Could do better: A curious clinician looks back - and forward

A recently retired Scottish academic originally chose ophthalmology by a process of exclusion. Basic training in Glasgow and London was followed by "permanent" consultant appointments in Bristol, with a year as retina fellow at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, then London, then chairborne in Manchester and Edinburgh. Many opportunities for advances in ophthalmology were missed, but there were some successes: beta-blockers and steroid blockers in glaucoma, and gene mapping of one X-linked retinitis pigmentosa gene. Hypothesis-making is advocated by regarding no situation as static or sacrosanct, maintaining wide interests and collaborating with basic scientists.