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Dr David Levy
Dr Nessie Maybin
Dr Jed Rowe

Dr David Levy (1927 - 2008)
Born 1927 in Cape Town, David qualified in medicine in 1950 and had his initial postgraduate training and experience in the rural settings of Bulawayo (in what is now Zimbabwe), handling diseases like Malaria,Typhoid etc.

He came to the UK in early ‘50’s and whilst working as a junior doctor in Epping, managed to get his MRCP in 1955, after which he returned to South Africa to work as a Medical Registrar at the Groote Schuur Teaching hospital. A few years later he moved to Port Elizabeth as a ‘private’ practitioner covering a wide rural area using small air transportation for ‘visits’! Around this time he was developing a renal service in which he had a lifelong interest. Later, as a consultant physician in Port Elizabeth, he set up an ambulatory peritoneal dialysis team, a relatively innovative service those days.

Those were, however, the days of apartheid in South Africa; and as a life long liberal, like many others David left that country and decided to settle in Britain. Prof John Brocklehurst gave him an opening to ‘specialise’ in Geriatric Medicine (again another area of interest to David). In South Manchester in 1978; he became a senior lecturer working alongside Davis Coakley and Michael Lye.

In 1981 he moved to Bolton as an NHS Consultant Physician in Geriatric Medicine, partnering me. David’s arrival in Bolton was like a breath of fresh air! A superb clinician, an excellent teacher, a researcher with an analytical mind, he soon became an asset to the department and to the whole elderly care service. Most importantly, it was his gentle nature and genial disposition that charmed everyone - patients, staff, colleagues and indeed, the community at large. David soon got involved in the ongoing research projects in the department and set up his own ‘new’ study on assessing kidney function in older people – resulted in high quality publications in the Quarterly Journal of Medicine among others. He made an enormous contribution to the service development and educating people on the importance of ‘early’ and ‘acute’ intervention in disease of old age. With Coakley and Lye, he published a small book on ‘Acute Geriatric Medicine’.

Never raising his voice, always smiling and considerate of others, David was a dearly loved friend and colleague in the whole of North West. He was ‘asked’ to take up the Chairmanship of the Regional BGS Committee, a role in which he continued for several years, even after his retirement from the Bolton NHS service in 1992. Along with a few like minded colleagues, we set up a ‘research’ group, BOLDSTOCK, to encourage and undertake research in the DGH setting, involving our registrars. This group produced several publications and David was requested to do some part time work at the Bolton Hospice - a job which he undertook for a few years in the mid nineties.

David was deeply interested in his patients and he used to ‘fight’ the adversities and service inadequacies; he could be very firm and assertive when necessary. His health had been reasonably good despite one or two minor hiccups – attending virtually all the Regional meetings and College lectures and maintaining contact with colleagues and friends. I met him in early August at a conference at Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport. We were planning to meet up again, as usual, for a pub snack lunch. Sadly that meeting never happened. David passed away suddenly during the early hours of Tuesday September 9th, after a brief illness; perhaps this is the best way to go and that was what he himself would have wanted (don’t we all?) But so sudden a passing is very traumatic for the rest of us - his family and close friends. He is survived by his charming wife Shirley, a fellow medic from South Africa, now retired, and three grown up children - Ruth, Cathy and Philip. To them and his numerous friends we send our condolences.

I have a lost a very very dear kind and supportive close friend.

Arup K Banerjee
(BGS President 1996-98)

Dr Agnes J A "Nessie" Maybin (1916 - 2008)
Dr Nessie Maybin, formerly Consultant in Geriatric Medicine in the Belfast City and Crawfordsburn Hospitals was born on 2 April 1916 near Broughshane, Ballymena, Co Antrim.

From an early age she wanted to study medicine and she graduated from Queen’s University, Belfast in 1938, one of only five women and one of the youngest in her year. Her original intention to specialise in paediatrics was cut short when she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and she spent 21/2 years in hospital.

She then decided on a career in chest medicine and after further training opened a new TB unit in Musgrave Park Hospital, Belfast. In 1947 she was awarded the MD degree with distinction. With the advent of successful treatment of TB, the need for specialised services declined, and, like other chest physicians of that time, Dr Maybin re-trained and entered the relatively new specialty of geriatrics. She worked with Professor George Adams in the Belfast City Hospital and with Dr Eddie Knox from whom she took responsibility for Crawfordsburn Hospital. She retired from full-time work in 1976.

In 1951, Nessie Maybin married the Reverend Malcolm Redman, a young Methodist minister who had also suffered from TB. From then, she combined the roles of consultant, minister’s wife and mother to John. At the height of the Northern Ireland “troubles”, Malcolm was stationed on the Springfield Road Belfast, one of the communal interface areas, with their manse being in the centre of strife-torn Belfast.

Following her retirement Nessie continued as honorary medical officer to the Belfast Abbeyfield Society, became President of the Medical Woman’s Federation of Northern Ireland and was active in many other organisations. She was particularly proud of her three grandchildren.

Nessie Maybin was a caring and conscientious doctor, an excellent clinician who worked hard and demanded the highest standards from colleagues. She inspired great loyalty from the members of her team who remained her friends into her retirement. She died on 27 June 2008. Her husband died in 1997 and she is survived by her son John and three grandchildren.

Bob Stout

BGS Newsletter, Dec 2008
Issue 19 ISSN 1748-6343 19