Reid received his medical education at Oxford and the Middlesex Hospital, qualified with the conjoint diploma and the Oxford BM BCh in 1937 and gained his Fellowship in 1949. Having obtained the DLO in 1940 he decided to specialise in otolaryngology and was assistant ENT surgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, before becoming consultant ENT surgeon at Preston Hospital. He later moved to Kent as consultant ENT surgeon to the Canterbury and South East Kent Health District. During the second world war he was a squadron leader in the RAFVR and was adviser in ENT surgery to Air Headquarters, India. He died in July 1995.