A Dundee doctor is swapping the chance of retirement for a new life establishing respiratory services in Tasmania.
Dr John Winter completed his last working day at Ninewells in Dundee on Sunday, receiving patients on the medical admissions ward.
Devoted to his grandson Noah, who is almost one, Dr Winter is nevertheless far from ready to give up a challenging career for full-time grandparenting and is preparing to head off to the other side of the world.
Later this year Dr Winter (60) and wife Janet are heading for Tasmania where he is to establish the first respiratory service for the north-west of the island. His wife plans to master modern technology to watch her grandson develop via a video phone link.
The respiratory physician also plans to exploit the leisure opportunities Down Under, with ambitions to sail in the annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race and perhaps take up trout fishing.
The Welshman, who did most of his growing up in Nottingham and London before training to be a doctor at Birmingham University, moved to Dundee as a consultant respiratory physician in 1987. His specialty has involved treating many people with lung diseases and cancers, as well as people with cystic fibrosis.
Changes in medical management of those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease the umbrella term for respiratory diseases largely caused by smoking means these patients have largely disappeared from hospital outpatient clinics and are being looked after by GP practices.
The availability of good treatments for asthma nowadays has also switched management of these patients away from hospitals to family doctors’ surgeries.
“There was a lot of asthma and COPD came to secondary care,” said Dr Winter. “That was a large amount of our outpatient work in the past and that has diminished considerably, and a lot more is done in the community.”TreatmentsMeanwhile, the numbers of adults with CF getting hospital treatment and management is rising. Not so long ago there was no need of services for CF adults because most patients simply didn’t survive in to adulthood.
Better treatments and genetic tests at birth that identify babies with CF and allow them to be started on treatment and management programmes from the beginning mean adult services are required for CF patients.
“Adults with CF now outnumber children with the disease,” said Dr Winter. “If you are born today with CF you can probably expect to survive certainly in to your 40s and maybe 50s.”
He said there were more new treatments in the pipeline that would benefit CF patients.
“CF is an area where there is going to be a lot of progress over the next 10 or 20 years,” said Dr Winter.
His link with Ninewells is not being severed. Daughter Alexandra is a medical student at the hospital.
Dr and Mrs Winter have a daughter Sarah who is a lawyer in Dundee, and Noah’s dad Stuart lives in Edinburgh.