Professor M. A. Imam

Professor M. A. Imam The Specialist Arm Clinic offers evidence-based treatments for arm problems. URL: www.thearmdoc.co.uk It is a simple but powerful concept.

Educational source for orthopaedic surgeons by orthopaedic surgeons designed to improve through the communal efforts of those who use it as a learning resource.

Front and rear views of the blood-supplying system to the femoral head and neck
20/11/2025

Front and rear views of the blood-supplying system to the femoral head and neck

Believe it or not, John Gurdon once scored 2 out of 50 in biology and came last out of 250 students – and sixty years la...
19/11/2025

Believe it or not, John Gurdon once scored 2 out of 50 in biology and came last out of 250 students – and sixty years later he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine!

Our story is about an ordinary student called John Gurdon, born in 1933 in a small county in the south-east of England. In 1949 he was studying at Eton College, one of the most prestigious secondary schools in Berkshire, England. It seems that at the time he was a careless student and his academic performance was so poor that he ranked last out of 250 students in the school.

At the end of term, his teacher wrote a report describing him as a very bad student, saying his performance reports were disastrous and that he refused to take advice from anyone, no matter how wrong he was. But perhaps the most important part of the report was this:
“I believe he is under the delusion that he will become a scientist; in view of his present level, this is quite absurd. A boy who cannot grasp simple biological facts has no chance at all of doing the work of a specialist, and continuing along this path would be a waste of time and effort, both for him and for those who teach him.” (See the report in the picture.)

Imagine – that was his teacher’s opinion of him at school!
And not just a passing remark, but something written formally in an official report.

But John Gurdon did not give up.

After Eton College, Gurdon went to the University of Oxford to study Classics. Later, he remembered his old dream and changed his subject to Zoology. He obtained his master’s and doctorate from Oxford, then went to Caltech to do postdoctoral studies. After that he returned to Oxford as a lecturer in the Department of Zoology, and later became a professor at the University of Cambridge – an academically successful career by any standard.

John Gurdon grew older and turned towards the very field that people had said was not suitable for him. He worked for many years with great determination and became one of the founders of the field of regenerative medicine and stem-cell therapy. For this work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012.

If he had believed what his teacher said back then, or looked at his marks and decided, “I am useless”, we would never have heard of him at all. I always say that a person’s abilities cannot be measured by an exam paper or judged by school-leaving grades. True success is created by creativity and passion, and above all by persistence. The world needs people who will try once, twice and a thousand times until they finally get there.

The amusing part is that John Gurdon kept a copy of that old report and framed it in his office for the rest of his life – to remind himself that no one in this world can decide your future except you.

19/11/2025

Pectoralis Major rupture

Patellar reflex
19/11/2025

Patellar reflex

Anterior acromial projection angle. This angle is positive when the acromial tip is anterior to the vertical line and ne...
18/11/2025

Anterior acromial projection angle. This angle is positive when the acromial tip is ante
rior to the vertical line and negative when it is posterior to the vertical line. Normal shoulders (a) showed an average −2°, whereas shoulders with a cuff tear (b) showed an average 6°

Plexus brachial
17/11/2025

Plexus brachial

Might be true for some 😀
17/11/2025

Might be true for some 😀

CRPS
16/11/2025

CRPS

Digital block: anatomy and insertion sites (I. needle on palmar digital nerve, II. (1) needle on dorsal digital nerve, (...
16/11/2025

Digital block: anatomy and insertion sites (I. needle on palmar digital nerve, II. (1) needle on dorsal digital nerve, (1) common palmar artery, (2) dorsal branch of ulnar nerve). Ref: Raj P, Nolte H, Stanton-Hicks M. Upper-extremity blocks. In: Illustrated manual of regional anesthesia. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer; 1988. p. 35–46

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