Trust's very own 'mad scientist' retires after 49 and ¾ years

It's not every day Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has to bid farewell to someone who's been going up and down their corridors for nearly 50 years, but they recently did exactly that as Dermot Dobson retired last month.

A career starts in 1968

Dermot, who joined the Trust in 1968, started at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre as a porter. After 18 months, he joined the Churchill Hospital as a student technician ("the lowest possible grade"). Working in the old Radiation Physics Department, he was involved in high power laser work and the early days of ultrasound and radiotherapy dose plotting and monitoring.

X-ray, ultrasound, and CT scanning

Day release saw him studying electronic engineering at what used to be the Cowley Road College of Further Education, then on to Oxford Polytechnic - now better known as Oxford Brookes University.

He moved across into X-Ray Technical, a joint workshop between the NHS and University of Oxford that focused on management of X-Ray equipment. Keen on broadening his horizons, he then took training courses in diagnostic ultrasound.

"Some of the original rectilinear scanners were precursors to gamma cameras," said Dermot, "so I got myself trained on those. Godfrey Hounsfield then invented CT scanning, which was another thing to learn."

In 1974 Dermot met his wife-to-be Perdy, a former medical secretary who was then working as a nurse at the Churchill Hospital.

"You've been on-call the past 20 years!"

For many years, the Trust had one of the only CT scanners in the country. As a result, this meant  Dermot was 'on call' 24/7.

"I lost count of how many times Perdy and I were woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call because the  CT scanner was down, and someone was needed in a hurry," said Dermot.  "On one occasion the Police came to our door, so you can imagine that it was a rather urgent case.

"Things were a lot more make-do-and-mend back then, and the equipment was more basic. I remember once there was a large power supply that failed in the CT scanner. Both my astrophysics friend and I ended up fixing it at two in the morning using parts 'borrowed' from a solar furnace simulator to get things back up and running."

28 years ago, the John Radcliffe Hospital installed its first MRI scanner. Dermot was sent to the USA for training, and then worked continuously in MRI. He has also played a big role as an advisor for hugely innovative technology - including 3D printing to form a prostheses for maxillofacial surgery.

Along the way, he developed ImageLink, the first wide area teleradiology system in the UK, and also was instrumental in the early concept of distributed computing for climateprediction.net.

"I tried to retire six years ago," he said, "but clearly wasn't that successful. I had the statutory 48 hour retirement then came back! After a while, I stepped back to three days a week, and then down to one.  It's been good to be able to have that flexible approach to retirement - it's quite a big jump going from being the guy who everyone rings up, to being an old guy at home. If you've had a career spanning decades and then go to nothing, it can be quite difficult."

A 2m weather satellite dish in the back garden

So what's next for Dermot?

"A bit more travel," he says.  "Bratislava, Amsterdam, Rhodes, Northern Michigan, and Florida this year so far. We might add some more to that, as it doesn't quite work out as a trip per month yet."

It comes as no surprise that the work doesn't stop. "I have enough things to occupy me," says Dermot. He has a workshop laboratory at home, which has been the home of his designs for a stereo vision system for a robot submarine for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, home of the team who found the Titanic.

"I do some radio model flying and I wouldn't say I'm exactly good at it, but I can confidently say I don't crash much anymore.

"I’ve got plenty of other activities to crack on with - hiking in the Lake District, camping, that sort of thing. I've still got a two metre satellite dish in the back garden for high resolution weather images, and two garages full of stuff. One of the first things we're going to do in the summer is sit down on the lawn with a bottle of wine, and start pulling things out of the garages and look at what needs to go in the skip. Perdy has high hopes that I'm going to throw away lots of stuff."

"I’ve always been an all-round techy, geeky sort of bloke."

We had to ask Dermot the burning question - what's the difference between a geek and a nerd?

"A geek is somebody who might be a big fan of  'Star Wars', or 'Dr Who', but they're just a fan of it. A nerd is someone who's actively involved - nerds do things. I'm definitely a nerd.

"I've helped run a few science fiction conventions. One in Chicago helps raise funds to buy books for kids - like us, their library services are under strain, so I think that's important. We ran a couple in Brighton - we had to get clearance from the Civil Aviation Authorities for our firework display. They asked us if we were going to have aliens landing!"

"I’ve never been one for formal titles."

When asked what his current job title was, Dermot replied: "Project Team Leader in the Picture Archive Communications and Radiology Information System team. I don't like job titles. I've never been one for formal titles - or formal anything, really. One of the most accurate ways anyone described me is 'eccentric'. I prefer 'Mad Scientist'."

Steven Turnbull, a colleague of Dermot's who works as a Picture Archive Communications and Radiology Information System Consultant at the John Radcliffe Hospital, said: "Working with Dermot was a pleasure as his depth of knowledge and experience is immense - the only problem was that you came away from the conversation realising there was so much you did not know!

"We really will miss him, but we know he won't be bored for a second."