Nazareth Calling

Alumna Dr Runa Mackay explains how providing short term cover for a friend led to a long and fulfilling professional career in the Middle East.

In the summer of 1895, Dr Duncan Matheson Mackay graduated with an MB ChB and MRCS LRCP from the University of Edinburgh. Almost 50 years later, and with the Second World War coming to a close, his daughter Runa followed in his footsteps.

Life during wartime

Studying and training during the 1940s presented a very different student experience; summers were spent as a land girl, male and female students not only had separate unions but also separate dissecting rooms (to preserve their modesty) and Runa still recalls the rather shabby (and separate) Women’s Student Union in Teviot.

All these differences were brought into sharp relief when Runa returned to the University in the late 1980s to study Islamic and Arabic Studies.

Working through history

Runa took her first job at Edinburgh’s ‘Sick Kids’ hospital (Royal Hospital for Sick Children) where she was a resident physician and the recipient of a £50 a year honorarium.

It was a time of great change and innovation and, before leaving Edinburgh to spend the majority of her medical career overseas, she was present during the first administration of Penicillin and the hospital's first heart operation.

Temporary cover

Following a brief spell working in paediatrics in the north of England, Runa left UK soil in 1954 as a locum covering a friend’s role for 6 months at the Nazareth Hospital EMMS (Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society).

Six months turned into twenty years in obstetrics, averaging 3000 deliveries a year.

I will always remember the advice given to me during my time as a registrar at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital; always call a patient by their name, not by their ailment.

The Nazareth hospital recently celebrated its 150th anniversary and Runa returned for the celebrations where she reminisced with surviving colleagues from her time there.

As with her choice to study medicine at Edinburgh, Runa’s work with EMMS is another link to her Father, who had worked at the charity’s original home on Edinburgh’s Cowgate during his student days.

Following two decades of hospital work and fancying a change, Runa spent the next decade working for the Israeli Ministry of Health in the Arab villages in the Galilee.

Birthday in Beirut

After 30 years in Israel, retirement and a return to Edinburgh beckoned but it did not last long as civil war took her back to the Middle East.

Working for charity MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians) she worked in the West Bank and Lebanon, even celebrating her 70th birthday amidst bombing in Beirut.

The connection continues

After 50 years working in the Middle East, Runa’s connection with the region continues to play a huge part in her life. Retiring ‘for real’ in her seventies Runa returned to Edinburgh where during a short period housebound with an injured ankle she wrote her book ‘Exile in Israel’.

Runa leads a very busy retirement and is an active member of the ‘Women in Black’ movement who lead vigils for peace from Edinburgh’s Princes Street every Saturday.

Despite the physical distance between her retirement flat in Comely Bank and former colleagues and friends dotted around the Middle East, Runa has embraced technology and keeps in touch via email, even watching lectures from Nazareth via YouTube.