I must, on behalf of many late-career GPs, respond to Dr Sue Ieraci’s well-reasoned article on the rights of patients to receive healthcare from the smartest and brightest of our profession.

Sue outlined the inevitable decline in our skills as we age and why all doctors should self-reflect and consider hanging up our stethoscopes before we do any age-related harm.

I have to confess that, initially at least, I agreed with everything she wrote and — with a touch of irony —thought I might state that, nevertheless, this didn’t apply to me!

I stewed over this for a while and then rationalised that Sue was writing from the perspective of a specialist, and a specialist who has spent most of her professional career at the pointy end of medicine — where you need to be on your toes 24/7.

Yes, with the march of time, she has cut back on her hours and is spending more of her professional time mentoring and being an administrator, but her clinical practice remains at the very active face of medicine.

Most GPs move away from the sharp end of medicine when we leave hospital practice — rural generalists being but one exception — and face less demanding clinical situations than our specialist colleagues.