Baker-Bates

I very excitedly write this entry having been told I am a 2015 Baker-Bates Scholar!

……

What the heck is a Baker-Bates Scholar I hear the voices in your head exclaim?

A fine question! The very same question I asked my university. And they couldn’t really tell me either.

So here’s my best shot at an answer from my own research.

Each year, when we complete the necessary documentation about our elective plans for the university (a standardised online form), we have the option of ticking a little box to say we’d like to be considered for a University Travel Bursary. Knowing full well trips to Micronesia don’t come cheap, I ticked this particularly insignificant looking box.

3 months down the line I get an email out of the blue saying

"Dear Rodina

I am pleased to inform you that you have been nominated to receive an elective bursary known as THE BAKER-BATES MEDICAL SCHOLARSHIP."

 

The rest of the email was about paperwork and bank details which doesn’t make for very good reading so I’ve left it out.

But hooray! Yippee! Woop woop woop – what a brilliant email to get at 5pm on what had been a dismal Thursday afternoon. I was going home smiling. A Baker-Bates Scholar. Wow-wee. Won’t my mum be proud ;)

Very quickly after the elation set in, my mind came round to a number of questions – who was Mr/Miss/Mrs Baker and Mr/Miss/Mrs Bates? Why had they left a fund of money at the university to give to students? What criteria had my elective plans met to mean I was picked for such a specifically named prize? Who had decided that I was deserving enough for this? Was I the only one in the whole year or do they hand out Baker-Bates Scholarships like candy?

Well, after some emails to the office of my medical school and going to see the very nice Electives lady at the University, I now know that I’m one of two Baker-Bates Scholars this year.

My Baker-Bates Scholarship is a prize to the value of £300 towards my elective plans – a very generous gift in my book!

The criteria for the Baker-Bates prize was a little unclear and, whilst other prizes are for things such as an elective in GP-land or a French speaking country, many are simply for ‘adventurous travel’. But that’s about it in terms of information I could ascertain from the folk at University.

From a 2009 publication on Liverpool University Undergraduate Prizes, it says this:

"On the discretion of the Head of School to assist attendance to present a paper at conferences overseas"

…?!?! I’m sadly not presenting a paper at a conference. From the little I know about it so far, tiny little Kosrae island doesn’t quite seem the place to host things like international medical conferences (!).

So the jury’s still out as to why I won this specific award. As is any information about who decided I should win it. I’ll just have to thank the unknown people at the top of the medical school for kindly picking my application out above so many others.  

In terms of who Baker-Bates was (or maybe is if he/she’s not deceased!), the wonders of the internet prove their worth. And I’m really proud to say that my award has been left in the legacy of a very eminent Liverpool Doctor.

Dr Eric Baker-Bates was born in St Helens and had a famous dad, a high-flying surgeon in the North West. He studied his medicine degree in Liverpool and worked all over the NW region, spending a lot of time in Southport Hospital where he loved teaching and was known to be a bit of a legend in the medical students’ books (stories about picking students up in his Rolls Royce in Liverpool and making his way up to Southport, stopping at every hospital along the way to check in to see the ‘interesting’ patients and show them to the medical students, making a teaching opportunity out of every stop). He had a practice on the (at-the-time) infamous Rodney Street in Liverpool (a street I know well as I’ve lived and studied just round the corner from it for the last 4 years), was a fellow at the Royal College of Physicians by the end of his career and seemed to be a generally awesome doctor to either have treat or teach you.

(thanks to the RCP London.co.uk for the above information)

So, even though I’m not much the wiser as to why I got the award, why Baker-Bates left it and all the other questions that are sadly unanswered, I’m very grateful to the University for considering me, and the Baker-Bates legacy for donating the funds. It will be a significant help in getting me to the other side of the world to have the most incredible experience. 

Oh, and most importantly, I get a snazzy certificate ;)