In the seventeenth century Charles-François Félix de Tassy was by no means a novice, but he had never performed an operation to cut open an anal fistula when Louis XIV consulted him about this complaint. So he asked the king to give him six months and first performed the operation on seventy-five patients before daring to try it on the king. I wonder whether my first patients were aware of my comparative lack of experience when I was just beginning as a surgeon.
