Provocateur
John Martin

John Martin

John Martin is a clinician, researcher and teacher who has had an immensely distinguished career. Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at University College London, he also Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Yale and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Science. He was President of the European Society of Clinical Investigation, President of the European Critical Care Foundation and Vice President of the European Society of Cardiology. He has also held posts in Melbourne and at King’s College, London. Early in his medical ascent, he was Regimental Medical Officer, Gurkha Field Force, Hong Kong.

But his interests range far beyond medicine. Apart from many scientific works, he has produced a book of poems and short stories. He has also published poetry in the London Magazine. He started his academic career by studying philosophy in Spain, and is as much at home in a great art gallery – or a great library – as in a great hospital.

In hospitals, he has striven to alleviate aspects of the human condition. In philosophy, culture and religion he has tried to make sense of that condition on the broadest of canvases. This is a man entitled to say: ‘nil humanum a me alienum.’

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Opinion

A Cardiologist Views Brexit

I am as British as any Brexiteer. I served as Regimental Medical Officer in the Gurkha Field Force in Hong Kong. An ancestor lost a leg at Waterloo. My family members were decorated in several wars. Thirty members of my family served around the world in the East Yorkshire Regiment and the Northumberland Fusiliers. Imperial glory runs in my veins. I feel the tingle of a special relationship when in Delhi or in “The Commonwealth of Connecticut”. But the past belongs to the past. I belong to the future. Although I enjoy reverie as part of my personal culture, it does not determine my destiny.

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Religion

The Innocence of Uncle Reg

Uncle Reg was a priest in Yorkshire. He looked forward to death with the certainty that it would lead to eternal happiness. On my last visit he pointed out the spot where he wanted to be buried, under the dry-stone wall beside the West Riding church where he used to officiate. It was a beautiful winter’s day. The gravesite was illuminated by a snowy sun; Uncle Reg, by the sunshine of faith. He had fulfilled himself totally. His maximum income from the diocese had been £800 per year, but this had never impeded happiness.

Uncle Reg’s one secular passion (not vice) was motorcycles. The great love of his life (after Christ and the Church) was a Norton 500. As I saw him ascending Pennine hills with the throbbing Norton beneath him, I realized that this was a mechanism for dealing with celibacy. I am sure that this thought had never occurred to him.

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