There Has been a run of stories in the papers recently about senior professional people landing themselves in trouble for allowing unqualified people to assist them in their duties.
In London last week a surgeon was suspended for allowing a teenage boy to hold a retractor, keeping an incision wound open, while the surgeon performed a minor operation. And two airline pilots were suspended after it was reported that a Britannia Airways holiday jet was flown briefly (and successfully) by a pilot's wife.
Very predictable things happen when such stories become public knowledge. Enormous rows break out, with suspensions demanded and ordered, and pompous statements issued to the media and "full and thorough" investigations promised into the alleged breaches of "operational procedures". In the case of the unfortunate surgeon, a disciplinary hearing has been scheduled, and the hospital spokesman says that "to make any further comment would be prejudicial to the correct conduct of the hearing."
This is all bogus nonsense. It is well known that half the surgical operations in this country, and presumably elsewhere, are done by bob-a-job teenagers, or under-worked cleaning staff, while surgeons nip out for a well-deserved cup of tea or a quick sandwich. No one is any the worse off and it is really very silly for people to get into a tizzy about such harmless everyday goings-on.
Following the hospital incident in London, a retired consultant surgeon wrote to the Times to assert that holding a retractor during a routine surgical operation was "no more complicated than holding a journalist's pen and notebook while he scratches his head trying to think of something to brighten up the front page."
The voice of reason, I think. The truth is that lots of professional people regularly employ non-professional aid, and the only surprising thing is that so few people seem to be aware of it.
For example, some people apparently think that the leading articles in this paper are written only by the editor or one of his lackeys. Some of them are, of course, if there is time to spare, but it will surely come as a surprise to few people that most of the leaders are written by day-visitors to the paper, delighted to be offered hands-on experience and to relieve overworked journalists.
These eager volunteers are organised by the editor's secretary, given a topic, a bunch of files, a checklist of useful phrases like "little room for complacency", "immense challenges ahead", "sense of perspective", "public interest", "hidden agenda", "claws of the Celtic Tiger", "need for vigilance" - and away they go. The library is at hand to supply any quotes needed.
Other visitors to the newspaper regularly help out the political correspondents, the feature-writers and the news departments. It all depends on who needs a hand at any given time. I need hardly add that no money changes hands: the whole thing is entirely above board, to the best of my knowledge.
The only people who absolutely refuse the offer of assistance in this office are our racing tipsters. This is the result of an unfortunate episode some years ago when a 14-year-old girl was allowed to fill in anonymously for a well-known but temporarily indisposed horse-racing correspondent. After half an hour sucking the department pencil and studying formsheets, the teenager tipped 17 winners at Newmarket, Fairyhouse and Wolverhampton. The result was a spate of letters to the eminent correspondent complimenting him on the tips, but wondering why he seemed unable to match his facility for picking winners before or since.
It is true that things can go wrong when the non-professional is given a little too much leeway. The case of the 10-year-old boy from Walkinstown who got as far as the "triple" in a quadruple heart by-pass operation in a Dublin hospital a few months back was unfortunate, but it is unlikely the patient would have survived anyway.
Similarly, the teenage girl who stood in last June for an eminent neurosurgeon and successfully replaced the membrana serosa of an elderly lady from Waterford, forgetting only to remove the large pink sponge afterwards, was also regrettable. But these incidents are a small price to pay when one thinks of the pleasure given to the youngsters involved.
For the same reason we should not be too hard on Met Eireann just because it occasionally allows visitors to try their hand at weather predictions, although the August Bank Holiday weekend was probably an unwise choice.