Following a gunshot wound and a back injury, he returned to Britain to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, qualifying in 1924.

After junior posts at Bradford Royal Infirmary and Brighton, he settled into general practice in Preston, where he remained until his retirement.

As he was already enrolled in the Highland Territorial Division with his school friends, he enlisted on the first day of the war and was subsequently posted to Gallipoli.

[1] Although his father proposed the clergy as a suitable career, Rose chose medicine and gained admission to Edinburgh Medical School in 1919.

[1] Rose's first appointment was a surgical house job at Bradford Royal Infirmary, followed by a resident medical post at Queen Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children at Brighton.

In 1950 he was well established in medical politics and Henry Cohen, vice president elect of the BMA described him as .... "sincere in his desire to advance the profession, increase the status of the general practitioner, and uphold the honour and interests of the Association".

[1] Rose served on several important local committees that supervised the 1911 National Health Insurance scheme in Lancashire and Preston.

His commitment to his practice and committee work was to the detriment of his leisure time and he noted in 1962 that "I have arrived at the stage where evenings, half days and weekends are all submerged in one thing or another.

[1] Increasing specialities, the strength of the traditional royal colleges and lack of appropriate training left GPs feeling excluded and resentful.

Morale slipped further when The Lancet in 1951, published a critical report on general practice by the visiting Australian doctor, Joe Collings.

[3] Rose asserted it "painted a black picture of crowded waiting rooms, queues, lack of surgery equipment, inadequate examination of patients even in the better practices visited, and of unsatisfactory standards generally".

He continued to hold offices in several medical organizations and committees until a few months before his death at age 75, just 3 weeks before the royal charter was given to the RCGP.

[6] The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London and the RCGP jointly award The Rose Prize for the best original research into the history of general practice.

[8] Following the discovery that Rose's 99 Fylde Road surgery in Preston had become a public house known as The Guild, permission was obtained by the North West branch of the RCGP to install a memorial plaque.