• Medical Education
• Medical Journalism

People say some daft things about being a paediatrician, especially when you announce it as a career choice. I remember someone saying to me “Ah, well, you can’t like kids that much then”—based on an assumption that I would spend the rest of my professional life causing pain and distress to children. Someone else said to me “Oh, I’d be a paediatrician, if it weren’t for the parents …” Reflecting on this over the years, the combination of working with children and their parents has been much of what has made work so satisfying and rewarding. I’m not trying to make out that I’m a saint or something; in fact far from it, and I have my share of families who I would describe, in the open pages of …