Please extend my condolences to Paul’s family

Paul and I were classmates at St Georges over four years of studies at medical school. The nature of our course and the relatively small number of students meant that we all worked with one another in different pairs or small groups on an almost daily basis. You get to know people quite well when you have to learn to do an ECG on each other, or palpate each other's abdomens, or endure moments of excruciating silence in response to torturous questions on a ward round. Some classmates were fun and made studying exciting, others were more serious and excelled at sharing their knowledge. The range of different personalities made learning interesting. It was usually pot luck who you'd end up working with. But there is one thing I know with surety: if you were selected to work with Paul, you knew it would be a great experience. I also know that the other sixty-odd students on the course would agree with me. Our course was full of lovely people but there was probably not a single other student on the course who would engender that feeling in absolutely everyone else. Paul was incredibly bright but he shrouded his intellect with a lovely modesty, so even if he'd already figured out the answer to a question, you always felt like you were learning at the same pace as him. He was funny but never made jokes at others' expense. His calm and encouraging manner was exactly what every learning partner need in those those moments of public indecision we all sometimes experienced. Paul was someone whose easy, quiet assurance washed over everyone around him - friends, colleagues and patients. It was consistent and genuine and made people feel happy. I haven't met that many people in my life who made me want to improve myself, but Paul was one of those people, simply by his example. I find it very hard to accept he is gone and my thoughts are with his family, and his many friends.

Paul was my friend. We revised together at George's and later for the MRCP, and I was lucky enough to be one of the people who first introduced him to climbing at the Castle in north London. He very quickly became a much better climber than me, as I suspect he was a better doctor and a better human. I'll never forgive myself for not keeping in touch more as our medical and personal lives grew: not from any misplaced ideas that I could have helped him any more than the amazing people whose love surrounded him, but from simple selfish loss and the fact that I let someone amazing slowly drift out of my life. The thoughts here are testament to a life wholly and richly lived, to a person grounded in love and kindness and talent and responsibility and joy, and to the ongoing tragedy that medicine continually fails to look after its own. My thoughts are with all those that knew and loved Paul, but most of all with my friend who I miss.