On 31 July 2010, Nigel Ewen Douglas MacLean, aged 52, of 6 Montague Road, Inverness IV3 5DX.
Mr MacLean registered in 1982 and retired from the Register in April 2010. A memorial service will be held at Guy’s Hospital Chapel, London SE1, on 10 September at 4.30pm.
Tributes
TONY WEST (chief pharmacist, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, London) writes on behalf of the pharmacy and renal teams: Even when expected, it comes as a shock to hear the sad news that a valued colleague and friend has passed away after a long illness.
But in sorrow there is the opportunity to reflect on Doug Maclean’s contribution to our profession and smile again as we remember what we affectionately refer to as “Doug stories”.
But first a little of Doug’s journey as a pharmacist while he was employed here at Guy’s. He came down from Inverness in 1981 to join the staff here and therefore gained his gold badge for 25 years service to our hospitals a few years ago.
By 1985 he had moved into manufacturing and in 1989 he was appointed as dispensary manager — and those who know Doug will wonder just how did that happen.
In the late 80s Guy’s was at the forefront not just of clinical care but of resource management, with some of the earliest records of “clinical directorates”. Like a number of pharmacists at that time, Doug drifted towards a specialisation in clinical pharmacy before anyone had really started to use the term.
Along with Andy Kostrzewski, Doug ran one of the few pharmacy-based pharmacokinetic advisory services in the UK, and it is therefore not surprising that the clinical directorate he worked most with was renal and he had found his niche. He was a true consultant pharmacist and again well before anyone had considered such a role.
Doug worked in both the renal and pharmacy teams, respected by all, including the patients. There are lots of words you could use about Doug — kind, considerate, helpful, but none really does him justice. For his pharmaceutical expertise, breadth and depth, he will therefore be sorely missed.
Now, how about Doug the man. Well, best to start with pharmacy again and his passion for research, both contributing to it and reading it to use in his everyday practice.
Doug invented “chaotic storage” long before we had robots to do it for us. Looking at Doug’s desk with its piles of research papers, you would mistakenly have thought there was no order there — but ask a question and a hand would delve into the pile, pick the paper he needed and thumb through to page and paragraph. Some might call it magic; others, just a reflection of his intellect.
This perhaps gives a hint as to what “Doug stories” are all about, and we are indebted to his family for sharing a couple that pre-date his time with us. Two stand out as examples of early research work.
The first: add flammable liquid to air with an ignition source in an enclosed space … one less shed in Scotland. The second: you want to watch leeches at work so you invite your sisters with their fishing nets into a pond on a golf course … willing research subjects or guinea pigs?
And there are two from his time with us. It is not that unusual to buy two live lobsters in a south London pub, but certainly confusing to his friends and colleagues who did not recollect him having anything suitable in which to cook them. However that was not the issue: it was leaving them in the back of a cab that evening and having to phone around to get them rescued that added substance to the story.
To finish, imagine yourself in a foreign city at a conference and you are several floors up in a building, do you choose to go through the door marked “fire exit only”? If you did, would you then admire the cityscape in front of you while the fire door gently clicked shut behind you? There was no way back.
All we can do here is give a flavour of Doug. Those who knew him will need no reminder of how generous a man he was with his friendship and knowledge and we really have missed him since he moved away. With his smile, a twinkle on the eye and a little chuckle he could get away with almost anything, and often did.
It was a real privilege for us to have known and worked with Doug. Our thoughts now are with his mother Betty, and his sisters Carolyn and Iona.
