| Description | Professor Emeritus NEVA HAITES, O.B.E., interview on Friday November 25, 2022. Interviewer Eric Crockart. Summary by Eric Crockart.
(0:00:00) NEVA ELIZABETH HAITES (NÉE KINGSBURY), born 4th June 1947 in Brisbane, Australia. Retired six years ago as Vice Principal for Equality and Diversity, while additionally helping the Development Trust with fund-raising. No medics in family background; father first in family to go to university, trained to be a teacher, mother was a nurse, Neva an only child. Educated at a local primary school, then in seventh year of primary went to private school called Somerville House in Brisbane, then to Queensland University. Studied for Biochemistry degree, then PhD in Biochemistry. Met husband Roy while working as a Post Doctoral Fellow, married in Brisbane. He worked in oil industry and they moved to Aberdeen, he is Canadian, explains. Describes how she chose medicine as a career. Came to Aberdeen, took job with Dr Bruce Bennett as research assistant. Realised to do further interesting research needed to do a medical degree, explains, started as graduate medical student at Aberdeen, graduating in 1981 [later corrected this year to 1980]. Started medical studies at age 28, had first daughter at end of her first year, great advice from Prof Elizabeth Russell. (0:04:00) Describes in detail life as a mature medical student, with a baby daughter. Inspiring lecturers? Dr Skene taught her Anatomy, Elizabeth Russell taught Public Health. Dr Marian Hall, lecturer in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, also had had children while studying, gave great advice. Also remembered Dr Audrey Dawson, highlight in teaching Clinical Practice. Recalls being incredibly busy, really enjoyed the course, explains in detail, mentions doing anatomy and physiology at Marischal College. Thinks now she graduated in 1980 (see earlier note). Went on to do a year as a House Officer in Aberdeen. First job at Sick Children’s (Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital - RACH), supervised by Prof Peter "Puffy" Jones, second House job at Foresterhill Ward 47, a general ward, with Dr Audrey Dawson, Dr Bruce Bennett, Prof Stewart Douglas, did Haematology and General Medicine there, two colleagues Dr Simpson and Dr Su Jong Wong. (0:08:29) Describes in detail path that led her to the discipline of Genetics. Dr Alan Johnston needed some assistance at Genetic Clinic, asked Neva. He ran Genetics Clinic at Sick Children’s Hospital with Dr Eric Mackay, a Paediatrician who worked mostly at the Raeden Centre, started her on path to Genetics, of which her PhD had given her a working knowledge. Work at the clinic included working up family histories. Became clear there were some extremely large families in the North-east who had quite rare conditions, about which not much was known at that time, explains. With Dr Johnston and subsequently with Dr Dean, who arrived as a Registrar, started to look at these families and build up the histories. University decided to fund a clinical lectureship, Neva was asked to apply for it, and to her horror was offered it, explained she could not work full time. Started part-time around 1985, exciting times. (0:11:58) [Describes what department was like in those days; not really much of a department. Genetics Dept at Zoology, included Dr Brenda Page; not at Foresterhill at that time.] (During the correction process of the first draft of this summary, Neva asked that the preceding sentence (now marked in square brackets) be removed and replaced by: "While I was a Medical student, Genetics was housed in the Department of Genetics.") Corrects herself about the timeline. While Neva was medical student, Brenda Page was head of Cytogenetics; she was murdered, Neva comments about forthcoming court case involving alleged killer. Subsequently other people with training in genetics were appointed to take over Dr Page’s role, then moved up to Foresterhill under supervision of Dr Alan Johnston. Then moved to another level when a university academic was put in charge of that role [later clarified that this was Professor Bill Harris, who was made Head of Service], explains. Dr Alan Johnston the main practitioner; explains about him training in the States with famous geneticist Dr Victor McKusick. (0:14:21) Describes in detail the challenges facing the Genetics Dept in her early days there. Talks of new stream of funding for universities, "New Blood Funding". Neva appointed as new blood Senior Lecturer, went on to become an Honorary Consultant Clinical Geneticist. Training predominantly in Aberdeen, also spent small amounts of time in Glasgow and in Cardiff. Funding found by Dr Alan Johnston and others in Scotland from the Scottish Government to develop DNA technology, explains. That work supervised by Dr Kevin Kelly, explains she worked with him for many years, setting up laboratory and expanding its role in a consortium of genetic labs in Scotland. DNA technology was and is a game-changer, explains in detail. Very large laboratory, but still work as a consortium; Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Explains in detail about genetic work she did in Aberdeen, supervising PhD students, about diseases found in large families, looking for gene or mutations, pleased about success of those PhD students. (0:18:07) Interaction with patients, explains in detail how this worked. Talks about what a typical day for her would involve; teaching of medical and science students. In normal clinic would only see three families, explains why; plusses and minuses of dealing with families, talks about ethical dilemmas of giving DNA information. Remembers some families well, Neva tended to specialise mostly in the genetics of cancer, explains. Talks about Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, condition passed through the women in family in Aberdeen; through international collaboration found the gene for that condition, explains about it. (0:24:23) Talks about time as Professor of Genetics. Bill Harris, the former professor, retired from his role in genetics when she came along as a senior lecturer (1992); she was promoted around 2005; does not change your life too much, just end up sitting on more committees. Invited for first time to sit on a committee in London - COMARE, Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment - as a geneticist; then later invited on to other committees, explains about them. Expanded her life, away about four days a month at various committees, very exciting, explains how she fitted this in with family life and being an academic clinical professor. Kept doing the clinical work until she was well into being a Vice-Principal of Aberdeen University, role she took on in 2004 (subsequently corrected from 2010). Pays tribute to one of her PhD students, Dr Zosia Miedzybrodzka, who took over running the DNA lab, the Cytogenetics lab, as well as the clinical service. Dr John Dean still a consultant, and then two more consultants were appointed; Neva able to get on with being the Head of the College of Life Sciences and Medicine. Interesting work, had no management training, had to learn on your feet, explains this was managed through colleagues on your executive who are trained in Human Resources, Finance, general management etc. You’re a team, really enjoyed working with that team, thinks the university progressed quite well during those years, had three Colleges; contrasts with present situation where there are Schools. (0:28:47) Explains where she stood in the university hierarchy as a Vice-Principal. Professor Sir Duncan Rice was then the Principal, Senior Vice-Principal was Prof Steve Logan, then below him three Vice-Principals; one for Physical Sciences, one for Medicine and Medical Sciences, and one for Arts and Social Science. Describes in detail her work as Professor of Genetics, including importance of getting research funding, publishing work in international journals to make an impact. Explains that becoming a Vice-Principal affects you, don’t have the same time, had to stop doing undergraduate teaching, stopped having all but one or two PhD students. Spent a lot of her time helping to run five Schools within the College. But because she was also Clinical, continued to do Genetics Clinics for as long as she could. When new Principal came along, she started doing work on Equality and Diversity, explains, stopped doing clinics. (0:33:25) Gives her opinion on what Aberdeen as a centre has contributed to the field of Medical Genetics. Research has contributed to the discovery of genes and enabled the management of conditions caused by them, giving people better lives. Gives examples. Mentions John Deans work on cardiac disease and genes involved. Prof Miedzybrodzka working on a range of diseases trying to understand how they react with the environment as well as with the gene. Talks of advantage of Aberdeen having a stable population so had very large families for these conditions. Talks about the need for Molecular Genetics Service being identified by her and her colleagues, speaks about development of DNA technology; Dr Alan Johnston, Dr Kevin Kelly, herself, Dr John Dean; Dr Sheila Simpson did work on Huntington’s Disease, explains about Sheila being at forefront of how to do this ethically. Last part of our history Dr Ben Milner using DNA technology to look at sporadic cancers to see how best treated by chemotherapy. (0:39:07) Talks about five-year research and development grant she was awarded in 1998. Grant from the European Commission, to look at how best to manage a Clinical Genetics Service, particularly around cancer genetics. Explains this involved collaborations across Europe. Talks about her work with national bodies. (Slight hiatus to try and deal with rustling microphone) Talks about British Society of Human Genetics, chaired it for four years, had not planned this, explains. Talks about working at an exciting time in field of genetics. Rewarding to improve the knowledge that families and individuals have about things that are going wrong with them medically, explains in detail. In terms of her achievements, talks of joy she had working with her different teams, both in genetics and at a management level. Also disappointments. (0:46:32) Talks about Aberdeen’s standing as a centre for genetics in the UK and worldwide. Thinks as good clinically and diagnostically as any centre in the world; goes on to justify this. Talks about issue of Ethics in context of genetic testing; in her early days big issue was pre-natal testing, offering family the right to have a termination. Talks about the ethics of this in more detail. Another way of testing an embryo, pre-implantation genetics diagnosis; the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority have had huge ethical debates about the conditions that can be subject to this test. Once you move on to families, perhaps gets less complicated, explains why. Ethical dilemma of deciding more harm to be done by not telling an offspring than by parent saying I don’t want children to know. Talks about Huntington’s Disease and issues that testing for it involves. (ENDS 0:54:44)
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