Dr George Mackie
Dr George Mackie
George Mackie was consultant radiologist in Wolverhampton 1971–2009. His career was one of innovation in a district general hospital, large volume high-quality productivity, training others and hospital leadership.
He grew up in Stourport-on-Severn where his father was a general practitioner (GP). He won a scholarship to Oundle, studied medicine at the University of Birmingham and qualified as a doctor aged 22. House jobs in Birmingham were followed by five years as a doctor in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He spent a year in the RAF base on Masirah Island, Oman. Its remote location helped develop in George Mackie clinical acumen, improvisation and coping skills that would stand to him all his professional life. He met his wife Hazel, a nursing sister, while working at RAF Ely. They moved to Birmingham where George did his radiology training.
Appointed a consultant radiologist in Wolverhampton in 1971, his many concise actionable reports and helpful clinical advice were much appreciated by hospital and GP colleagues. He developed expertise in ultrasound in which he maintained cutting edge performance for the next 30 years. He did a session a week at Bridgnorth Hospital where his valued service prompted its League of Friends to purchase an ultrasound scanner.
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27th November 1938 to 12th November 2017
Computed tomography (CT) scanners were confined to university teaching hospitals in the late 1970s when George resolved that Wolverhampton should also have this facility. He took time out of heavy clinical commitments to spend a session every week for many months at the CT unit of the Midland Centre for neurology and neurosurgery. Thanks to his initiative, as well as extensive lobbying locally and regionally, a Wolverhampton CT service was established in 1980. Other leadership roles followed including Clinical Director of Radiology for over ten years, and Chair of the Hospital's Audit Committee. He was one of a group of consultants that enabled New Cross to develop into a university teaching hospital. Many encouraged George Mackie to become its first medical director. However, clinical service was paramount to him.
He was a Midlands pioneer in interventional radiology. As with ultrasound and CT, many of his skills were acquired in an era before the internet, courses or even books for guidance. They were achieved through courage, dexterity, reading, prodigious patient service and clinician liaison many times a day. His peers’ trust in him was absolute and deserved. His commitment to acutely ill patients 24/7 was exceptional. He never dodged, obfuscated or put patients at extra risk. Meticulously careful and appropriately cautious, his clinical judgement matched his imaging and interventional skills. George's willingness to perform interventional procedures when not on call was much appreciated as was the support and understanding of his wife Hazel.
In 1995 The Royal College of Radiologists awarded George Mackie an Honorary Fellowship, a rare distinction given to very few.
George was as accomplished in his hobbies as in his radiology. He built his own sailing boat, a swimming pool, and was an able fisherman. A prodigious reader with an awesome ability to quote literature, Hazel and George enjoyed many walking holidays at home and abroad.
Sadly George's well deserved retirement was cut short by idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension. Hazel, who was the wind beneath George's wings throughout his career as a radiologist, lovingly nursed George at home during his three years inexorable illness, patiently borne. He also leaves four children, one a doctor, and nine grandchildren. His eldest grandchild is a fourth year medical student at Cambridge.
News of his death prompted great sadness and many fond recollections across the West Midlands. George Mackie will always be gratefully remembered.
Memoir Author: Dr Richard Fitzgerald
