WellBlowMe, no i wasn't being totally serious. My tongue was partly in my cheek. I often think of various professionals as 'like schoolboys' ( I think it's called getting older - you know what 'they' say about policemen?).
Re my dad's last weekend, i have several regrets about his care, and that I was so pollaxed by the whole situation that i wasn't his best advocate despite being a health professional myself (and actually knowing more about what dad needed at that time than the 'schoolboy with a med degree'), and being desperate not to pull rank. I don't think you can pull rank actually if you're a nurse with 20 yrs experience (as I was then) and you are talking to a very junior doctor (health care hierarchy is a funny thing), but there you go - that's the term i choose to use. Thing was dad was dying from a major stroke, he was desperately uncomfortable, i knew his catheter was blocked (I was looking at the lack of output)- anyone else's dad i'd have pulled screens round and said 'Excuse me, Mr so and so, do you mind if I feel your tummy?' and then explained POLITELY BUT FIRMLY to the very young looking (and slightly inexperienced) doctor what he needed to do about it. And that'sa teensy bit of the tale. And what the nice but very young and experienced doc called him is neither here nor there. He died anyway. There, got that off my ample bosom.