The best of Stitches – and Dr. John Cocker

Colin Leslie, the editor of the Medical Post, asked me to do a blog in July on Dr. John Cocker the editor of Stitches, the Canadian medical humour magazine. John died Oct. 3, 2022 at the age of 89. I was honoured as I have known John for decades I always loved Stitches as it was funny, wise and written by doctors for doctors (My autocorrect says dogs. Written for dogs by dogs. Funny already. John would have laughed at this. My autocorrect also changes Crosby to crazy. I also went to many of John’s courses and spoke at many more. He made learning fun which was revolutionary in those days. Back then, medical education was like oral medicine. Horrible tasting to impress one into thinking it was good because you suffered taking it. Read: Dr. John Crosby: Was there burnout in the olden days? John was a pioneer in having med education courses in nice warm resorts in Mexico and the Caribbean. You brought your spouse and or kids. You went to lectures and workshops from 9 a.m. until noon then hit the beach. This was brilliant because previous courses ran all day long after your brain had shut down. I was always impressed at how few doctors played hookey. There were banquets and parties at night. Faculty and students got to know each other informally. You can’t be a snob in a bathing suit. More was learned out of class. More importantly you learned the art of medicine not just the science. Expert teachers told you how they treated their own patients. John knew that graduate physicians knew their medicine and wanted to talk to the speaker one on one and learn personal pearls. He scheduled lots of time for questions and answers. John picked speakers who not only were experts but more importantly good speakers. The first Ted Talks. Short and entertaining. John was born at a very early age in Derby, England, home of Rolls Royce, 200 kilometres northwest of London. My car is a Rolls Canhardly. Rolls down one hill can hardly make it up the next. See, his humour is rubbing off on me. His dad was a salesperson for a paint company. He had ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). His sister was a GP as were 12 in his family. As a young man, he was failing at school so transferred to boarding school which he loved. He went to St. Bart’s medical school in London, the oldest in the United Kingdom, 900 years old. He loved it and financed his tuition through a government grant and part-time work as a truck driver, soccer coach and part time actor at West End theatres. I think a lot of education is acting so students are engaged and interested. One girl friend was Lady Churchill’s private secretary and he picked her up at 10 Downing Street. He met his wife Monica at a party and told his friends he was going to marry her after the first date. He did so a few months later and had a daughter Susan. They lived in a caravan so were the first trailer trash. He then went into compulsory military service so opted for the Canadian forces in Winnipeg for three years. He then went to Germany, then qualified as a flight surgeon. He was involved in adaptation to altitude using Diamox. He helped build a lab at 17,000 feet on Mt. Logan, Yukon. Then he was the first doctor to attend RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) staff college in Toronto. He then went to Aurora, north of Toronto in 1968. He enjoyed his career as a family physician until 1981. He was a part time ship’s doctor. In 1984 he started three walk-in clinics. In 1984 he started Stitches magazine In 2000 he sailed around the world. In 2002 he started his conferences. He was engaged and doing lots of new projects this summer when I interviewed him. Laughter is the best medicine. Maybe we should have more people with ADHD?

The best of Stitches – and Dr. John Cocker

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