So here’s patient choice for you. Rugby player, mid-match, asks his doctor to have a small cut made in his lip. Doctor says no. He asks again. So she makes a small injury, which means that he can be substituted and thus has repercussions on the competition:  Dr Wendy Chapman, now obviously  regretful of her actions now  appears in front of the GMC, her license at stake.

Then again, if you are in the US, and you want your daughter to be circumcised – rather, genitally mutilated (and remember – patient choice) –  it is only very recently that the American Academy of Paediatrics have reversed their decision stating that it was ok for doctors to perform a ‘ritual nick’ on girls below the age of consent. Male children, however, can still have ‘cultural’ circumcision on the NHS.

In terms of the ethics of consent, I’m far more troubled by unnecessary operations being done on children.