It would perhaps be too easy to suggest that being an expert in pain is good training for taking on the vice-chancellorship of the University of Oxford.
Being the oldest university in the English-speaking world elevates it to a peculiar position in the British psyche: celebrated for being historic, world-leading and the trainer of future leaders, while at the same time attacked for its elitism and scrutinised at every turn, its ruin predicted regularly in the national press, often for contradictory reasons.
So, while Irene Tracey had not been widely tipped for the role, as soon as her nomination was announced it seemed to make perfect sense.
