a nurse to say a prescription had been sent to the pharmacy for me, 224 codeine tablets which was a bit overkill !
 
Smudger said:
All calls to our local surgery are triaged. I f the problem is not deemed urgent then you may possibly get a phone session with a doctor or more likely a nurse. When i recently come out of hospital i phoned my surgery to say i was still in pain & needed some more pain medication. I received a phone call from a nurse to say a prescription had been sent to the pharmacy for me, 224 codeine tablets which was a bit overkill !
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OMG I would say so! I had back surgery last week, very sore but used an over the counter pain killer. If you need it you need it but 224. You would be lucky to get 10 without seeing the Dr. Hope you are feeling better!
 
Butcher boy said:
Our local Doctors surgery was Spring road,Tyseley,and was run by two doctors, Dr Essen and Dr Allen. This was during the 1950s.
The waiting room was small with two doors leading off to the doctors.
The surgery ( or what we called,the doctors) was part of a terrace of flat fronted houses converted. The whole terrace row has now been demolished.
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Hi. I used this doctors from the 50s until the 70s and remember both Dr Essen and Dr Allen. Do you remember the other doctor, a lady who was just called Dr K. Her name was difficult to pronounce. Did you go to Yarnfield school, I was there from 1955 until 1962.
 
Our doctors seems to think a phone call is all we need now, her indoors has problems with blood pressure, she gets it checked at the pharmacy adjoining the surgery. Last time she went the pharmacist said it rather high so I'll go into the surgery with you so you can make an appointment. The result of that was " the doctor will phone you in two weeks time" and she was given the date and estimated time for the call. o_O
 
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