James Spowart McCracken

James Spowart McCracken

Former general practitioner Nottingham (b 8 December 1930; q Aberdeen 1957; MBE, FRCGP, DCH, DObst RCOG), died from pancreatic carcinoma on 3 October 2005.

After national service in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a theatre technician, Jim McCracken studied medicine at Aberdeen University and graduated in 1957. He entered general practice in Nottingham in 1960 and three years later began what was seen as the risky business of a purpose-built surgery on a new private estate in Rise Park, Nottingham. It was an ideal base for an activist, innovative clinician scientist. He offered full obstetric home care and was eventually incorporated into the new maternity unit at Nottingham’s City Hospital, doing what became known as "home deliveries in hospital." He delivered his last baby shortly before he retired, having delivered the baby’s mother 32 years before.

In his early years he was one of the few general practitioners producing original research, in the BMJ on the rubella syndrome and in the Lancet with his original publication on the Cri du Chat syndrome. He subsequently published on respiratory disease, fear of flying, and contraception, and shortly before he retired edited a two-volume book on Sport, Exercise and Medicine.

When Nottingham Medical School was established in the 1970s it was fortunate to have a group of young general practitioners who supported, developed, influenced, and resourced its undergraduate general practice curriculum for many years. Despite his curriculum vitae Dr McCracken remained a part time lecturer from 1974 to 1996.

Jim and his wife Anne coped with ever-present loss, with three of their five children predeceasing him—Alastair 1963, Duncan 1985, and Iain in 2002. Both Jim and Anne were awarded the MBE for services to health in the same honours list in 1995.

In his 2000-1 session as president of Nottingham’s Medico-Chiurgical Society (which is older than the BMA) he took as his theme "your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams," and the programme explored visions and dreams of modern day medicine. It is appropriate that an activist, inquiring, restless doctor should end a medical career with such deep reflection. A clinician to the end, he diagnosed his own pancreatic cancer 18 months before he died.

He is survived by his wife, Anne, and two children, one of whom is a GP in Nottingham. [Tom O’Dowd]