Tiredness, frequent interruptions from bleep calls and nagging worries about decisions are inescapable. Duty rotas dominate personal and family life. The downside is that entry to each specialty is more tightly controlled and it is difficult to move from one specialty pathway to another. Rigid training programmes have made it more difficult to take more than one year out for research or for experience abroad. Breadth and depth of knowledge and clarity of decision are constantly questioned.
Enthusiasm is blunted by tiredness.
But it is a hard road and not a job for everyone. He argued that the public had a legitimate interest in how people became doctors and that, if the process was going to be examined somewhere, it might as well be at St Mary's. He hoped that what came across as bad would be aspects of the national system which needed improvement and as good would be life at St Mary's. From October 1998, Professor Richards will be President of Hughes Hall at Cambridge.