Remembrance of things past…

I watched the recent RTÉ series Junior Doctors with interest and pondered the changes since I was an intern several decades ago. In those days we were called house officers– intern being an American term. After qualification my head was full of discouraging aphorisms. Among them was Hippocrates’ statement “the art is long and life is short”. I also recall our professor of medicine telling us grads, rather bluntly, “You’re not dangerous to life but it will be several years before you are fit to have sole charge of patients”. I also remember a close medical friend telling me that…