Behalf

During a recent meeting on some academic affairs, PL, our professor of surgery, said with a tone of disappointment, "I must say many a time the arrangement of clinical teaching for our junior medical students are very rigid and not entirely satisfactory. You know, many of my colleagues are busy surgeons and may be called for urgent duties even if they are not on emergency call. A fixed time of clinical teaching would easily end up with no show from our side."

We all nodded. I must say physicians - and obstetricians and pediatricians and many others - have the same problem.

"Let's take myself as an example," he went on, "A few months ago, I was assigned to do a session on communication skill. Well, it is about obtaining informed consent. Just 10 minutes before the session, I was urgently called by the operating theatre to help out for a difficult surgery. I don't even have the time to ask someone else to take up the session!"

"So, what did you do?" Someone asked.

"Alas, I asked my house officer to go on behalf of me!"