Dr John K Davidson OBE
August 1925 – March 2025
Qualifying on the same day the NHS was created in 1948, Dr John K Davidson, ‘Jake’ to his friends, was a proud advocate of free health at the point of care. Like many of his colleagues, he believed in the ideals of the NHS and strived to provide the best services for his patients. He always claimed to be lucky, but through sheer determination and many challenging meetings with health boards he fought for the latest equipment and increased staff to build radiology services in Glasgow. He believed he worked in the ‘Golden Age of Radiology’ and indeed the developments in his specialty during his working life were spectacular. He introduced ultrasound following work with Ian Donald, moved from using red goggles in the barium suite to digital fluoroscopy, installed one of the early CT scanners and saw the introduction of MRI. He was determined to build the best department in Scotland.
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Following jobs in general practice, he decided on a career in radiology and enrolled for the Diploma in Medical Radiology (DMRD) in Edinburgh under Professor McWhirter, moving to St Bartholomew’s in London as a Senior Registrar. There, George Simon was the charismatic, highly respected respiratory radiologist and the story was told of how on being shown King George VI’s chest radiograph, lung cancer was diagnosed (not TB for which he was being treated). Overnight X-ray equipment was taken to Wigmore Street where the King was being treated and more chest X-rays confirmed the diagnosis. The London Senior Registrars had formed a monthly radiology club to discuss interesting cases and from this, the ’62 Club’ emerged with annual meetings supported by Jake for many years. Following FFR and MRCP Jake secured a job as the sole consultant at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow. With huge help from the hospital board, he appointed two more colleagues, installed equipment and built a thriving department. The bone disease associated with decompression sickness in workers building the adjacent Clyde Tunnel provided Jake with wonderful material for an MD thesis and this niche allowed him to become an international expert in this condition.
But his sights were set on the prestigious Western Infirmary in Glasgow. In 1967 he was invited by Professor Sir Andrew Watt Kay and Professor Roland Barnes to apply for an academic chair, but he preferred to be appointed as Head of Department, making the promise he would build a strong excellent service. He visited Jerome Conn, an American endocrinologist, and his team in Ann Arbor, USA, to learn interventional techniques to diagnose adrenal adenomas to bring back to the Western for the burgeoning blood pressure unit. It was the interaction with the ambitious surgeons and physicians in Glasgow that drove his passion to bring innovations to Glasgow.
In 1977, he was The Royal College of Radiologists’ (RCR) Rohan Williams Professor travelling to Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Being sociable and curious he loved the trip and hospitality and managed to combine it with his other passion, golf. Jake recognised the importance of the RCR in improving and maintaining standards, always arguing that the medical profession had to own the responsibility for good practice. He had two terms on Council and felt his most useful contribution was as Chairman of the Examining Board. He examined in Dublin and travelled to Bagdad and Kuala Lumpur on behalf of the RCR in support of the young trainees.
He was invited to join the International Skeletal Society and was thrilled to be awarded the Gold Medal and made an Honorary Fellow. Similar accolades were given by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College and the American College of Radiologists. He was thrilled to be awarded an OBE in 1990 although forever the Glasgow humour, his colleagues renamed it the ‘Order of the Barium Enema’.
He owed much of his success to his wife Edith, a radiographer who he had met in the dark room in Edinburgh as a trainee. Enjoying 30 years of retirement he had more time for his family and grandchildren, continued to play golf for as long as he could, and took up painting and bridge. He wrote golf articles, and like many, penned his autobiography ‘Jake’s Corner’, which he had to reprint as he finally had a hole-in-one aged 85! As he would say himself ‘It’s never too late…’.
His passion for radiology never diminished and neither did his frustration with the inadequate funding for his specialty. He cared deeply for the NHS and believed in the founding principles of free medical care for all, based on clinical need.
