SEARCHING FOR THE IMPOSIBLE
Dr Meg's autobiography was first published in 1986. Using Meg's notes written prior to her death in 2002, her son Lorne has updated the original edition detailing what has happened over the past twenty years.

'I had no great ambition . . . to be a self-centred career woman. I did know that I wanted something meaningful . . . challenging, in which I could use the skills God had given me,' said Meg on becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons at the age of twenty-five, one of only twenty women who had ever become Fellows in Edinburgh at that time.

The youngest child of five, her home was Aberdeen, north-eastern Scotland. Meg was educated at the Central School (now Aberdeen Academy), and was Dux or the leading scholar for four years. Aged 16 she was accepted at Aberdeen University to read Medicine and graduated MB, ChB when she was 21, one of the youngest doctors to do so. Having won First Prize in Surgery she went to work in the Aberdeen Sick Children's Hospital. During the war years, she became a House Surgeon at the Maternity Hospital before going to St. James Hospital in Balham, London, where she worked under renowned Norman Tanner before applying for her FRCS (Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons) in Edinburgh University.

An unexpected meeting—some would call it chance, but Meg's faith taught her otherwise, led her to a medical post at Ludhiana Christian Medical College in India. Her marriage to George Patterson, a journalist already known for his work in Tibet, at first seemed impossible because of their irreconcilable vocations, but they knew that God would weave their separate lives into His purposes, so they went ahead into an unknown future. Work in India, Nepal, and Hong Kong led Meg away from surgery and into the development of a unique treatment for chemical dependency.

George and Meg have featured in national and international media as a result of their treatment involving musicians such as Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Pete Townshend. Meg's autobiography Searching for the Impossible (previously titled Dr Meg) is largely an account of her lifelong struggle to have her revolutionary treatment recognised and financially supported in Britain and the United States. It is an exciting, often humorous and always inspiring story of unswerving commitment and perseverance, despite frankly admitted periods of despondency.

After forty years, Meg concludes: 'We were all pilgrims . . . in a glorious adventure with God'

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