Like nurses and other allied health professionals, Caribbean doctors and dentists also had mixed experiences of getting on in the NHS. Some were consistently successful; in other cases, discrimination caused problems.

By the end of 1963, Dr Eddie Adams “was doing locum work for King’s College. I did casualty and venereology. I was anxious to work. I was feeling good … From there I worked in Lambeth Hospital, doing surgery, and from there I was attached to St Thomas’s Hospital doing surgery again. I was a surgical

houseman. You do minor operations and assist the registrar and consultant doing the big operations. It was urology and general surgery in Lambeth Hospital and at St Thomas’s Hospital it was ear, nose and throat surgery. I found it very good and I was well taught. I was at Orsett Hospital in casualty in Essex for one year and from Orsett back to Albert Dock Orthopaedic Hospital in Alnick Road for two years. I worked as a senior house surgeon in obstetrics and gynaecology at King’s College Hospital. I then worked at Chertsey and Acton hospitals as a casualty registrar for two years each. From Acton I went to do general practice in Clarence Avenue, London.”

John Parboosingh “did house jobs in Edinburgh and then my first obstetric house job … I did the house jobs right up until June 1966. By this time I had applied for this job in the Royal Infirmary … Then I was promoted to a lecturer position and worked for two years. I became a senior registrar in the Royal Infirmary. It was absolutely fantastic; it was a fantastic learning environment, very practical and also lots of positive feedback … You worked with individuals for many, many years so that you could benefit from role models. I became a senior lecturer with senior registrar status and then was appointed as senior lecturer with consultant status at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in 1972 … I started to

focus on obstetrics … and developed a regional programme in a high-risk clinic in a very low socio-economic area of Edinburgh called Sighthill; the obstetrics clinic is still going today. I also set up similar clinics in the Borders … we selected Sighthill because it had the highest perinatal mortality and morbidity rates … we now have several of these clinics coming out of the Royal Infirmary … I was the youngest consultant to be appointed in the Royal Infirmary.” Ultimately, Dr John Parboosingh decided to live and work in Canada but it was a difficult position because “one felt so comfortable and we were so welcomed in Edinburgh and there was nothing in my job at the time that I was unhappy about.”

Jean Parboosingh married and then “did three house jobs, one was at Chalmers Hospital in Edinburgh for six months, the second job I did was in obstetrics in the Elsie Inglis Hospital in Edinburgh and the third was a locum house job in gynaecology at the Royal Infirmary. I became pregnant in my last job and in those days you didn’t take on another house job or as a registrar if you were having a family. So I stayed at home for approximately six years having three children … when I decided to go back to work after raising three children … I decided to go into general practice. Well that was an experience that I really

Dr Eddie Adams aged 25 when a student nurse at Guyana Public Hospital, Georgetown