it is both a compliment and a curse when your colleagues ask you to treat them. All surgeons feel anxious when treating colleagues. It is not a rational anxiety – their colleagues are much less likely to complain than other patients if things go badly, as they know all too well that doctors are fallible human beings and not entirely in control of what is going to happen. The surgeon treating a fellow surgeon feels anxious because the usual rules of detachment have broken down and he feels painfully exposed. He knows that his patient knows that he is fallible.
