Mens sana in corpore sano : student well‐being and the development of resilience

As time goes by, increasingly one finds oneself reminiscing with like‐minded doctors of a similar age. Somewhat fondly, we remember 100‐hour weeks, one in two on‐call rotas and shifts in the Emergency Department with nothing more to hand than the Guide to Practical Procedures, including helpful line‐drawn diagrams should you have to drain a pericardial effusion with a lumbar puncture needle connected to a single ECG lead. Which you did have to do. ‘That’, we tell ourselves ‘was how to become resilient’, as we potter off to fill in another on‐line assessment for a trainee who has never seen a pericardial effusion drained, never mind done it in the middle of the night with nothing more than a pocket handbook to help. Developing resilience? Well, maybe. Patient safety? Almost certainly compromised.