Paul Wallace: GP and innovative alcohol researcher

Paul Wallace, emeritus David Cohen professor of primary healthcare, University College London (UCL), had a mantra: “GPs are experts in normality.” Unlike many hospital specialists, he explained, GPs were less prone to over-investigate and go down rabbit holes leading nowhere. Far removed from normal, his personal life determined much of what he did professionally.

Wallace, his brother, Mark, and their late sister, Catherine, all GPs, were born to Frank and Ruth Wallace (formerly Wallach), who came to the UK in 1938 as Kindertransport children fleeing Nazi persecution.

Although Wallace’s illustrious status as an innovative, academic GP aligned him squarely to the establishment, his German heritage left him unable to identify with the “middle class Briton” and much of UK culture, according to Mark Wallace. He never felt wholly at home in the UK and saw himself as an internationalist. A passionate Italophile, he had two Italian wives and worked in Italy in 1977-78 before returning to the UK for GP training at Northwick Park Hospital, London. He would have stayed in Italy if he had found an appropriate job.

Wallace was a founder member of the European Society of General Practice/Family Medicine and founder of the Foundation for Family Medicine in Palestine. As a former member …