Patients need doctors but doctors also need patients I suspect big questions would be asked of any physician who found his consulting room empty I think it is high time that patients sought out those physicians who are skilled in both the science AND art of medicine and left Mr Wessely and his cronies to their pointless and circular discussions about functional disorders of the nerves and the notion of ME as a neurosis I hope Mr Wessely that one day you will go to Akureyri and visit the graves of the children who died from ME I hope you will contemplate that the propogation of ME as a functional disorder has marginalised and distressed children within schools so that they are picked on by fellow pupils in a way that children with physical disabilities and even severe autism no longer are They are often even looked on by the mechanisms that are supposed to protect children in schools as psychiatric cases rather than those suffering a severe physical illness I hope that at Akureyri you will pause and ask yourself the question Perhaps I was wrong To do so would allow me to see a glimmer of humility in the task of service you have been asked to undertake by us your patients that of a physician