Orthopaedic heroes: the sage of Oswestry

Back in the day, about the time when the FRCSOrth examination changed from being voluntary, with a less structured format, to compulsory (though even then it was still a moderately agreeable experience), there were relatively few examination preparation courses. This was the mid 90's, and the main course, I would say, was the one run in Oswestry, overseen by a relatively small group of surgeons, one of whom was David Jaffray.

He was an eye opener to many of the attendees, for quite a few reasons. He had an unreconstructed North East Scottish accent, an unusually informal approach to meeting strangers ("is NAME REDACTED still ******** NAME REDACTED?" he immediately enquired when learning which hospital we'd been working in), a very caring attitude to trainees and patients, and he was an awesomely good teacher. Quite superb, and very funny.

An example might illustrate some of this,  I think I remember it accurately.  He'd been up for a job in the university department of orthopaedics at my hospital, quite a few years before, as Senior Registrar/Lecturer. He came up the day before, to have the standard look round, and try to meet people (still essential, by the way). In the course of this, he began to feel that he didn't particularly want the job. He probably hadn't met the cream of the department, to be honest, but I knew exactly what he meant. The trouble was, he was manifestly the best candidate, and was almost certain to get it offered to him. Backing out at this point was considered very bad form, and difficult to explain. As he put it "I realised that I had no choice. I had to sabotage my own interview". The next day dawned, and the interview panel was the usual mix of university, management, potential NHS colleagues, an external and so on. The questions began, and it came to the turn of the extremely famous and acerbic professor of general surgery, representing 'undergraduate education'. "Mr Jaffray, tell me, what would you suggest to improve our undergraduate course in orthopaedics ?"

I will pass you over to DJ's words, which I still recall: "This was my opportunity, I had to act fast. I looked at him and said firmly 'abandon it!' " This apparently did not go down too well.  "It did the trick. After that I had no chance".

Perfect. And there are lots of other similar anecdotes .

I can't say I knew him really, but we had the odd contact about trainees. He was unfailingly helpful and completely up to speed on all aspects of training, as well as being very frank. Ask around, the man is a bit of a legend.

All of which leads me to the short memoir he put into BJJ News, which is a pure and perfect gem.

If you read this blog, you'll see that one of its themes is the value of listening to the wise older surgeons, many of whom are both highly rated as surgeon/clinicians but also funny, smart and charismatic figures. There are lots of fine surgeons about. There are probably fewer really gifted  trainers. There are even fewer who combine the two at a very high level.

The paragraph on the right is a tad pessimistic , and I can vouch from my own experience that being ...er...candid  (as opposed to confrontational) is often welcomed by senior management who may be as sick of the daft aspects of bureaucracy as you are. Meeting colleagues face to face is nearly always the best way of dealing with issues. Beyond that, the whole article is laden with  reflections, wisdom, humour and practical tips, culminating in a profound final bit of maternal advice.

Read and learn!