The Foulkes Foundation celebrated its 50
th anniversary this year. As part of the celebrations to mark this, I was invited to share a short memory of its visionary founder, Dr Ernest Foulkes, CBE. Ernest was convinced that supporting scientists to also qualify as doctors would bring about broader approaches to medical challenges and contribute to medical advancement.
I was a fresh-faced zoology graduate with a passion for parasites and an interest in faecal – oral disease transmission. It was not a great opener at parties.
These were different times. Southampton Medical School reserved 12 places for mature students and interestingly all the female mature students were single and all the male students married – living off their spouses. The women – us – were a feisty go-getting lot.
When I first met Ernest, he clocked the lack of adornment on my left ring finger and made a comment that today might sound un-PC but he said, “Someone will snap you up soon!”
He was right: my fellowship allowed me to access medical education and to write ten books. It also introduced me to a water engineer, my soulmate, and we worked together in low-income countries for half of our careers. We celebrated our 38
th wedding anniversary in September.
So the Foulkes vision allowed me to fulfil my vision towards improving the lives of impoverished people as well as improve my private life – I’m allowed to talk faecal-oral disease transmission over dinner. I doubt that Ernest would have anticipated that my career path would have culminated in my best-seller being the not-exactly professorial, “How to Shit Around the World.”
Here’s the link to the fellowship
https://www.foulkes-foundation.org