Professor Stuart Campbell: His Formative Years

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Terry DuBose, M.S., RDMS, FAIUM, FSDMS: “I’m Terry Dubose, Chair of the Ultrasound section of OBGYN.net, and we have with us Professor Stuart Campbell from England who just gave a brilliant talk on the history of ultrasound, obstetrics, and gynecology. He covered everybody’s work and touched on his a little bit but we’d like to ask him a little bit about himself and fill in those early years and how he ended up here. So Professor, when were you born and where?”

Profressor Stuart Campbell: “I was born in 1936 in an industrial part of Glasgow. Shortly after that, the German bombers started coming over when I was a young lad so we were evacuated to the west coast of Scotland in a little town called Inverkiething, Lothian where we were suppose to be safe. Interestingly, although it was very safe there, they stationed American troops there and as a small child I saw Eisenhower and Churchill because they met there to make their grand designs I think for D-day. We used to follow American soldiers, ask for badges, and soldiers used to practice shooting out of the window of our house. I’d say it was actually quite an eventful time for a small boy and then we went back to a town called Paisley which is attached to the west side of Glasgow where I went to grammar school and then to Glasgow University.”

Terry DuBose, M.S., RDMS, FAIUM, FSDMS: “What kind of a school was it, a public school or private?”

Profesor Stuart Campbell: “It was a newer fee paying school but a very, very small fee. There were two fee paying schools in Paisley but it wasn’t very expensive but it was a fee paying school so I was with a selective group of pupils.”

Terry DuBose, M.S., RDMS, FAIUM, FSDMS: “Did it give you a good scientific background?”

Professor Stuart Campbell: “It was a good education and good enough to get me into medicine. My mother had been a nurse and was very, very passionate about medicine. My brother decided to do medicine so although I wasn’t passionately dedicated to be a doctor; I thought it was probably a reasonable thing to do. I remember going for my interview to get into Glasgow University and the man asked why do you want to do medicine and I said to him I didn’t hear the voice in the night if that’s what you mean, and he laughed so much that I just got automatic entry.”

Terry DuBose, M.S., RDMS, FAIUM, FSDMS: “That was where you started working with Ian Donald.”

Professor Stuart Campbell: “No, I went through my education, six years, to become a doctor then I left and went to Manchester and various other towns and then I came back. By this time Ian Donald started his new hospital, the Queen Mother’s Hospital, and he had started the ultrasound research. I went to see him and I said I’d like to work for him. He was a very intimidating man, and I sat there, there was a long period of silence as he was writing at his desk then he looked up and went - "all right", and that was it. So I was in and I got the job and I started to work for him. Funny enough, he was a great pioneer but not many people in the hospital were actually very interested in his research. He had his own little team but it was hard not to ignore because at that time the pictures were very murky. Nobody was very excited by them, and when I joined, it was almost unique for a junior doctor to say I’d like to work on this but I just loved it. I think imaging is just a natural thing for me, and I was just really lucky in getting into something, which I just loved. I just loved ultrasound from the first minute I started doing it and I still love it. Some of my happiest time in the week is when I just sit down and scan, that really is just a joy to me.”

Terry DuBose, M.S., RDMS, FAIUM, FSDMS: “Now which hospital are you at now, King George?”

Profesor Stuart Campbell: “No, I’m at St. George’s Hospital Medical School but I was at King’s College Hospital for twenty years. I just moved over for various reasons; one was that St. George’s Hospital had a scandal, they were a bit down, and I thought I would go right over and help them so I thought I would do it again.”

Terry DuBose, M.S., RDMS, FAIUM, FSDMS: “You’ve really participated in some of the landmark work in this field. We really appreciate you giving us this interview, and we wish you well and hope it continues. I know it will with vascular and 3D and everything else coming but that’s covering your other talk and we’ll just head into that.”

Professor Stuart Campbell: “Thank you very much.”

Terry DuBose, M.S., RDMS, FAIUM, FSDMS: “Thank you very much.”

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