Family practice: meanings for modern times.

THE SUBJECT OF THE PICKLES LECTURE The archives* of William Pickles’ personal and professional papers reveal him as a ‘family man’: his marriage was long and happy, and he knew each of his patients intimately. He was, in Aysgarth, a ‘father figure’, who was consistently committed to the community he served for many years, and who went the extra mile to help them; something that we would normally associate with kith and kin. He himself was one of a large family: the son of a GP, one of six boys, five of whom were GPs, and the sixth wished to be. It can be assumed from this that there must have been a strong family identity around that shared career. His mother was a positive influence on his attitudes, he writes that she: