Best

The argument put forward was, "Does a doctor with 7 years of experience offer a standard of care as good as a chair professor with 30 years ?"

I would go back one step and ask: Do we - the public health care system, I mean - seriously want to offer the best level of care to our patients ?

I could hear you scream.

But let's consider, if we agree the chair professor offers a better care than someone who just completed his physician training, and we should always offer the best possible level of care to all of our patients, the inevitable conclusion is we have to ask that poor chair professor to see all patients.

For similar reasons, we should ask the best endoscopist to treat all patients with gastrointestinal bleeding, cardiologist to do all catheterization, and surgeon to repair all hernia. Not only is this strategy a nightmare to that poor specialist, it is actually harmful to the patients:

• For the current patients, they have to see an overworked burn-out specialist.
• More importantly, for patients in the future, training of doctors would be severely impaired.

You may argue, "We are talking about supervision, not asking the senior physician to do everything."

True. We shall go through tomorrow some considerations more serious than training.

PS. I am not saying we should leave our fresh qualified fellows on their own. Senior physicians should always be available to give advice, but the young generation should have, as much as possible, a free hand for independent practice - of course with the corresponding shouldering of (legal) responsibility.