In a recent article in The Guardian by Henry Marsh (the neurosurgeon who wrote ‘Do No Harm’) he talked about how he gave a present to his treating clinician after he was diagnosed with cancer.
He asked the guy if he liked honey and the guy did and he took out of his pocket a jar of honey from the bees in his garden.
He gave it to the chap as a present.
Some years ago, I had the privilege of seeing Graeme Perks.
Graeme is the head of plastic surgery in Nottingham and is such a highly regarded human being and surgeon.
He’s also the guy who was attacked in his own home by a former colleague who tried to set fire to his house and stabbed him multiple times almost killing him, a case that’s recently gone to trial in our part of the world.
Graeme had asked a mutual friend, Phil, who he should see to have a tooth out and he came to see me.
It’s probably one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever had in clinical dentistry.
It wasn’t a difficult extraction, and I took Graeme’s tooth out and in return he gave me a loaf of bread that his wife had baked.
He didn’t pay.
He didn’t pay for treatment with me because he never would have charged me for treatment with him.
Some years ago, when Alison and I had the misfortune of having to go quickly to a breast cancer expert, he never charged her because she was a nurse in the NHS even though we saw him privately.
This used to be a thing in healthcare and in fact, from time to time I get phoned up from random clinicians asking me if they’ll get their treatment for free but for people like Graeme it was just normal.
I think probably for people like Henry Marsh too.
I guess the world can’t exist much like that anymore but in some ways I’m sad because to respect a colleague in such a way as to not charge them because of everything that they’re doing which is so wonderful for other people whether they be a nurse or a surgeon or a healthcare assistant or a porter is an extraordinary thing.
I loved that loaf of bread.
It was beautiful in so many ways.
Blog Post Number - 3182
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