Health improvement and the RSM

Dame Deidre Hine, who takes office as President of the Royal Society of Med icine this autumn, qualified at the Welsh National School of Medicine in 19 61. After junior hospital posts and a period in general practice she obtain ed the DPH and was appointed to a combined clinical and administrative post in community child health with the Glamorgan County Council. In 1974 she b ecame a specialist in community medicine (child health) to the South Glamor gan Health Authority. In 1980 she took up the post of senior lecturer in th e Department of Geriatric Medicine in her former medical school (now the Un iversity of Wales College of Medicine), combining this with continued work as a specialist in community medicine. In 1993 she was appointed to the post of Deputy Chief Medical Officer in th e Welsh Office. Five years later she left the Civil Service to become direc tor of the Welsh Breast Cancer Screening Service. In 1990 she returned to t he Welsh Office as Chief Medical Officer, a post from which she retired in 1997. Some of her thoughts on the National Health Service will be known to JRSM readers from her Jephcott Lecture last year (July 1999 JRSM, pp. 332-3 38). In August last year she was appointed to chair the Commission for Heal th Improvement (CHI). She is interviewed here by Robin Fox.