Post 48 The 'On-duty' Rota 1968. Do consultants behave like this today?

I applied for a post as a junior doctor for a newly appointed consultant physician and was fortunate to be appointed.
The day after I started, I met another, more senior consultant, on the corridor.
‘I understand that you are now on the on-call rota,’ he said, pleasantly enough.
‘Yes, Sir, I am,’ I replied in a suitably deferential fashion.

‘Then I want you to know that if there is a problem with any of my patients, you can call me at any
time.’
Then he looked me straight in the eye. ‘Until eleven o’clock.’

 This reminiscence by Dr Peter Barnes is taken from ’The Class of ‘61’ which reflects on the lives of the young men and women who joined the Manchester Medical School as ‘freshers’ in 1961.  It is available from Amazon.

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