Doctors’ duty of care

SIR – I read with concern Caroline Elton’s piece (Features, March 12) on the psychological difficulties experienced by junior medics.

It takes five to six years of scientific and clinical training to graduate as a junior doctor. Like a newly commissioned officer, you are then thrust into the front line against disease: coma, haemorrhage, peritonitis, advanced cancer. This is what you have been trained for.

The doctors profiled in the article are working in a busy, warm, clean hospital. The work is stressful but they are supported by competent colleagues in medicine, surgery and nursing. A busy weekend on call goes with the territory.

Compare their situation with those working with Médecins Sans Frontières in caves on the Iraq/iran border.

Work-life balance is a mantra for lawyers and estate agents, but medicine has never been a nine-to-five occupation. Great medical advances – transfusions, antibiotics, vascular surgery – have come about as a consequence of famine, epidemics, war and unrest.

The profession needs tough, dedicated trainees who will continue the tradition of continuity of care that has been the hallmark of British and international best practice for more than 100 years. FD Skidmore FRCS

London SE3