John Bennett

John Bennett

Photo of Dr John Bennett

Dr John Bennett


Dr John Bennett was born in Merseyside and studied medicine at Liverpool University. Following junior posts in Liverpool, Birmingham and London he was appointed as consultant physician in general medicine and gastroenterology at Hull Royal Infirmary. Here he shares his memories of taking the MRCP pathology viva.  

The full interview with Dr Bennett can be found on the library catalogue.

Transcript

John Bennett taking the MRCP pathology viva:


I thought it was a beastly exam.  These--, you know, these rather superior London physicians used to regard it as their little patch.  It was long before the reformation.  I think the reformation was in line,  but it was a very old fashioned exam. 

I mean these papers and these clinicals and if you got through the clinicals you had this path viva. When I’d been a consultant a few years on election day I went to our local church hall to vote and as I went in, for reasons quite unclear to me, I was seized by icy dread round my heart and it took me a long time to understand this. 

And then I realised it was the path viva again. I had a piece of paper in my hand and I was walking towards a trestle table with two people behind it looking at me expectantly and it really had sunk deeply into my subconscious.