The class of ’89 reunion
3,000 ‘doctor years’ of experience in the same room
By the time you read this I will have been to the class of ’89 reunion, my class at our medical school.
I have been asked to say a few words about our medical school and how things have changed over the last 30 years since we graduated.
It made me reflect, however, on what the class of ’89 and indeed every class to graduate before and since has contributed to health not just in Yorkshire but across the globe.
At our reunion there will be over 3,000 ‘doctor years’ of experience in one room. The diversity of that experience will have a single thread through it that links our past to the present and to our future vision for our medical school. That vision is to improve patient outcomes worldwide. Every doctor in the room will have their own unique and extraordinary stories where they have done exactly that.
Stories that would inspire, excite and, I am sure in many cases, shock the new medical students I welcomed to Leeds during September in the same level 7 lecture theatre we sat in when we arrived in Leeds in 1984.
One of the challenges I have set the School is to be able to articulate what is special about the ‘Leeds Doctor’. I think it’s probably one of those things ‘you don’t recognise until you see it’. The class of ’89 I am sure will remind me what’s really special about our medical school.
Professor Mark Kearney, Dean of the School of Medicine
