My outpatient clinic is an odd combination of the trivial and the deadly serious. It is here that I see patients weeks or months after I have operated on them, new referrals or long-term follow-ups. They are wearing their own clothes and I meet them as equals. They are not yet in-patients who have to submit to the depersonalizing rituals of being admitted to the hospital, to be tagged like captive birds or criminals and to be put into bed like children in hospital gowns. I refuse to have anybody else in the room – no students, no junior doctors or nurses – only the patients and their families.
