We are going through the list of overnight admissions when my phone beeps. Expecting a medical request to do something or see someone, my chest cramps at the message.

I must be sufficiently distracted for the trainee to ask, “All OK?”

It’s a split-second decision. My instinct is to blurt out that an old friend has died and I need time out. But this would inevitably incur an explanation causing the ward round to be consumed by sympathy for me instead of care for our patients.

So I muster the pretence to say, “Just keep going”, convincing myself this is what Mike would have wanted.

Mike and I met more than 30 years ago. Medical student admissions are a multifaceted thing but I like to think that he was the administrator who “let” me in. More accurately, he was the one who told me years later that after several rounds of offers, there was just one remaining spot and many deserving students but maybe the universe had spoken and I squeezed in.

Getting into medicine would turn out to be the most consequential event of my life.

The next year, Mike gave me my first job, the task of settling the nerves of the medical students who were appearing for their interview like I did once.

It was a decidedly plum job; paid hours, free sandwiches and real orange juice. But even better was Mike introducing me to a fellow student, G.

“I think you will get........

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