The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7179 p904-936
22-29 December 2001

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Christmas miscellany summary

Fitzpatrick — king of the foxtrot

Dr Ray Fitzpatrick, director of pharmacy at North Staffordshire Hospital has an impressive track record. As well as the demands of a busy hospital pharmacy department, Ray is director of research and development at the hospital and has published widely on pharmacy practice issues. He also represents pharmacy interests on several hospital committees and has had input at national level. But it is not only in the world of pharmacy that Ray is a mover and shaker.

He has a passionate interest in ballroom dancing and is so well qualified that he is able to teach it to others. When asked what had led to his involvement with dancing, Ray says, "The interest was there when I was a teenager. Then just before our marriage, my wife Linda and I started receiving invitations to formal dinner dances and we wanted to be able to dance properly. We joined a dancing school where the teacher encouraged us to go in for awards. Our first award was a bronze and we progressed through the levels until we received the president's award from the National Association of Teachers of Dancing, in ballroom and Latin American dance. After that we qualified as teachers ourselves."

At present, Ray does not have the time he once had to devote to Terpsichore, but he still gets a real buzz from being able to trip the light fantastic with his favourite, the foxtrot, at dinner dances organised by his local branch of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.