Noel Godfrey Chavasse - University and Early Professional Career

University and Early Professional Career

In 1907, Noel graduated with First-class honours but Christopher failed, leading to a nervous breakdown. Both of them stayed at Oxford, Noel to study medicine and Christopher to retake his exams. During their time at Trinity, both men had not neglected their sports, rugby union being a favourite of theirs. In 1908, both twins represented Great Britain in the Olympic Games in the 400 metres. Noel finished second in his heat while Christopher finished third, neither time being fast enough to progress further.

In January 1909, Noel joined the Oxford University Officers' Training Corps Medical Unit. By the following May, he was promoted to Lance-Sergeant. Noel finished his studies at Oxford in July 1909 and returned to Liverpool to continue his studies under such eminent teachers as Sir Robert Jones who went on to become a leading authority in orthopaedic surgery.

On returning to Liverpool, Chavasse resumed his connection with the Grafton Street Industrial School, an institution for homeless boys in Liverpool. In the autumn, he went to London to sit his examination for Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons. He failed, apparently because of ill health. When he sat the examination again in May 1910, he passed it with ease. Christopher, in the meantime, was well into his studies for the ministry under his father's guiding hand. Noel progressed through his studies having studied pathology and bacteriology. As part of his course, he was obliged to undertake a hospital "placement". He found a position at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. Whilst Chavasse liked Dublin, his first experience of living in a Roman Catholic community disturbed him. He took a dislike to the local priesthood whom he considered lazy and avaricious.

In January 1912 Chavasse passed his final medical examination, and was awarded the university's premier medical prize, the Derby Exhibition, in March that year. On 22 July 1912, Noel registered as a doctor with the General Medical Council. His first placement was at the Royal Southern Hospital in Liverpool, initially until 31 March 1913 and then for a further six months. He then became house surgeon to Robert Jones, his former tutor.

Read more about this topic:  Noel Godfrey Chavasse

Famous quotes containing the words university, early, professional and/or career:

    Cold an old predicament of the breath:
    Adroit, the shapely prefaces complete,
    Accept the university of death.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    [My early stories] are the work of a living writer whom I know in a sense, but can never meet.
    Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)

    Virtue and vice suppose the freedom to choose between good and evil; but what can be the morals of a woman who is not even in possession of herself, who has nothing of her own, and who all her life has been trained to extricate herself from the arbitrary by ruse, from constraint by using her charms?... As long as she is subject to man’s yoke or to prejudice, as long as she receives no professional education, as long as she is deprived of her civil rights, there can be no moral law for her!
    Flora Tristan (1803–1844)

    Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.
    Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)