New Horizons
1980s
1980
HRH Duke of Edinburgh and then Chancellor of the University of Cambridge officially opens the Clinical School Building.
1980
First edition of the School of Clinical Medicine Regius newsletter published.
1981
Addenbrooke’s Whole Body Scanner Unit officially opened by HRH Prince of Wales.
1983
Rosie Maternity Unit opens, ahead of schedule thanks to a generous donation from local philanthropist Sir David Robinson.
1984
The oriental plane tree is planted ceremoniously near the original LMB building.
1984
Tom Sherwood becomes Dean.
1984
First ‘Directions in Clinical Assessment’ conference in Cambridge is organised by Richard Wakeford.
1985
Sally Pinnock becomes Secretary of the School.
1986
Penny Morris pilots a clinical communication skills course at the School.
1986
MRC Unit of Molecular Genetics established under Sydney Brenner.
1987
Keith Peters appointed Regius.
1988
Clinical Academic Reserve established to support new developments in academic medicine in Cambridge, through the work of Dr Michael O’Brien, then Director of Public Health for the East Anglian Regional Health Authority.
The School of Clinical Medicine Building
The new undergraduate clinical school was built on the Addenbrooke’s site. Although there had been some debate about building near Lensfield Road, the School building’s proximity to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB) was key and signalled the University’s commitment to the expanding Addenbrooke’s site. It was Professor Joseph Mitchell’s idea to co-locate the buildings of the School and MRC LMB.
Cusdin Burden & Howitt were selected as architects for the new building. Thomas – or Teddy, as he was known – Cusdin specialised in academic and hospital buildings, having designed both St Bart’s and Middlesex Hospital medical schools, and the new Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
Faculty members of the School break ground at the site of the new building. Image: Francis Chalmers.
In his inaugural address in the School’s large lecture theatre, Butterfield thanked all involved: donors, committee members, architects, surveyors and the builders, Coulson and Son of Cambridge, who despite problems with weather and supply setbacks, had handed over the building just in time for the 1980 student intake.
The new building housed lecture theatres, seminar rooms, and common rooms as well as the pathology museum, a library with space for 140,000 volumes including leather-bound editions of The Lancet, and – as a nod to Cambridge’s role in discovering the structure of DNA – a spiral staircase. “Our spiral leads to knowledge in the library above, and the means of achieving things – through our administration – on the top floor!” said Butterfield, in the first edition of the School’s newsletter.
Doctors Go to Class for Bedside Manner
In 1986, Penny Morris began a pilot course of clinical communications skills at the School. She was Britain’s first full-time teacher of doctor-patient communication skills and organised the first national conference on teaching communication in medicine in 1988 at the School.
The pilot was developed in collaboration with Richard Wakeford, who had been the senior researcher for the General Medical Council on its Survey of Basic Medical Education in the British Isles 1973-1976. Following Wakeford’s survey, the GMC recommended that medical schools provide training in communication skills throughout their undergraduate medical curriculum.
In the Cambridge pilot, half the School's clinical cohort received additional training and assessments using video recordings. Students relished the chance to develop their skills when speaking with patients.
One student, Jessica Harris, shared her perspective with The Sunday Times: ‘The more I do medicine, the more I am learning that if I am to be a good doctor I have to see every patient as an individual. [...] Cure and care are equally important parts of the equation.’
Doctors Go to Class for Bedside Manner
In 1986, Penny Morris began a pilot course of clinical communications skills at the School. She was Britain’s first full-time teacher of doctor-patient communication skills and organised the first national conference on teaching communication in medicine in 1988 at the School. The pilot was developed in collaboration with Richard Wakeford, who had been the senior researcher for the General Medical Council on its Survey of Basic Medical Education in the British Isles 1973-1976. Following Wakeford’s survey, the GMC recommended that medical schools provide training in communication skills throughout their undergraduate medical curriculum.
In the Cambridge pilot, half the School's clinical cohort received additional training and assessments using video recordings. Students relished the chance to develop their skills when speaking with patients.
One student, Jessica Harris, shared her perspective with The Sunday Times: ‘The more I do medicine, the more I am learning that if I am to be a good doctor I have to see every patient as an individual. [...] Cure and care are equally important parts of the equation.’
The Cambridge Biomedical Campus' oriental plane tree.
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From Kos to Cambridge: the Oriental Plane Tree
The oriental plane tree (Platanus orientalis) has been part of the history of Addenbrooke’s and the Clinical School since 1984, but its significance to the history of medicine has deeper roots. Hippocrates practised medicine on the Greek island of Kos and is said to have taught his students in the shade of an oriental plane. The oriental plane at Addenbrooke’s is claimed as a descendant of Hippocrates’ tree. It was grown from seed by Josephine Hallam Coslett (1924-2024) and, when it outgrew her garden, she gave the tree to Addenbrooke’s. At the tree planting, a small band of enthusiasts – Jo, her husband Terry, the medical director of Addenbrooke’s and senior colleagues – joined hands beside and recited a Hippocratic aphorism: Life is short. The art long. Opportunity fleeting. Experiment dangerous. Judgement difficult. As Lord Butterfield declared, ‘the tree flourishes in the dry Cambridge soil, a symbolic link with Kos and 2,500 years of European medicine’.
