Authors

We welcome submissions from anyone who knew the fellow personally, such as a family member, friend, or colleague. Authors do not need to have any connection with the RCP or medicine themselves. We are happy for submissions to be collaboratively written. We also welcome submissions from members of professional networks that the fellow belonged to, such as specialty associations or societies.

If you are a fellow yourself, you may wish to nominate the person or people whom you would like to write your obituary. Some fellows even choose to write their own.  

If we are unable to obtain a submission through any of the above channels, our editorial team will write an entry using any information from our files and online research.

Original submissions only

Inspiring Physicians can only accept original submissions, for copyright reasons. We understand that authors may have been invited to write an obituary for more than one publication. E.g. BMJ, national newspaper, specialty journal. It is important that any submission to Inspiring Physicians is substantially different to those submitted elsewhere (unless the other publication has given permission for the text to be re-published).

Length
Our obituaries are usually between 250 and 1,000 words in length. 

Deadlines
We do not have set deadlines at present, but contributors on average take up to three months to write an obituary. We encourage writers to update us on their progress. If you no longer feel able to complete an entry, please let us know, along with any suggestions as to whom you think we could approach in your stead.

Preferred format for entries
Please submit the obituary as a Word document by email with the name(s) of the author(s). Type-written memoirs are also acceptable. We regret hand-written scripts cannot be accepted.

References

It is useful to list the reference sources you used at the end of the obituary, to help the RCP editor and future researchers to follow up on relevant reading.

• References to published works should include the name of the author, year of publication, title, and relevant page numbers. Where relevant, also include the journal name and volume number.
• References to online material should include the exact web address (URL) and the date you accessed the site.
• References to archival material should include the name of the archival institution and the reference number of the material.
• References to online material only available via subscription services should include a notification of that.

Aim to grab the reader’s attention with your opening lines. The best obituaries start with a summary of the achievements of the fellow. Ideally, the rest of the entry will be an interesting, accurate, and honest account of the highlights of the fellow’s life and career. Try to avoid a CV-style listing of their roles and achievements.

Incorporate the following, where applicable:

• Details of the fellow’s family background, including place of birth, date of birth, names of parents
• Education (schools, universities, medical schools, fellowships etc)
• Career milestones, from junior posts to consultant appointments
• Research interests and significant publications
• Projects they worked on
• Membership of local, regional, national, and international organisations, and positions held
• Charity work
• National service
• Personal interests and hobbies
• Names of life partners and children

We are not looking for overly formal accounts. We encourage authors to include anecdotes and personal recollections to convey a sense of the fellow as a human being.

Many existing entries perpetuate establishment views that legitimise a world dominated by wealthy white men, and defer to a British imperialist perspective. We would like to move away from this practice. Key points to bear in mind are:

Individual vs collective achievements

Authors will of course want to ensure that the best qualities and achievements of the person they knew shine through in the obituary. But this can lead to the use of exaggeration, or undue individualised glorification. The best way to avoid this is to use specific examples rather than generalisations.

For example, instead of saying ‘Everyone who met him agreed he was the kindest person they had ever known,’ you could give examples: ‘Many of his students remember that his door was always open to them and he would drop whatever he was doing in order to help them with a problem’; ‘He once showed me a treasured letter from the mother of one of his patients, expressing her gratitude for the kindness and attentiveness he had shown.’

Like everyone, doctors do not exist in a social vacuum, and usually work as part of a team. Rather than describing only their role, be specific about the roles they played. Instead of saying, ‘She was the mother of gastrohypersuspension, and established the world’s first electrospectrographic lab at Manchester Royal Infirmary,’ say ‘The 1961 paper she co-authored with Hermione Haggis was the first to identify gastrohypersuspension as a distinct condition, and she led a team of four to establish the world’s first electrospectrographic lab at Manchester Royal Infirmary.’

Instead of ‘At school, his teacher Mr Gable was impressed by his gift for science, but as well as excelling academically he was also an outstanding sportsperson, particularly on the rugby field,’ say ‘His teacher Mr Gable encouraged his love of physics and biology, but one of his proudest school memories was scoring the winning try for his team in the rugby county final.’

Gender and sexuality

Another practice we would like to end is the use of language that perpetuates prejudice, stereotypes, and other systemic social injustices. This of course includes not using offensive language about oppressed or marginalised groups, but also not using language that defers by default to privileged groups such as men or heterosexual people. (For example, avoid gendering roles wherever possible, so use ‘police officer’ instead of ‘policeman’ or ‘policewoman’, and just use ‘manager’ instead of ‘manageress’; instead of ‘he never took a wife’, say ‘he was never married or in a civil partnership’ or consider whether this needs mentioning at all – see below.)

The fellows biographical forms produced from about the 1960s-2000s, which are sometimes the only information we have about individual fellows, only ask for the occupation of the fellow’s father, the occupation of the fellow’s mother’s father, and the occupation of the fellow’s wife’s father. They do not ask about the occupation of any of the fellow’s female relatives, and despite the fact that the fellowship included women during this time period the form assumes the fellow is a man (and is heterosexual). These forms are all preserved permanently and made accessible for historical research purposes, but we do not wish to perpetuate their chauvinism in new entries. 

When writing an entry with only the biographical form for reference, consider how best to use the information – do you need to list all the male relatives’ occupations even at the risk of perpetuating the idea that only men’s lives matter? If the information is particularly relevant (for example, if many of the fellow’s relatives were also healthcare workers), then its inclusion might be justifiable. But otherwise, unless you can also include information about the fellow’s female relatives, consider whether including information about all the male relatives is necessary.

As well as not gendering roles, try not to gender things like countries, vehicles, or the human species as a whole. For example, instead of ‘She studied the effects of glaucomethadrine in Man,’ say, ‘She studied the effects of glaucomethadrine in humans.’     

When writing about someone, use the name and pronouns they would have used for themselves. Avoid language that perpetuates the idea of a gender binary, i.e. language that is exclusionary of trans, non-binary, and intersex people. The vast majority of medical services in which our fellows worked will have divided patients (and staff) along gender binary lines, but that does not mean we need to perpetuate this discrimination in new entries. So, for example, instead of saying ‘The hospital had separate wards for both sexes,’ (which assumes there are only two sexes) say ‘The hospital had separate wards for men and women.’ Instead of saying, ‘The treatment was not hormone-based and could therefore safely be used for patients of either gender,’ say ‘The treatment was not hormone-based and could therefore safely be used for patients of any gender.’   

Do not be coy or euphemistic about non-heteronormative relationships, such as same-sex or polyamorous relationships. If you know that a fellow was in a same-sex relationship, do not say ‘He lived with his special friend, Tom’; say ‘He lived with his partner, Tom.’ If you know that a fellow was in a polyamorous relationship, do not ignore the fact and do not say ‘She lived with her husband Chris and his mistress’; say ‘She and her husband Chris were in a relationship with Laura, with whom they lived.’ There is no need to mention marital status if it isn’t relevant, including for people in heterosexual relationships. For example, don’t say ‘His partner of many years was Barbara, although they never lived together and never married’; just say ‘His partner of many years was Barbara.’ 

Ethnicity

Do not mention someone’s ethnicity if it is not relevant. For example, do not say ‘Like many south Asians of his generation, he was a keen cricketer.’ Just say ‘He was a keen cricketer.’   

Avoid language that assumes all people are white. For example, instead of saying ‘She invented skin-coloured plasters,’ say ‘She invented plasters the skin colour of most people of northern European ancestry.’

Disability

We would like new entries to reflect the fact that people are disabled by the failure of society to equitably accommodate all its members – people are not disabled because of their physical bodies or mental capacities. If a fellow faced challenges in their workplace because adequate support was not in place, say that, and give specific examples. Don’t say ‘She thrived in her role as a consultant in acute medicine for 12 years despite her cerebral palsy.’ Do say ‘Despite the lack of institutional accommodations to the effects of cerebral palsy, she was able to thrive for 12 years in her role as a consultant in acute medicine’. Don’t talk about people ‘suffering from’ or ‘overcoming’ their disabilities; if their disability is relevant, say ‘she lived with dyslexia’ or ‘he experienced hearing loss.’

Colonialism and Anglo/Euro-centrism

Don’t be euphemistic about the realities of British imperialism today or in the past. In entries for eighteenth and early nineteenth century fellows, phrases like ‘sugar merchant’ or ‘he owned land in the Caribbean’ are often code for trading in, owning, or otherwise profiting from the enslavement of human beings. Avoid such euphemisms.

Avoid language that ignores the impacts of British imperialism or treats imperialism as benign. Avoid language that is politically biased towards the interests of the British state, or biased against anyone opposed to the British state. For example, don’t say ‘He was born in Kenya, but was sent back to England for boarding school; in 1953, his family were forced to flee Kenya when rebels attacked their village.’ Instead, say ‘He was born in Kenya where his family lived as part of the British occupation, but was sent back to England for boarding school; his family left Kenya in 1953 due to the uprising against colonial rule led by the Kenya Land and Freedom Army.’ The best way to avoid bias is to eschew emotive language and stick to the facts. Instead of ‘She worked tirelessly through the night caring for victims of the Malayan terrorist attack,’ say, ‘She was on shift that night, and treated many of those injured in the Malayan National Liberation Army bombing.’

Avoid language that treats London, England, Britain, or Europe, as the centre of the world, and treats non-European countries as ‘exotic’. For example, instead of ‘He was an adventurous traveller, spending time in Spain, Latvia, and even Afghanistan,’ say ‘He enjoyed travel, spending time in Spain, Latvia, and Afghanistan.’

We may have a biographical file on the fellow you’re writing about, which we can scan and send you. This is likely to contain only a few key details, but may be a useful starting point.

You might contact the archives departments of other organisations the fellow was closely associated with, such as hospital trusts or universities, to see if they have any information they can share. Many archives have an online catalogue you can search – you can then request to see specific items from the catalogue. If you contact an archive service without knowing which items you want to see, be as specific as possible about what information you’re looking for. For example, ‘Do your records show what years Phyllis Bogglethwaite was a student at the university?’ or ‘Do you hold any personal papers of Phyllis Bogglethwaite, such as correspondence or diaries?’ 

Other sources of biographical information might include the fellow’s workplace or other organisational website, or their personal social media. If they are particularly high profile, they may have an entry in Wikipedia or Who’s Who, which you may be able to access via your local authority library service. Of course, it is worth starting by putting their name into Google!

Obituaries may already have been published in sources such as the British Medical Journal, the Independent, Daily Telegraph, or Guardian. Other national newspapers such as the Times, as well as local newspapers, are available via local authority library services.

For details of publications by the fellow, you can try sources such as PubMed, the British Library, the US Library of Congress, the National Library of Australia, etc. 

The RCP editor will reply to confirm we’ve received the submission. They will attempt to verify all factual statements, such as dates of qualifications and titles of publications. They will liaise with you about any suggested edits. This process may take a few months. When a final version of the obituary has been agreed upon, we will publish it online and notify you.

At any time after publication, anyone (including yourself or any of your co-authors) may contact us to suggest corrections, point out omissions etc. Again, we will carry out fact-checking before we publish any amendments or additions.

Copyright

Entries must be unique to Inspiring Physicians. We cannot accept previously published obituaries (or texts about to be published) unless the publisher grants permission to do so. You may adapt a piece if you have had it published elsewhere, but please ask for guidance.

Corrections and additions

The series contains contemporary biographical summaries of doctors connected with the RCP since 1518. It is our policy to retain original entries, as first published, as a historical record of contemporary views. Where later information challenges facts or generally accepted views within published entries, we include post publication additions, listing factual changes and citing authoritative sources.

If you have one, please provide a photo of the fellow as a JPEG attachment in an email (munksroll@rcp.ac.uk). If possible, please attach the photo as a separate image file, not as part of the Word document.

Many of the photos accompanying existing entries are quite formal, but we very much welcome more characterful photos that show what the fellow was like as a person.

We will send you a copyright form to complete, giving us permission to use the image. The form gives the copyright holder the choice whether to grant permission for use with the relevant entry only, or to fully transfer copyright to the RCP (meaning we could use the image for any purpose, including exhibitions, publications, social media etc without having to bother you again).

Please note:

Unless exceptional circumstances apply, the copyright holder is the person who took the photograph. Possessing a copy of the photo does not make you the copyright holder. 

We encourage fellows to regularly update us on their careers and achievements during their lives. If you are a fellow, you can fill out our online form at any stage in your career to the obituary service.

If you would like to update your own biographical details use the biographical details update form 

If you would like to write an obituary or  notify the RCP of the death of a fellow, email: munksroll@rcp.ac.uk 

Please contact us if you need further clarification or advice. The easiest way to contact us is by email.

A glossary of terms used throughout the Inspiring Physicians database can be viewed on our glossary webpage.