The greater man, the greater courtesy

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7406.96

BMJ 2003;327:96 (12 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7406.96

Filler

The greater man, the greater courtesy

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

It was another busy admission day. I was working as a surgicalsenior house officer in Calcutta Medical College and was partof an eight member team, coping with the usual 30 or so admissions.It was the middle of the night when I saw a 9 year old boywho had just been brought to us by his father. The boy seemedto have developed generalised peritonitis and was not lookinggood.

"Why did you bring him so late?" I asked rather abruptly.

The boy's father, a softly spoken man, tried to explain hisdifficult social circumstances, lack of transport at this time,etc. Then he suddenly paused and said, "I understand his conditionis not good. Please do whatever you can." I was taken abackby the polite resoluteness of the man.

We started the treatment. The child needed a laparotomy forwhat turned out to be a . . . [Full text of this article]

Debasish Debnath, clinical research fellow

department of surgery, University of Aberdeen