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- Page navigation anchor for RE: A dangerous ideaRE: A dangerous ideaI found your Dangerous Idea published in BJGP February 2015 interesting and persuasive in a context of remembering my own inept attempts to interview and examine patients in the late 1960s. The app. would have been invaluable to hone some skills before experimenting on patients. However I don’t agree with the conclusion that it would replace the need for patient contact. For the provision of health service to improve, the development of empathy of providers with their patients is essential and avoiding contact with people early in clinical training won’t further that goal. However if some of the wasteful and misdirected patient contact time is diverted to sessions of diversionary therapy or personal care of patients in activities with which a student is familiar the relationship would benefit both parties. It will impact on the student’s understanding and acceptance of people and what it means to be ill through here and now issues which are relevant and focussed on the patient’s needs.I have always thought my privilege of a few months employment before starting medicine, as an assistant nurse in one of the institutions of psychiatry mentioned in another article in the same issue, was one of the most influential experiences of my career for helping me to absorb the reality of other people’s lives which were very different to my own. The other, was 20 years later when I worked for two years on a Western Paci...Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.