One of the things a nosy person such as myself enjoys about medicine is the opportunity to ask personal questions with impunity and discover the soap opera going on behind that normal exterior. I actually relish the Catherine Cooksonesque component of the medical interview known as “social and family history”. Mostly because it’s all got a lot more interesting since I took the leap into my paediatric training. In adult medicine, the key questions were “Booze? Cigarettes? Job? Incontinent? Stairs?” and off we whisked to some proper medicine. But in paeds the situation is a little different.

Being a graduate …