Hugh Robertson-Ritchie

Hugh qualified as a medical practitioner (MB,BS) at Guy’s Hospital, University of London in 1972. He has worked for most of his medical career as an NHS general practitioner and as a GP trainer. He was awarded an MPhil in the History of Medicine from the University of Cambridge in 1996.

Since then, Hugh was awarded an MA in Philosophy from the University of Kent in 2020. He commenced his PhD studies in the Philosophy Department of the University of Kent in September 2021.

Hugh is interested in the application of philosophy to medical knowledge and medical practice, especially in areas where there are disputes and uncertainty. This entails the use of ontology, epistemology, phenomenology and hermeneutics, and the concepts of epistemic injustice and rhetorical injustice.

PhD title

‘Using Philosophical Analysis to Address Disagreements Concerning Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelopathy (CFS/ME)’

Hugh's PhD is a philosophical investigation of the reasons why, after many decades of research and debate, CFS/ME remains an ‘unexplained, contested illness’ whose sufferers experience epistemic injustice, and why disputes about its treatments continue to this day. There is no agreed common underlying pathological process and there is no biomarker to distinguish people with CFS/ME from those with similar symptoms.

The new condition ‘Long Covid’ is likely to generate a great deal of new scientific research, which may throw a new perspective onto CFS/ME, where the symptoms are similar.

Dr David Corfield, Professor Jon Williamson and Dr Lubomira Radoilska