Credit: BBC

Those of a certain age will remember the popular 1960’s TV programme “Dr Finlay’s Casebook”. The stories of the colourful rural practice seem like a bygone age. In many ways they are but even today some GPs are modern-day Dr Finlays, working alone or with little support at the heart of their communities.

Now a major new exhibition in Braemar will take a close look at that history and trace the substantial changes in the provision of remote and rural single-handed general practice over the past 25 years.

”Dr Finlay I Presume?” has its roots in 1999 and a collaboration between the Royal College of General Practitioners and Dundee University. That resulted in the publication of ‘Single-Handed’, a book containing black and white photographic portraits of 46 single-handed GPs from throughout Scotland from Shetland to Stranraer with a written description of their background and experiences.

The exhibition includes some of the material from 1999. It traces how general practice / primary care services are now delivered in a number of remote and rural areas in Scotland which were originally featured in the book. It also revisits some of those doctors first interviewed in 1999 and asks where are they now.