Ian Thomas Patrick was born on May 3, 1924, in Dennistoun, Glasgow.
His father was a senior member of staff in the Glasgow Corporation
Rates Department. Before his parents were married, his mother also
worked there. When Ian was four, the family bought a semidetached
house in Kelvindale, a new estate in the west end of Glasgow. He
and his younger sister attended Hillhead High School until war
broke out in 1939, when they both became evacuees. Ian was resident
in the hostel attached to Dumfries Academy. He spent two happy
years there obtaining his Higher Leaving Certificate in 1941. He
spent his sixth year back in Hillhead, then entered Glasgow
University Medical School, graduating in 1948. His parents were
churchgoers; Ian became a Sunday school teacher in his local
church, Westbourne Church of Scotland. His call to the mission
field developed over his student years. Two of his close
undergraduate friends had grown up as children of medical
missionaries, one in China and the other in Africa. He read several
books about missionary lives. During his final year as an
undergraduate, he volunteered to the Church of Scotland. He had
felt attracted to China, but the communists were spreading
throughout the country, and Christian missions were sending home
overseas staff. India seemed more possible. However, the only
vacancy was in the Punjab. Partition occurred in 1947, so a more
experienced candidate was needed. However, the Church of Scotland
referred him to the Presbyterian Church of England. After
graduation, Dr. Patrick's first job was to spend six months as
house surgeon in Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary. He applied
during this time and was interviewed and accepted to serve in
Rajshahi, the third-largest city in the new state of East Pakistan.
He was making plans for further posts to gain experience, but the
mission board instead arranged for him to spend his first year
training in the Welsh Mission Hospital in Shillong, the capital of
the hill state of Assam in India, under a very experienced
missionary, Arthur Hughes. After the first year, which included a
three-month Bengali language study course in Darjeeling, he began
work in September 1949 in Rajshahi, supervising the conversion of a
former student hostel into a hospital.
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