Charles Basil Shaw Schofield

After graduating, Charles Basil Shaw Schofield served for two years in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Allied Occupation of Germany (Ruhr), where he became aware of the extent of venereal diseases among the troops. The relatively recent discovery of penicillin made such a difference to the successful treatment of these stigmatised and destructive diseases that it greatly influenced his choice of future career.

After being demobbed Basil started work as a medical officer at Preston Hospital, North Shields, in the NHS on the day it was created in July 1948. He became registrar in venereology at ward 34, Newcastle General Hospital and qualified as an MD at Durham in 1952. For the next six years, he was senior registrar at ward 34.

In 1959 Basil became a member of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, and worked as consultant venereologist for Newcastle, North Shields, and South Shields until 1964, when, having been encouraged to apply for a more senior post, he and his family moved to Glasgow.

For the next 13 years he was consultant venereologist for Glasgow and the …