Striking doctors are a disgrace to their profession. Shame on them! It is a sad day when money and home comforts are put before the vocational values of the Hippocratic Oath, to which they have presumably subscribed, and which calls on them to ‘preserve the finest traditions of their calling’.

My father-in-law, a surgeon, often told stories of the long hours and privations he endured as a junior doctor. He never regretted them and indeed, regarded them as indispensable to the skills and experience he acquired, and which made him into the respected professional he became. He would not have demeaned himself to strike in a million years.

The sadness is that the strikers have been misled and manipulated by the militants who run their union. The hope is that one day the scales will fall from their eyes, and they will realize that they have let down not only their patients but themselves.

Yours faithfully

Bill Gunn

The Stone Barn

Woolhope

Hereford