After junior hospital medical posts and
national service with the
Royal Army Medical Corps in Egypt, Goldberg obtained a
Nuffield fellowship in the Department of Chemical Pathology at
University College Hospital, London. Here he worked with the Professor of Chemical Pathology, Claude Rimmington, in learning the techniques which were to underpin his future research studies on the blood pigment
haem and its relation to the disease
porphyria. After a year and a half spent on an
Eli Lilly travelling fellowship in
Salt Lake City with the haematologist Max Wintrobe, Goldberg returned to Scotland in 1956. He obtained his
MD from the University of Edinburgh at this time, with his thesis
Acute intermittent porphyria, and began working as a lecturer in medicine in the Department of Medicine of the
University of Glasgow, where he was to spend the remainder of his professional career. The mid-1960s saw him being awarded
DSc and securing a Personal Chair in the Department of Medicine,
Western Infirmary, University of Glasgow. As editor of the
Scottish Medical Journal in 1962-63, he presided over the initiation of a special series on Scottish medical education which was published in book form in April 1963. Subsequent to this, over the next 20 years, he made contributions to the development of medical education through, for example, the production of a bedside teaching manual for medical students (known as "the green book"), the production of a clinical examination
slide-tape series (with Albert Yeung), and a major paper on the future of Scottish medical education in the Health Bulletin, in addition to his bedside teaching, lectures and supervision of students undertaking postgraduate degrees. He became a world authority on
porphyria, and a leading expert on
lead poisoning, being influential in improving the safety of the water supply to Glasgow. He was appointed to the Regius Chair of
Materia Medica,
Stobhill Hospital in 1970, succeeding Stanley Alstead. He built up the Department of Materia Medica and supervised Brian Whiting, later to be Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, in the development of a drug interaction disc which ultimately was distributed to all practising doctors in the UK. This activity, together with other work on
pharmacodynamics, laid the foundation for later achievements including the chairmanship of the
Committee on the Safety of Medicines and the Founding Presidency of the
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK. His work on lead poisoning, an interest of his in the 1960s, continued while at Stobhill Hospital and he was an influential figure in promoting a safer, lead-free water supply to the people of Glasgow. In 1974, he was responsible for establishing the West of Scotland Alcohol Research Group; he was interested in research associated with alcohol and, indeed, he was also a former member of the Scottish Council on Alcoholism. ==Personal life==