When you approach a patient you have damaged it feels as though there is a force-field pushing against you, resisting your attempts to open the door behind which the patient is lying, the handle of which feels as though it were made of lead, pushing you away from the patient’s bed, resisting your attempts to raise a hesitant smile. It is hard to know what role to play. The surgeon is now a villain and perpetrator, or at best incompetent, no longer heroic and all-powerful. It is much easier to hurry past the patient without saying anything.
