December 3, 2021, by School of Medicine
50 at 50: Alumni 40th Year Reunion Tour at the Medical School
On Saturday 13th November, the School of Medicine was honoured to host an event for an alumni gathering. The group had got in touch and asked if it was possible to have a tour of the Medical School as they were holding a 40th Year Reunion in Nottingham. The arrangements were put in place by Julie Hall, and involved an informal lunch gathering, followed by a tour led by three Medsoc students; Sanjana Mamidipalli, Khushi Joshi and Ahsab Chowdhury.
The cohort arrived to study Medicine in 1976 and graduated in 1981. There were 96 students in this group, and they couldn’t believe how the student numbers have grown since. Below are their student mug shots which were gratefully provided by UoN Archives;
It was interesting to hear their stories and anecdotes and reflect on how things have changed, there was a definite buzz about the place as the group excitedly chatted and met up with one another. Prior to lunch, we led the group outside and managed to get a group photograph, which they have been very grateful to receive.
Following lunch, the tour started and covered key areas of the Medical School. The first port of call was the Greenfield Library, which we discovered that part of this area used to be used as their exam hall! Following this the tour group was led to the Lecture Theatres (LT1 and LT3), the majority of the group remembered the smaller lecture theatre, rather than LT1. Their cohort size was small in comparison to these days so they very rarely frequented LT1. There was lots of excited chatter in the Lecture Theatres as the venue was starting to bring back memories for them…I heard several times…”Do you remember when…”
Next, they were taken up to E Floor to visit the Anatomy Suite, where they were shown around by Technicians, Leia Boote and Jo Lockley. They all seemed to remember this well, and several people comments about the fact that they didn’t wear gloves in those days for dissection class, and how they can still recall the smells!
Finally, the tour finished with a visit to C33, a Teaching Lab to showcase how things have changed since they studied Medicine. They were in awe at the technology and amount of kit available now to students. One alumni commented how he regularly had to go across the other side campus, just to use a computer.
The group finished the tour with lots of gratitude for being given the opportunity to come back and visit the place where they studied 40 years ago, and have such fond memories of. They left the building very animated, and it was lovely to see people being genuinely grateful for us arranging this little tour.
Following the event the following feedback was provided from the group;
It was interesting to see the changes that have occurred over the past 4 decades.
It is hard to believe that when we arrived in 1976, there were no mobile phones and there was no internet.
We all agree that we received an excellent education at Nottingham and we have gone on to benefit in many ways.
We still have a great affection for the place!
Many thanks to everyone involved for giving their time so generously and for being so engaged, and also our thanks to the 40th Year Alumni Group for sharing such interesting memories with us.
Specifically, thank you to the following people who helped make this event happen; Micheal Doyle, Linda Allsop, Emma Russell, Professor Brigitte Scammell, Ruby Ali, Professor Guru Aithal, Professor Alistair Warren, Kathryn Steenson (Archives), Anatomy Suite Technicians (Leia Boote and Jo Lockley), C33 Technicians (Chris Jones and Jagdish Heer), and the Medsoc Students listed above, and also 3rd Year Medicine Student Hassan Akram for providing lovely Piano music over lunch.
By Julie Hall, Project and Implementation Officer in the School of Medicine
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