The profession I admire most is a surgeon. I am a huge admirer of TV documentaries showing the operations of top surgeons as they battle to save, or improve the lives of people in their care. Not only that, I admire their huge subject knowledge and their mastery of so much detailed, precise information, that they must have at their fingertips. I also admire their deft skill and precision with surgical tools, that they cannot afford to make a mistake with. That they can transplant a human heart, a lung, or a kidney, and minutely excise a tiny brain tumour to within a millimetre of certain death, beggars belief. Also, in most cases, their modest, unassuming, gentle bedside manner only adds to the esteem in which I hold them. Most of their patients are frightened and are suffering a great deal of pain, and yet they display great empathy with their plight and tremendous resolve to help them in every way they can. It is not about money for them. It is not about fame, likes or social media attention. It is all about the patient. I love that. However, it is their calmness under pressure, their ice cool assuredness when their back is up against the wall in difficult situations, and the blood is flying, that puts them at the top of my list of professions I admire. Intelligent, skilful, compassionate, brave. They truly are the best of us.