I had the unfortunate experience of having to take my wife for a fine needle biopsy yesterday. The Radiographer started his talk about the risks of the procedure with " I just need to go through some H&S matters" We really must be important now!!! Or is it a liability cop out that they do not want top admit to their created risks? Bob

Bob Across the UK and Ireland, the emergence of 'human factors' has become a non-negotiable basis of operation at senior policy levels within medical circles. This is most evident in the (good) work being done through the Clinical Human Factors Group. Inevitably, this arouses tensions and disagreements amongst medics themselves. I was recently chatting to a couple of surgeons, husband and wife, in their home, when their differences became evident. I enquired about their attitudes to ergonomics; to my wife's great amusement, the female surgeon immediately picked up the morning paper and withdrew from further communication while her husband remarked, 'Well, it's now policy. You've just got to get on with it!'. By virtue of their indepth scientific understanding, the strength of scientific evidence will bring her and other medics around, in time. (Sadly, the extent to which it will have a comparable impact on safety practitioners is much more troubled issue)