All aboard for Scotland
Over the past decade three siblings have visited Edinburgh Medical School from the USA to tread the halls and see the labs and lecture theatres where their father undertook his medical training in the 1930s.
Dr Jerome Sandford Tobis studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh between 1937 and 1939. It was anti-Semitism in the USA that steered him towards Edinburgh, but the outbreak of the Second World War and the rising influence of fascism in Europe forced him to return in 1939.
Escaping prejudice
In 1930s USA many medical schools imposed Jewish educational quotas, which stipulated the percentage of Jewish students they would allow to enrol. This forced many young Jews pursuing a career in medicine to travel to countries without such quotas. This is how a young Jerome Tobis came to board a ship bound for Scotland in 1937, to begin a two-year experience in Edinburgh that he would always remember dearly.
Wartime graduation
After leaving Edinburgh in 1939 Dr Tobis served as a Captain and stateside doctor in the US Army during the Second World War, posted in Brookhaven, Mississippi. He continued his medical training at Chicago Medical School and graduated in 1943.
Breakthrough research
Throughout his long medical career Dr Tobis headed numerous departments and led many significant projects, including the first scientific research to show the effectiveness of spinal manipulation in improving lower back pain. His fields of specialty included head injury, falls in the elderly and, in his later years, complementary medicine and medical ethics.
A family inspiration
Dr Tobis’s love of medicine and fond memories of Edinburgh inspired his son Jonathan and grandson Scott to follow him into the profession. His venture to Edinburgh and battle against adversity have truly inspired his whole family:
What courage and fortitude it must have taken to go to Scotland to study. Medical school for a Jewish man in the US in the 1930s would have been daunting enough, but he was willing to take those risks and forge new paths to achieve his dream. And his achievement inspired so many of us in profound ways. Education is attainable. Medicine is attainable. Medicine is noble. Medicine is a way to heal the world.
A moving experience
His three children, Heather, Jonathan and David have all visited Edinburgh Medical School to see where their father studied: Heather visited with her husband; Jonathan visited during his medical elective in London; and David delivered a lecture in the School of Health in Social Science while he was in the city. Each sibling recalls being moved by the experience and the knowledge that their father walked in the footsteps of renowned Edinburgh medical students such as Charles Darwin, Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Lister.
Visiting the Edinburgh Medical School was wonderful, to walk through the same rooms that our father walked, worked and learned to be the wonderful physician he became. The guides were so generous with their time and it was lovely to see current students, now learning the science and craft of medicine.