The following article by Alex Dickson appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail in December. It is reproduced here by courtesy of the Scottish Daily Mail.

Beside every life-boat there hangs an extra set of bright yellow oilskins. They are there because of the Hippocratic Oath. Reserved for the HMA. . . .

The 31 doctors who are honorary members of Scotland's life-boats receive no pay. They wear no badges, have no rank and are on 24-hour voluntary call.

Special men are the honorary medical advisers of the Royal National Life-boat Institution.

The maroons go off and the telephone rings. Crews scramble from bed with the haste of fighter pilots. And, if required, a GP or a hospital intern is running for the slipway with them.

When a Dunbar doctor returned home after a mercy dash to a crippled trawler adrift in the North Sea the other day, he washed, changed and did his rounds.

Inspector Praises Them The winds had been gale force, waves 20 feet high. But he had patients waiting for him on dry land. Even if he had been tossed around for nine hours.

"They do a marvellous job," said Commander Andrew Forbes, district inspector of life-boats for the R.N.L.I., in Edinburgh last night.

"Often they must be ill themselves. I don't doubt that on occasions they must be in agony from seasickness all the way to a ship and a man in trouble. But they always manage to rise to the occasion." More than 140 life-boats are pointed towards the seas around Britain. Each of them has its own doctor on call.

The medical men treat an invitation to become an HMA as a great honour.

Not once has a doctor been asked to take on the job and turned it down.

Women are among the Scots who proudly answer the call when a mercy mission begins. Young and newly qualified. Middle-aged, with sons following in the profession.

Doctors take Risks An Aberdeen doctor has been going down to the sea in ships for 34 years.

More than 100 times he has jumped into a tiny boat and risked his life to help an injured or ill seaman.

Three weeks ago he received the M.B.E. from the Queen for his work.

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything," he told me from his surgery. "You have to like the sea, I suppose. No, that's not necessarily the case for every time I went out I felt queasy - seasickness. But I beat it.

"We are always ready to go out, no matter how hard a day it's been. Pay ? That's never even thought of. . ..." Life-boat doctors have a special "black bag". It stands in the hall or is locked in the car boot. Permanently.

Oilskins are Ready "Everyone has his or her idea of what to take along; different drugs, equipment and so on. And our oilskins are always ready for us. I wouldn't dream of giving up the job," said the doctor.

Training is compulsory. If six weeks go by without a call-out, a life-boat takes her doctor to sea for exercises. The aim is to make them as realistic as possible.

Two members of every crew are trained in first-aid by the doctors. But lifeboats send for their honorary member whenever he might be necessary. Most of the unpaid specialists make a point of going out as often as possible - even when they are not required.

"There is no difficulty in filling the job when one is vacated," Commander Forbes told me. "When a doctor is away on holiday, or sick himself, there is always someone standing by to fill in.

"We can't speak too highly of them. They are proud to be ready to come out with us. And believe me, we are proud to have them aboard.".