Professor Mackay was delighted to be a contributor to the 40th-anniversary edition of The Bulletin magazine from the Royal College of Surgeons England: From professional football to elite sport surgery, Professor Gordon Mackay details his journey throughout his career and what it takes to treat and operate on professional athletes.

My journey into elite sport followed a circuitous path. Growing up in Scotland, the son of a general practitioner mother and a professional footballer father, I was torn between the two interests. During a summer job in Erskine Hospital for Disabled Ex-Servicemen, I learnt of Sir William Macewen, who was a pioneering surgeon and a founder of Erskine whose research focus was on bracing and rehabilitation, and aseptic surgery. He faced enormous challenges introducing antisepsis, his colleagues insisting pus was “essential for healing”. I felt inspired!

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