A corridor to the past.

A primary purpose of this opening address for the winter session of the Hospital is to welcome the new students. I sometimes hear of medical students in midstream wondering whether they have chosen the right profession or more definitely stating that they have made a mistake. This often arises from exhaustion by the scientific pressures of the first three years, and I can only say that it is rarely a complaint in the final years. In fact, my advice to the clinical students would certainly be to enjoy your ward work to the full. As a student one has time to talk to patients which is never available so freely again as House Surgeon or Registrar, and this is what makes medicine interesting. The patients are available in the wards not, as is sometimes feared by outsiders, as victims to be preyed on by the students, but as people who love to talk about themselves and hear other more or less informed views on their condition.