FROM J1Y TO C L I N I C I A N SCIENTIST BY OMAR MAHROO (86-96)
The morning after Prize Day was the deadline for the notorious Geography Project. I’d worked on it for months and had stayed up all night finishing it. I explained, bleary-eyed, to my History teacher that I hadn’t been able to complete his homework, but would do so as soon as possible. He was furious, put me in lunchtime detention, and said that marks would be docked from my Geography Project (that bit hurt the most!).
M
y final morning class finished late, making me late for detention. ‘Seen the time, Mahroo?’ he inquired. I misunderstood: thinking he wanted to know the time, I told him what it was. He misunderstood: interpreting my answer as insolence, he put his face very close to mine: ‘You think you can take me on? You won’t win, Mahroo, you won’t WIN!’. The happy ending is that he decided against asking docking marks as ‘that would be below the belt’ and I’d learned my lesson! Perhaps not the healthiest example (albeit colourful), it illustrates the work ethic which RGS instilled in me, and which I think has stood me in good stead. Dr Mains (76-05), the teacher above, was immensely engaging, filling me with such passion for the subject that I remember, after my exam, reading all of the parts of Mastering Modern British History that weren’t on the course. The teaching standard was high across the board. I am now a Consultant Ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital and St Thomas’ Hospital, and Associate Professor at UCL. I investigate mechanisms of retinal diseases, which are a major cause of blindness. I was awarded a competitive £1.1 million Wellcome Trust grant to fund my research programme, and I received a ‘Rising Star’ award from the Macular Society last year. My time at the RGS, from 1986 (J1Y – ‘Ys are wise, and better than Xs’, and other ingenious adages I still recall … and very much live by) to 1996, was a formative decade which undoubtedly shaped the subsequent two (and a half). Space permits only a few reflections. I was the only RGS boy in my year to be accepted at Cambridge to read Medicine. The College I entered, Caius, had already been impressed by Nadeem Ali (84-94), who had topped the Part IA Cambridge exams.
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