Fraser Macintosh Rose

Fraser Macintosh Rose, (3 February 1897 – 2 October 1972), known as Fraser Rose, was a physician who worked as a general practitioner (GP), and is best known for co-founding the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP).

He served in the First World War and saw action in Gallipoli and the Balkans. Following a gunshot wound and a back injury, he returned to Britain to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, qualifying in 1924. After junior posts at Bradford Royal Infirmary and Brighton, he settled into general practice in Preston, where he remained until his retirement.

Rose was for many years active on the Council of the British Medical Association (BMA), on numerous medical committees both before and after the inception of the National Health Service, and in other areas of medical politics. Along with particularly John Hunt and others, he made considerable contributions to the "steering committee" that set up the College, which in 1967 was given the royal prefix to become the RCGP. He became its president in 1962.

Early life Fraser Rose was born on 3 February 1897 in a small fishing community on Cape Breton Island, South Side River Denys, Nova Scotia, where his father, the Reverend John Rose (1849–1922) had been appointed a minister in 1884. He was the eighth of nine children and lived in a small lakeside farm that he later described as his "Eden". His first and middle names relate to two doctors associated with his family, Dr Fraser McAulay, who delivered Rose after walking through a snowstorm, and Dr Macintosh, a friend of Rose senior.

First World War Rose's education was interrupted by the First World War. As he was already enrolled in the Highland Territorial Division with his school friends, he enlisted on the first day of the war and was subsequently posted to Gallipoli.

Early medical career Although his father proposed the clergy as a suitable career, Rose chose medicine and gained admission to Edinburgh Medical School in 1919. Rose asserted it "painted a black picture of crowded waiting rooms, queues, lack of surgery equipment, inadequate examination of patients even in the better practices visited, and of unsatisfactory standards generally".

The resulting correspondence was mostly encouraging despite opposition from the traditional royal colleges. By February 1952, Rose and Hunt had assembled a steering committee. Their role was to give a leadership inclusive of GPs all over the country, produce a strategy for the establishment of a new college and formalise education. They succeeded on 19 November 1952, when the college was established and the committee dissolved. Rose continued to be active in the college council, first as member and then as chairman.

Rose was made a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1962 and in the same year, elected president of the RCGP. He was later made an honorary fellow of the college. The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London and the RCGP jointly award The Rose Prize for the best original research into the history of general practice. This prize also celebrates William Rose, the famous apothecary from the 18th century whose successful trial gave apothecaries the right to prescribe.

Following the discovery that Rose's 99 Fylde Road surgery in Preston had become a public house known as The Guild, permission was obtained by the North West branch of the RCGP to install a memorial plaque.