Respect for Patients. Melanie Hawes, who qualified in 1969, remembers:
I can remember one of the ward sisters, probably Miss Hall on Harmsworth, saying that one
of our primary duties and concerns was to treat our patients like 'honoured guests'. That
meant that you didn't call them by their Christian name, you didn't call them 'Ducky' or 'Dear',
you called them by their surnames and their titles. We were taught to treat them with great
respect, and great care, and with what I now sum up in the word 'professionalism'. Sadly I
see this lacking these days. The privacy and dignity of our patients became second nature
to us. It wasn't something that had to be laid down in a government white paper about how
we treat patients. That should not be necessary. In our training it was absolutely inherent in
everything that we did.