The good old days

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7456.59-a

BMJ 2004;329:59 (3 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7456.59-a

reviews

SOUNDINGS

The good old days

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

After I started in general practice I worked a one-in-two nightrota for 12 years. By the end, I was thoroughly burnt out andhad so little empathy left that I could sit through SpencerTracy's death scene in Captains Courageous without blubbering.I hated being called out of bed and calling me was as pointlessas Tantalus's mother shouting, "Come on, son, eat your dinner."My only remaining virtues were sarcasm and lust, my only emotionsapathy and self pity, and I was ready to start slaughteringmy staff—only I wasn't sure how to hide their still-quiveringbodies from the fuzz.

But when the opportunity of joining an out-of-hours cooperativearose, instead of jumping on it like a health insurance companyon the occasional perfectly genuine claim, my feelings werecuriously equivocal. Would the patients stand for it? Wouldthere be marching in the streets? Or would they just . . . [Full text of this article]

Liam Farrell, general practitioner

Crossmaglen, County Armagh