Every now and then a young person approaches me for advice on studying medicine.  The majority are extremely bright, capable and enthusiastic semi-adults, with strong desires to change the world and to ‘make a difference.’

I was once like that, once upon a time, long, long ago……….

I have wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember.  At a very early stage in my life, as soon as I could walk and talk, I also wanted to be a Royal Marine.  As an adult I got to be the closest e...

I remember talking to the wife I had just met of an old friend whom I had not seen in twenty years.  She was an avid avoider of medical doctors, preferring to take her family to alternative health practitioners.    Learning I was a doctor, and to my dismay, she began telling me about her fantastic homeopath, and how he had sorted out numerous problems that previous ‘inept’ family doctors had struggled to heal.  Her approach, as I have come to expect, was both provocative and accusing.

 T...