Fading away

The photograph, head and shoulders of a young man in uniform, is passport sized, the features oddly familiar: aquiline and as yet unlined, but definitely him.

In the early 1960s he had lectured to us, giving us weekly clinical treats in an aridpreclinical landscape, cheering us up by relating physiology to real patients. One was awoman dying of emphysema. After she was wheeled out he said, “What that poor woman needs is a lung transplant.” We shook our heads in scorn and disbelief.

Later …