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Reflections on retirement

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Philip D Welsby
1, Burnbrae, Edinburgh EH12 8UB, UK; Philipwelsby@aol.com

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

I retired from the National Health Service after 26 years as a consultant, having done most of the right things and concealing most of the wrong things. Obviously what follows has to be selective and focuses on my experiences. While I have gained a lot of medical experience, experience is by definition all in the past and, such is the increasing rate of change, experience is sadly becoming increasingly less relevant.

This paragraph was written last to put all the worrying aspects that follow into perspective. The NHS provides an outstanding health care system, free at the point of need, and which functions from cradle to grave. Of course the NHS could and should be improved but the focus on minor problems should not obscure the many major achievements. For example, the media focus on perceived failure of immediate availability of highly expensive new drugs for . . . [Full text of this article]