I hate to think how long ago it all happened, but I’m guessing it was some 30 years. It’s not that I remember everything I did that long ago, but the occasional situation remains unforgettable, and this was one. I was doing a fairly routine surgery, in which 20 patients had expected me to make some sort of sense of what was going on in their lives. One of these patients was a young woman whose problem I don’t recall, but as she was getting up to leave I clearly remember her asking, ‘Oh, could I possibly have a look at my medical records?’ I passed them to her. She looked at the envelope, weighed them in her hand, and then – without opening them or reading a word, she passed them back.