no judge I

Kelly-Anne's ministrations having done the trick, I go in to work today with only a minor sense of stiffness in the back- thanks KAK!

A widower of 60 comes in today. He occupies a senior position in NHS management, but child porn has been discovered on his hard drive, and he is threatened with the sack and possible (likely, I would have said in the present climate)criminal proceedings. He is understandably devastated, and I do my best to support him, as is my job in this setting. I agree with him emphatically that there is a huge difference between one's fantasy life and what we actually do; he says he would never dream of abusing a child in real life, and I believe him.

I go through the debate later with my wife, but her view is that he may not be doing the abusing himself, but he has bought into a system where children are abused in real life- photographing these children IS abuse, she insists. I concede the veracity of her argument, and she for her part agrees that my role in the surgery is to support my patient, right or wrong. There are limits even to this, however: if I thought someone had committed a murder or some other very serious crime, I would shop them immediately, confidentiality notwithstanding.