Heroism is only for the expendable

In his Editorial Doctors and the Victoria Cross ¹ John Pearn explained how surgeons in World War I were discouraged, and then banned, from rescuing the wounded under fire; stretcher-bearers were less valuable. In October 1956 my entry was lectured by the RAMC Regimental Sergeant-Major ‘No 'eroism’ but there was also a hierarchy of expendability within doctors. On active service in Malaya in 1958, as a medical specialist, I was forbidden to fly to an emergency in the jungle. ² A junior doctor was sent. He was killed. I survive and remember.