1 GLASGOW-born medical pioneer Professor Sir Patrick Forrest was the driving force behind the first comprehensive cancer screening programme in the world. Born in Mount Vernon in 1923, his research into breast cancer and the benefits of countrywide screening and clinical trials saved many lives.
2 Sir Patrick was born in Glasgow and he read Medicine at St Andrews University. He graduated as a Bachelor of Surgery and as a Master of Surgery with the Gold Medal in 1945. He did his national service as a Surgeon Lieutenant in the RNVR and then spent a year in Rochester, Minnesota as a Mayo Clinic Fellow.
3 He returned to Glasgow in 1956 to serve as senior lecturer at the Western Infirmary where his groundbreaking research into peptic ulceration was recognised with a Master of Surgery with Honours and the Gold Medal. In 1971, he became Regius Chair of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh and helped to establish the city as one of the leading international centres in breast disease research and treatment.
4 Forrest also established the standalone breast unit at Longmore Hospital – now part of Edinburgh’s Western General – and his research, which became known as The Forrest Report, in 1986, led to the introduction of the 1988 NHS Breast Screening Programme.
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5 Sir Patrick won many prestigious awards, and even after retiring in 1990, he continued to inspire and advise colleagues around the world. He spent two years in Kuala Lumpur and a year with Malaysia University advising on screening techniques, advised the Australian National Cancer Centre, and in 1999 was appointed chairman of the Scottish Cancer Foundation, which he had co-founded two years earlier with Professor John Evans. He was knighted in 1986 and sadly died just a few months aged 98, on August 7, 2021.
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