Deputising general practitioners' role in emergencies. Romantic expectations of out of hours care cost GPs dear.

EDITOR,--J N Rawlinson's pain, distress, and guilt at having taken part in an unsuccessful attempt to resuscitate a neighbour are evident, and the author is clearly angry at the deputising doctor for having taken so long to arrive and for then holding up the paramedics.1 But surely we should be looking beneath the surface of this problem at the causes. The patient's husband said that “[our] own doctor … would have stayed with me”; Rawlinson states that their own doctor would have cared for the family. This is a romantic …