James Ward was officially opened on 29 Jan 1999 by retired Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Peter Brook. It was a purpose built acute admissions and assessment ward on the Hills Road site for people over 65 with mental health problems. It was Dr Brook’s dream when he first joined the mental health team at Fulbourn Hospital …
Orthopaedic Department
The development of the Orthopaedic Department at the Hospital is of particular interest since in some parts of the country it was held up by the general surgeons who strongly resented the loss of patients always regarded as coming within the province of surgery. This was not the case at Addenbrooke’s. An Orthopaedic Department was …
In Patient Admissions
I was looking for some information in early 20th Annual Reports of the Hospital when I came across a list of the parishes and towns patients had been admitted from. The lists are divided into in-patients and out-patients and the summary for in-patients in 1931. There had been 4,467 inpatient admissions during the year and …
Addenbrooke’s’ first open-heart operation
On the 10 January 1975 Addenbrooke’s first open-heart operation took place. The operation was on a 15 year old boy and was the first of six planned at Addenbrooke’s. The previous year the Hospitals Medical Committee had set up a programme to provide experience and training in open-heart surgery for medical, nursing and other staff. …
Nineteenth Century research at Addenbrooke’s
Sir George Murray Humphry was one of the giants of Cambridge medicine in the nineteenth century and surgeon at Addenbrooke’s Hospital for 52 years. He was elected surgeon in 1842 and he immediately began to use the hospital with the deliberate design of making a school of Medicine in Cambridge. Although the hospital was small …
Continue reading Nineteenth Century research at Addenbrooke’s
Nurses Gold Medal
In 1930 the first ‘Catherine Bowen Gold Award’ was given to the nurse who had gained the highest number of marks in her three years training. In 1929 Mr W H Bowen provided an endowment of £100 to provide a gold medal for the best nurse. Bowen was appointed in, 1910 an ENT surgeon at …
The out-patients department
In late October 1961 the new out-patient department on the Addenbrooke’s Hospital ‘New Site’ on Hills Road was opened. The minutes of the United Cambridge Hospitals Board of Governors, newly founded under the National Health Service, say that the primary needs for the new site were to provide a new out-patient department and a new …
Department of Nuclear Medicine
On the 12 Dec 1975 the official opening of the Dept of Nuclear Medicine at Addenbrooke's was carried by Sir Brian Windeyer who unveiled a plaque in the entrance lobby of the new building. The Department of Nuclear Medicine came into being in April 1973 with the appointment of Dr Philip Wraigh as Consultant in …
Addenbrooke’s First and Last Matron
Ann Perry - First Matron at Addenbrooke’s Ann Perry, a spinster offered her services to the Infirmary as recorded in the minutes on 21 July 1766 and was subsequently appointed as the first Matron, on 18 August. Her salary when the Hospital opened in October 1766 was £10 a year; and a ‘gratuity not exceeding …
Is nut butter better than butter?
A meeting of the Hospital’s House Sub-committee held on 29 November 1915 recorded that the Visiting Governors has suggested ‘in consequence of the increased price of butter, Nut butter should be substituted as an experiment’. The Committee approved of the substitution. A later meeting of the same committee held on 16 January 1916 records that …
