In any research project, there is always one subject that seems to defy classification! On this occasion it is the University of St Andrews. Although it has taught medical students for nearly 600 years and thus cannot be regarded as a ‘new’ medical school (as covered in Appendix 1 which follows this chapter), it did not have a department of general practice during the lifetime of the AUTGP.

In many ways it is particularly fitting that St Andrews should be included here as the last chapter in the main body of our Histories, as it is where Sir James Mackenzie, general practitioner and cardiologist and rightly regarded as the first true academic general practitioner, retired to in 1919 to establish his Institute of Clinical Research, arguably the first ever department of general practice anywhere. And it was from his and his daughter Dorothy's estates that the first chair of general practice in Edinburgh was endowed.

The editors

University of St Andrews

Although a ‘new department’, St Andrews, through James Mackenzie, can almost certainly lay claim to having had one of the first, if not the first, departments of academic general practice. In 1919, Sir James, who believed that general practice was the proper place for clinical research, managed to enlist the support and help of every general practitioner in the town in collaborating in clinical research. Following Mackenzie's death his Institute suffered funding difficulties and eventually closed its doors in 1944.