Know Your Consultant
SIR,—John Rowan Wilson's article on consultants (January 6) appears to have been compounded from a study of the works of Richard Gordon and A. J. Cronin.
A doctor chooses the same consultant for National Health and private patients—the one he has con- fidence in. Fees vary little, and are adapted to the patient rather than the patient to the fee. Surgeons of the James Robertson Justice type do exist and prosper, but the best work is mainly done by the quiet 'operating physician.' The 'all-purpose surgeon' certainly works in the abdomen, but the thorax is the special province of the thoracic surgeon.
There may be some justification for irritability in orthopaedic surgeons, plagued as they are with all the vague aches and pains of patients of low morale, but I would put the average gynaecologist high on the list of the kindly tolerant, and have had no reason to ascribe less humanity to the neurologists than to the cardiologists.
But, of course, I am a general practitioner, in contact with these people all the time.
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