I first met this young lady when she was a Medical Student of Leicester University, serving a student clerkship at Pilgrim Hospital in the summer of 1985. One could not help but be impressed with her happy, easy-going manner, her great enthusiasm for medicine and her increasing knowledge of the subject. During that summer, I was fortunate to enter into discussions with her regarding orchestral music. Fiona was an outstanding flautist and at that point was a regular performer with the University of Leicester orchestra. It was through these discussions and her subsequent support, that four major orchestral concerts took place in Boston a year or so later with visitations to our town by the Leicester University Orchestra and the touring orchestra of the University of Strasbourg. We are indeed most grateful to her for her contribution in helping provide a feast of musical culture that year.

Having qualified in 1986, she took up her House jobs, initially with Sir Anthony Grabham in Kettering and subsequently with Dr. Monty Goldberg at the Groby Road Hospital. It was during the latter post that tragedy struck and she was found to have primary cancer of her liver. She underwent major surgery for it's removal and after a relatively short period of convalescence returned to her work and her patients. Having completed her House jobs she decided to make a career in General Practice and returned to Pilgrim Hospital in Boston to enter her vocational training period. She was very fond of fen country and in particular Lincolnshire and Boston and therefore set up home in Old Leake.

Things seemed then to progress satisfactorily for quite a substantial period of time as she busied herself in her work with great devotion. She became involved in a number of Chamber concerts put on at Pilgrim Hospital and outside for charitable purposes and all of us have gained from these efforts. Unfortunately and sadly, tragedy struck its second severe blow and one which subsequently proved to be the beginning of the end. At the end of 1988, she came under my care for the first time with what seemed like a simple chest infection following a viral illness. I think both she and I kidded ourselves that all was well, not wanting to realise and accept that this was not so. However she seemed to weather this storm until a few days before Christmas of that year when after a period of improvement, she developed further chest symptoms. It then became obvious that the cancer had spread to her chest and that further treatment would be necessary. She again underwent major surgery at the Groby Road Hospital in Leicester and almost lost her life on that occasion. Fiona reflected afterwards how near she knew she was to death at that period and highlighted the various experiences she had found. Again an index of her inquisitive mind, wishing to obtain answers to problems and situations and to impart this knowledge to others in the hope that it might help them or ease their own ill-ease and suffering.

She made a good recovery from this second operation and again returned to Lincolnshire to continue her work, but on this occasion it was to be for a short time only. She then developed other symptoms which suggested widespread dissemination of her cancer and work then became impossible. I received several phone calls from her during this time and I was always amazed by her forthrightness and happiness. The latter seemed almost bizarre but came from a continuing interest in the pathology that was slowly destroying her. She said to me during one 'phone call that she had always found nervous diseases very difficult to understand, but now that she was a living textbook of the same many previous difficulties had suddenly become clear.

Her last few months were very dear to Fiona and she used these to perfection. She travelled and visited many relatives and friends in the knowledge that this would almost certainly be the last time that she would see them. Fiona both looked and felt well up until the last 24 hours, at which stage she was admitted urgently to hospital. Her last few hours were shared with her family and close medical friends in nostalgia and peace. I last saw her alive at 9.00 p.m. on August 12th when she smiled at me, somewhat sleepily, wishing me a happy, safe trip to Cyprus and stating that she would see me on my return. I think we both knew that was not to be. I left the ward with heavy heart, feeling a desperate need to stay but under other obligations to leave. I was subsequently pleased to learn that she passed away peacefully in the small hours of Sunday, August 13th when I was still at home in Lincolnshire.

Fiona Dickson gave so much to so many in such a short time, she did so without question and without hesitation. As a doctor she exemplified the doctrine of medicine of its being the cardinal act of mercy. As a person she was firm and positive, though gentle when the need was right, always happy and constantly supportive to all those around her, particularly in her darkest hours. During her illness through constant thought for her patients, she wrote the subsequent booklet. I can only hope that through reading it and remembering this young remarkable woman, that you may gain comfort and the fortitude that she displayed so magnificently.

C.R.Nyman. M.B. DR.C.O.G., F.R.P

"The world, somebody wrote, is the place we make real by dying in it".
Salman Rushdie.