The privilege and pressures of swapping a city medical practice for one on an island

As a child, I was a people watcher, when I wasn’t filling my wellies with water from the burn I was attempting to dam, or having gang meetings in the outhouse at the bottom of our garden. We lived in the village of West Linton, on the northern edge of the Borders. One villager, in particular, would have the most profound effect on me, the GP, Dr MacKenzie. As I walked to and from primary school, I watched him as he strolled down the main street carrying his Gladstone bag of mysteries. The whole activity of being a doctor fascinated me, and before I left primary school, I knew what I wanted to be, who I wanted to be – him.