I joined the staff of CMF in April 1989 as Assistant General Secretary to Keith Sanders, taking over as General Secretary when he retired in October 1990. From the beginning, he gave me four portfolios: students, juniors, literature, and the Medical Study Group, while keeping general admin, missionaries, and ICMDA...
The impact of CMF and the International Christian Medical and Dental Association (ICMDA), as well as the influence of some of the outstanding pioneers of both movements, have been significant factors throughout my adult life. The tale that follows could, no doubt, be echoed by many other grateful CMF members...
I attended a Church of England all-girls school a stone's throw from the CMF Offices in London. Each year, in the middle of March, we would mark the school's annual commemoration service by walking to Southwark Cathedral and wearing a rose to remember the payment for the school's rent when...
Those following Mark Pickering's Triple Helix articles 'lessons from the archives' will know that nursing has a strongly Christian heritage. 1 This influence was evident in many hospitals even up to the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, a secular perspective has influenced every part of British society, including nursing, moving...
You can't really know where you are going until you know where you have been. Maya Angelou [1] Ah! Here's a good place, I think. Let's stop for a minute.' Little encouragement is needed; there's a click, shuffle, and thump as backpacks are unfastened and straps are shrugged off shoulders down to...
We recently reported the passing of Dr Keith Sanders, CMF's second General Secretary, who died in November 2023 at the age of 98.[1] Although I didn't have the privilege of meeting Keith during his life, it was an honour to be present at his thanksgiving service in Tewkesbury Abbey on...
From the very first days of the Christian medical movement in the UK, students played key roles, as seen in the earlier articles in this series. In the 1840s, the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society began by spreading the message of medical mission to a new generation of students.[1] In the...
The Ethics of Global Organ Acquisition Moral arguments about transplantation Trevor Stammers Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, £19.79, 272pp ISBN: 9781350227187 Reviewed by David Smithard, Consultant in Geriatric Medicine at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, Visiting Professor at the University of Greenwich & Triple Helix Editor ' T here is no doubt that organ transplantation is one...
Welcome to the CMF 75th anniversary edition of Triple Helix! In case you missed it in all our other correspondence, on 22 October 2024, it will officially be 75 years since the Christian Medical Fellowship was formed. My article on page 18 tells the story. Looking back may feel a little...
'The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon...They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green'. (Psalm 92:12 & 14) These words from the Lord have continued to encourage me over the years, before and after retiring from...
Midwifery was in the news for all the wrong reasons at the end of last year, and again in mid-May this year. As a midwife of ten years, I was heartbroken to read headlines from The Times saying: 'Midwives' "toxic" working conditions putting babies' lives at risk, report finds',[1] and...
There are times when you see a confluence of evils merging from afar, but they merge so slowly that most people remain totally unaware of them, or if they are, they simply shrug their shoulders and move on. I first wrote about my concerns over organ donation from those requesting...
On 29 March 2024, Liam McArthur, MSP, announced his 'Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill' to the Scottish Parliament.[1]If passed, it legalises within the Scottish NHS doctor-assisted suicide for those with an advanced illness. This would mean that a 'terminally ill' patient of 16 years and above, with...
Dr Jill Brock (b 1937, q 1962, Oxford, d 2 August 2023). M edical Oncologist. Jill was the founding medical director of Wirral Hospice St John's. She worked as a consultant oncologist at Clatterbridge Hospital and also treated paediatric oncology patients at Alder Hey, continuing for twelve years as hospice medical...
So, here I am, returning to Mount Nebo in Jordan for this 40-day retreat. Nebo has great significance in biblical history: 'Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo...There the Lord showed him the whole land...Then the Lord said to him, 'This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and...