Joan Brown

Joan Brown was born in 1936 in Whetstone, London. Her educational journey began at a grammar school in North London before she spent six formative years at the University of Birmingham during the 1950s. While there, she shared a house with six other undergraduates, each studying different subjects, many of whom remained lifelong friends. Joan pursued a fulfilling career as a consultant anaesthetist, spanning various hospitals in Rugby, Sweden, the USA, London, Zimbabwe, and Poole, with the majority of her tenure at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.

Upon retirement, she ventured into volunteering, spending a year at Kathmandu Teaching Hospital in Nepal and contributing her skills to medical aid missions with 'Doctors without Borders'. Beyond her medical career, Joan embraced numerous passions, including sailing, painting, and linguistics, even earning a languages degree from the Open University post-retirement. Notably, she enjoyed the thrill of driving sports cars, including her cherished Mazda MX5, which she continued to drive until the age of 80, despite her family's gentle insistence otherwise. Sadly, she passed away in 2020 in East Grinstead, Sussex.

Joan very kindly left a gift to Birmingham in her will to the Medical School. The Medical School has recognised that in medical education the integration of technology has become increasingly prevalent, revolutionising the way students learn and interact with course materials. Osmosis, an online learning platform tailored for medical students, has gathered attention for its comprehensive approach to delivering educational content. The School decided that Joan’s generous gift would allow them to invest in the learning system Osmosis.

Unlike traditional alternatives, Osmosis stood out as a dynamic learning tool, resonating with students and educators alike. One of the benefits of Osmosis is that it can be used effectively by people with different learning styles. Its videos are interesting and make hard topics easier to understand by breaking them into smaller parts. It also has resources such as flashcards and a question bank that you can customise, which helps students test themselves so that they can see where they need to improve.

Evaluations of the student experience revealed an overwhelmingly positive response, and the College has committed to funding Osmosis indefinitely, proving its value in enriching the educational journey of aspiring medical professionals.

None of this could have been done without the generosity of the Joan, who left an unrestricted gift to the College of Medical and Dental Sciences with a preference for clinical research or medical student education or welfare. Leaving the gift largely unrestricted allowed the College to provide students with a system which they have wanted to invest in for many years. Joan could not have guessed where her gift would go, but she has made medical students’ studies far easier and simpler – and what a legacy to leave.