It is with great sadness that I am writing this post to announce that Professor Scott Reeves (Editor-in-Chief), suddenly and sadly passed away a week ago. This has been devastating news for all those who knew him, particularly his family and our thoughts are with them at this time.
I have been struggling to think about what to write here but I have been thinking about what myself and Scott were aiming to do with this new, upscaled version of this blog. It’s main aim is, as every blog should be, to be a relaxed, fun environment to express opinion but also provide focus on some key highlights from the journal. For me to continue writing this piece, I’ve decided to lean toward the ‘relaxing’ and ‘fun’ part.
Over the last few years, initially as a collaboration and a productive one at that, myself and Scott became good friends. When you speak to others, you will see this was a very common trend with him and is testament to who he was as a collaborator, academic and friend.
We met regularly and work always came first – looking at new ways of how technology can interface with interprofessional education and research, launching new projects, research groups and more, but also thinking about the blog and how the journal can move forward. This resulted with us conceiving the new JICare podcast, which was due to launch over the next few weeks. Now, if anything, I will ensure this podcast goes ahead as he was incredibly excited by it, but I hope it can really bring the IPE community together by encouraging yourselves to be involved.
‘After work’ was always a joy with Scott and I think this strengthened our friendship. ‘Shop talk’ stopped and we would debate and chat about things ranging from the way our society is going, to football, in particular our teams, Bristol Rovers and Arsenal. I’d get grilled about Arsene Wenger and I’d always question how good the pies were at the Memorial Stadium. It is testament to himself, the fact that he was so keen and sometimes frustrated with our current social issues and division. This was one of our strongest common threads and honestly, if you heard us in the pub, you’d think we were political analysts! This led to book swaps on current politics, texts regarding our government interspersed with photos and chats about life in California and beyond. On top of all of this, he would always be interested in my personal life and how things were outside of the workplace. However, coming back to our recent social issues links very closely to what he loved in terms of work – collaboration and the research behind it. If we are to overcome division and difficulties amongst healthworkers and improve our health systems, we have to collaborate and learn together, interprofessionally. Scott was a huge advocate for this.
Our conversations would often range from the highly intellectual, in a fake – pretentious social scientist sort of way (well, on his part, I’m not that smart) to taking the mick out of each other to embracing our inner childhood. So much so, Scott convinced me recently to start collecting Panini football stickers, tagging our ‘sticker doubles’ and swapping them, while planning our viewing schedules for the upcoming World Cup.
I hope as you have read some of this text you have got a good feeling of what the joy was, knowing Scott. Many of you would have experienced different sides to him but also some of the same. Nevertheless, I feel lucky, or should I say we feel lucky to have known him. He was man you wanted to make proud because he always saw something in you or your work before anyone else did and he was a man we all shared many great moments with.
Scott, in keeping with us ripping the mick out of each other, while getting some good work done, I leave this post with a dedication to those many influential papers and the work you did, your own flow diagram. Yup, I can hear you now and can only imagine what witty reply you have to this fine piece of work!!
If you wish to leave a tribute, please feel free to leave comments here but also at the tribute page, CAIPE have set up.
Additionally, Karen Bridson has set up a GoFundMe page, raising money to support Scott’s family. If you wish to donate, please do so here.