"The Two Towers" of Birmingham University: Part II

In the previous part of this epic tale, I outlined the origins of the academic institutions of Birmingham University and the Medical School, and how the frantic struggle for power led to a union of the Two Towers.

Joseph Chamberlain (left), a Member of Parliament turned academic sorcerer, continued his clutch on Birmingham by becoming embodied throughout progressive generations of Birmingham scholars as the CHANCELLOR of Birmingham University.

William Sands Cox (right) by contrast, was succeeded by subsequent figures of power, which culminated in the present day DEAN. This bastion of dictatorial strength and agility is feared throughout students of the Medical School. William Sands Cox initial Christian vision became distorted and twisted until the DEAN was desperate for worldwide dominion. The CHANCELLOR, constantly aware of this from his 100 foot tower, decided to set a plan into motion to counteract the sadistic and vicious uprising of the malicious DEAN. This plan was three-fold: Political, Administrative and Medical.

Firstly the CHANCELLOR ensured, using the pervasive political powers of the original Chamberlain, coupled with the Chamberlain Tower of extreme power and force, to put in place a new government to rule Great Britain in 1997. Termed 'New Labour', this government was merely a puppet power to ensure that the CHANCELLOR's plans came to fruition. Central to this plan was an increase in the numbers of students flowing through the medical school. This would help to lessen the DEAN's grasp over these young minds, whilst making them more reliant on the actual University campus for guidance, leisure, and nutrition. This plan also involved a huge restructuring of the NHS healthcare system, to try and supplant the source of the DEAN's power: free, good quality healthcare.

Over the years that followed, the intake of students to the medical school exceeded 400. The medical school was full to bursting, and as the administrative structure began to cripple the CHANCELLOR's plan was clearly having an effect. The only way to remedy this was to expand the medical school. In 2005 the DEAN completed an extension to contain the students and prevent them from mingling with the students at the main campus of the University. There was no escaping the union of the medical school with the University, but the DEAN was desperate to break free. His success in this regard lured him into a false sense of security; he considered expanding the whole Queen Elizabeth Hospital to increase his grip on Birmingham healthcare. But this was exactly what the CHANCELLOR was anticipating...

The DEAN had continued a long line of traditional medical teaching and practice. He was of the opinion that the medical profession was an elite, with him as the invisible head. But with the CHANCELLOR's new government, this position gave way to the patient autonomy and consumerism role; where the patient was considered an equal partner, nay greater, than the doctor. This threatened the very foundations of the DEAN's power, and so he reacted against it by maintaining the old style, of doctors sitting behind desks during consultations, and bow ties for consultants, in the hope that he could resist the changes.

But the DEAN's thirst for power was his undoing... the CHANCELLOR waved the ultimate carrot before him in the form of privatisation by multi-million pound companies providing brand new buildings and facilities. Lets face it: the QE complex is by this time becoming old, grey and slowly decomposing. Part of the 'new NHS' was the prospect of super-hospitals. And the DEAN could not resist.

But as the building work progresses now, in 2006, the DEAN is blissfully unaware of the shifting forces... In the air is the rumour that the CHANCELLOR's ultimate plan is to lure the DEAN away from his clock tower and into the new super-hospital, so that he can destroy the QE Tower once and for all... Whether this latest and greatest plan will come to fruition, only time will tell....

To be continued...?