Dr John Arthur Bolster

Dr John Arthur Bolster LRCP LRCS LRFPS FFARCS

14/10/1912 to 11/09/2001

Place of birth:  Glasgow, Scotland

Nationality:  British

CRN: 525152

Education and qualifications

General education

Admitted via the Educational Institute of Scotland he was a student at the School of Medicine, Royal Colleges in Edinburgh 1932-37

Primary medical qualification(s)

LRCP (Edin), LRCS (Edin), LRFPS (Glasg), 1937. 

Initial Fellowship and type

FFARCS by Election

Year of Fellowship

1953

Other qualification(s)

DA (RCP&S)

 

Professional life and career

Postgraduate career

After qualifying Bolster spent two years in general practice in the south of England. In 1939, at the outbreak of war he volunteered for the Army, serving with the BEF and was evacuated from Dunkirk. Having been invalided from the Army, he was resident surgical officer and resident medical officer at Astley Ainslie Hospital in Edinburgh. In January 1945 he moved to Inverness and was resident anaesthetist at Raigmore Hospital. Under the NHS, he was appointed Consultant Anaesthetist to the North Regional Hospitals Board Scotland, based in Inverness; for many years he was the only consultant anaesthetist in the Highland Region. He retired at the age of 60

Professional interests and activities

He published an interesting paper on the use of curare in anaesthesia in 1948 (Anesthesia & Analgesia; 27: 351-5). He was President of the Scottish Society of Anaesthetists for 1966-67.

Other biographical information

Described as “a friendly man with an ebullient personality” he was President of the Rotary Club of Inverness for 1970-71. Sadly for the last ten years of his life he was wheelchair bound, following a disabling stroke during CABG surgery in Glasgow. He lived in a croft house in Achiltibuie, where he died - survived by a daughter of his first marriage and his second wife, Evelyn Cameron.

Author and sources

Author:

Dr Alistair McKenzie

Sources and comments:

[1] McKenzie AG. The Centenary of the Scottish Society of Anaesthetists 1914-2014 (page 21). [2] Medical Registers and Medical Directories. [3] Records held by staff of the Department of Anaesthesia, Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, who provided the photograph.