Outbreak in the Village (eBook)

Outbreak in the Village is a fascinating account of the personal and professional journey of Dr. Doug Jenkinson, physician and researcher. Over the course of four decades in practice, Jenkinson traces the reemergence of whooping cough in the developed world, using his practice in the idyllic English countryside as a clinical control group. Keeping meticulous notes and indulging an itch to investigate, he explores one of history's most enigmatic and pervasive diseases.
Jenkinson relates the tale of his life's work amid winsome anecdotes, relevant history, and practical advice. Told in an amiable, engaging voice with an expert balance of levity and earnestness, this story will charm casual readers interested in medical history and memoir, as well as doctors and researchers who identify with the experiences and may benefit from the research and techniques employed. Readers will find themselves in the examination room beside Jenkinson as the investigation unfolds, learning about the nature of the illness and the sweeping detrimental effects of an anti-vaccination campaign.
An intriguing memoir about a mysterious illness, a public health failure, and one doctor's quest for clarity, Outbreak in the Village is a tale of perseverance and objectivity sure to delight and inform.

Douglas Jenkinson was brought up on the Wirral peninsula in north-west England and attended Calday Grange Grammar school. He graduated from Liverpool Medical School in 1967. After three years in junior posts in medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology, he went to Zambia with his family where he spent three years doing general medical duties, obstetrics and gynecology, and neonatal pediatrics. There he discovered his love of research. He returned to the UK in 1973 to join a General Medical Practice partnership in rural Nottinghamshire where, in 1977, he investigated a large outbreak of whooping cough and was the first in 30 years to confirm the benefit of pertussis immunisation. He became a part-time lecturer in General Practice at Nottingham Medical School in 1979, and in 1988 with Professor Idris Williams, set up the first M.Med.Sci. course. He researched and published papers on asthma in addition to whooping cough and sat on the Medical Advisory Committee to the Asthma Society and Friends of the Asthma Research Council. He contributed to textbooks on asthma and child health. He was awarded a doctorate for his whooping cough research in 1996 and continued to research whooping cough after he retired from Keyworth Medical practice in 2011. He has a popular website to help patients with whooping cough get a diagnosis.