Goulstonian Lecture

The Goulstonian Lectures are an annual lecture series given on behalf of the Royal College of Physicians in London. They began in 1639. The lectures are named for Theodore Goulston, who founded them with a bequest. By his will, dated 26 April 1632, he left £200 to the College of Physicians of London to found a lectureship, to be held in each year by one of the four youngest doctors of the college. These lectures were annually delivered from 1639, and have continued for more than three centuries. Up to the end of the 19th century, the spelling Gulstonian was often used. In many cases the lectures have been published.
Gulston's widow bequeathed the annual donation to the College of Physicians for them to arrange for one of the four youngest doctors to "read the lecture on some dead body, to be dissected as the President and Elects should think necessary for the diseases to be treated of; the lecture to be read yearly, between Christmas and Easter, on three days together; and the reader to treat of three or more diseases, as the seniors of the College should direct; ten pounds to be paid to the doctor who should read, and two pounds to the dissector and for burying the body".

Lecturers (incomplete list)

17th century

1701–1800

1801–1900

1901–2000

2001 – present

2021 Rickie Patani, Decoding therapeutically targetable molecular events in ALS using human stem cell models
2022 Manish Pareek, COVID-19 and ethnicity
2023 Lecture was not awarded or delivered
2024 , Ending uncertainty: predicting response to breast cancer treatment using tumour profiling and AI
2025 , ''Precision oncology – the best medicine for everyone?''