A tribute to John A J MacLeod

James Douglas

qualifications: MD, FRCGP, FRCPE

United Kingdom

Dr Douglas attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh and is a graduate of University of Aberdeen. After hospital jobs in Aberdeen, he became involved in off-shire medicine in Aberdeen and researching the illnesses of deep-sea divers.

In 1979, he moved to Fort William to train in General Practice and to become the Medical Officer for the Underwater Training Centre in Fort William, where he continued his research interests.

He became involved in postgraduate medical education and the training of GPs.

He also became the Medical Officer for the newly emerging fish-farming industry in the West Coast of Scotland and was the first to describe the Occupational Health problems associated with that industry. In 1995, he gained his MD Thesis after describing a new cause of Occupational Asthma, which had been affecting his GP patients who were working at the new salmon processing factory.

In 1997, his General Practice became one of the first GP Research Practices in Scotland and he founded the Highland Primary Care Research Network. He continues to research flu immunisation and diagnosis in his Fort William patients and other primary care research projects.

In March 2000, he was appointed Director of the Remote And Rural Areas Resource Initiative (RARARI) on behalf of the Scottish Executive. This Initiative is tasked with addressing the many challenging issues, which face the NHS in the remote and rural areas of Scotland, by means of education, research and service re-design. The Initiative completed in March 2004.

In 2004, he was then appointed to Locality Clinical Lead for the Lochaber Local Healthcare Partnership, which aims to obtain better working relationships between national health service and local authority care systems. He remains in this post to date.

He continues to work part-time as a GP and is married with four children. His leisure interests include sailing and swimming.