James Robson (1921-2010)

James Scott Robson, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, died on 14 March 2010, aged 88.

Educated at Hawick High School, James came to Edinburgh to study medicine in 1939.

Three years later he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Studentship and sailed to America to complete his medical training.

In 1944 he graduated MD from New York University Medical School, then gained his MBChB with Honours in 1945 and MD with commendation from Edinburgh.

From 1945 to 1948 he served as a Captain with the Royal Army Medical Corps in India, Palestine and Egypt.

In 1949 James was awarded a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship, which he held at Harvard’s Department of Nutrition and Biochemistry.

He returned briefly to Harvard in 1962 as an Honorary Associate Professor.

During the 1950s he helped establish Edinburgh’s renal biopsy service and the Acute Renal Failure Service at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary.

James was a superb bedside teacher, an excellent lecturer and a gifted writer, and he helped modernise Edinburgh’s undergraduate medical curriculum.

He became Reader in Therapeutics in 1961, Reader in Medicine in 1969 and Professor of Medicine in 1977.

He was an examiner for the Royal Colleges of Physicians in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London, President of the Renal Association (1977 to 1980) and the Merck Sharp and Dohme Visiting Professor in Australia in 1968.

James enjoyed gardening, literature, theatre and contemporary art.

He died quietly at home following a period of hospitalisation. He is survived by his wife, Mary, and two sons.

Notes

A full version of this obituary will be published in the summer edition of Bulletin magazine.