Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander (R.A.A.) "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, (born August 24 1948) is a Rhodesian-born Scottish writer and emeritus professor of medical law at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In the late 20th century McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues. He has since become internationally known as a writer of fiction, most widely known as the creator of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series.

Biography

Born in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Alexander McCall Smith was educated in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe before moving to Scotland to study law. After returning to southern Africa to teach law at the University of Botswana, he returned once more to Edinburgh, where he lives today. He was sometime Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and is now Emeritus Professor at its School of Law.

He is the former chairman of the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee (until 2002), the former vice-chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the United Kingdom, and a former member of the International Bioethics Commission of UNESCO. Due to his late success as a writer these other commitments could not be continued.

He is an amateur bassoonist, and co-founder of The Really Terrible Orchestra. He is also the author of a testimonial in The Future of the NHS (2006) (ISBN 1-85811-369-5) edited by Dr Michelle Tempest.

He was appointed a CBE in the December 2006 New Year's Honours List.

1978 Power and Manoeuvrability (with Tony Carty)
1983 Law and Medical Ethics (with J Kenyon Mason) (this text has gone through several editions: a seventh, by Mason and Graeme Laurie, was published in 2006. McCall Smith contributed to all six previous editions.)
1987 Butterworths Medico-Legal Encyclopaedia (with J Kenyon Mason)
1990 Family Rights: Family Law and Medical Advances (with Elaine Sutherland)
1992 The Criminal Law of Botswana (with Kwame Frimpong)
1993 The Duty to Rescue (with Michael Menlowe, 1993)
1992 Scots Criminal Law (with David H Sheldon, second edition published 1997)
1997 Forensic Aspects of Sleep (with Colin Shapiro)
2000 Justice and the Prosecution of Old Crimes (with Daniel W Shuman)
2001 Errors, Medicine and the Law (with Alan Merry)
2003 A Draft Criminal Code for Scotland (with Eric Clive, Pamela Ferguson and Christopher Gane)
2004 Creating Humans: Ethical questions where reproduction and science collide (collected lectures, audio recordings)