Alastair Wright

Alexander Finlay Wright, known universally as Alastair, was a man who refused to accept conventional boundaries. Born in Blantyre, Scotland, and for most of his medical career a general practitioner in the new town of Glenrothes in Fife, he also found time to successfully pursue his extensive academic interests.

Alastair graduated from Glasgow University in 1957. When he started his career as a general practitioner in Glenrothes in 1964, he initially practised from one of the town’s recently built blocks of maisonettes. Life at the front line was a very long way from the royal college and the world of research grants and prizes. The early 1960s were a period of crisis for the profession, with GPs frustrated and disillusioned by often poor working conditions and relative intellectual isolation.w

Alastair’s solution was to take on teaching duties at the Scottish general practitioner research support unit in Dundee, which in turn led to an interest in research. Initially he participated in multicentre research projects …