Abstract
In May there were three important Medico-Legal Society events. The first, on 8 May, was the joint conference held with the Section of Psychiatry at the Royal Society of Medicine on Consent, Capacity and the Law in Clinical Psychiatric Practice. It was organised by the Section's president, Dr Jean O'Hara, Professor Malcolm Weller and myself. The all-day meeting was well attended and the talks informative and thought-provoking as were the discussions that followed right up to the last lecture on the problems arising at the end of life. Munby LJ gave the keynote speech – Capacity: A Lawyer's Perspective, which is published at page 69 of this issue.
A personal bonus for me and for Linda Lee (who chaired the first session) was to be a guest at the Section of Psychiatry's centenary dinner where Professor Simon Wessley gave the before-dinner address. Sir George Savage was a well-known practitioner in 1912, a member of seven London clubs and the president of two golf clubs and much else. Virginia Woolf was one of his unhappy patients (in more sense than one) whom he persuaded to have her wisdom teeth extracted on the grounds that they contained infection which was causing her depression. Her depression did not leave with her wisdom teeth and she was understandably angry and resentful at the painful and pointless loss of her teeth. She took her revenge in her novel Mrs Dalloway, where there is an unpleasant doctor character whom her contemporaries would have recognised as a thinly disguised portrait of the late Sir George Savage.
Next on the calendar was the regular monthly meeting on Thursday 12 May. Our speaker, Professor Chris Ham of The King's Fund, gave a warm and enthusiastic review of the proposed changes to the NHS and a warning that things simply could not continue without key changes being made. His paper – and the lively discussion that followed it – will be published in a later issue of this journal.
And finally, on Monday 21 May the Society's splendid annual black-tie dinner took place in Old Hall, Lincoln's Inn, organised by our Medical Secretary, Dr Neville Davis, who is taking a well-earned retirement after many years in the “job”; he was gratefully thanked by our President, Elizabeth Pygott. Successors for this post are invited to apply! Dr Davis had arranged for us to be entertained at the reception by a delightful string quartet and after a very good dinner, by our two speakers, Sir Robert Owen, who proposed the toast to Medicine, and Professor James Drife, who wrote and read a witty, Betjeman-style Ode to the Law (which will be published in a later issue).
Now, as we go to press, the AGM and Angus Moon QC's address are yet to be enjoyed – as is the excellent new programme of events headed by our new President in the autumn, to be held at the Medical Society of London.