I AM NOT GOING TO CRY

At least, I hope I’m not. But it is an inescapable fact that I am finding it much harder not to do so; that despite my best intentions the tears are frequently very close, even at work, which is a terrible admission. Tonight, there are tears in my eyes as I write this, even though I am safely at home and there is no apparent reason for them. So why this watery, emotional, display? I’m not even sure that I can explain, but I will try.

I became a doctor on January 9^th 1980, at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. I remember rushing down the stairs at Lincoln’s Inn shouting “I am a doctor” repeatedly at my anxiously waiting mother. It was probably the most important moment of my life. From being a lowly medical student, I had turned into that impressive being: a doctor. I was licensed, or I soon would be, to treat patients, to do good, above all, to do no harm.

The reason that I became a doctor at the Royal College of Surgeons in January, rather than at a University the following June, is that I come from Malta and there had been a little upheaval there. I might tell you about that another time. Suffice it to say, that I qualified six months ahead of the rest of my year. It was an amazing moment, emotional and impressive. There had never been before, nor would there ever be again, an exam of such life-changing significance.

What has that to do with the tears that are now streaming down my cheeks in an unstoppable fashion? That day I knew, with absolutely certainty, that I would spend the rest of my life working for the NHS, trying to improve the health of the population in whatever way seemed most appropriate. As it happened, I ended up in Public Health, but I could as easily have been a Paediatrician. I never thought the day would come, however, when the sub-speciality to which I belong (Health Services Public Health) would be essentially designed out of the system as of no importance and that we would be told that 30 years of experience were no longer of any use. It is not a good feeling. I would not wish it on anybody, except ………  But, no, that would be too cruel.