Letter: Out of surgery

Letter: Out of surgery

Sir: The "surgery" may well have been a suitable description for the workplace of the surgeon-apothecary (forerunner of the modern general practitioner) who in days gone by carried out major and minor surgical procedures on the premises. Nowadays, when all significant surgery is performed in hospital, the appelation "GP's surgery" is gradually being replaced by the "health centre", "medical centre" or, as in the United States, the "doctor's office".

If the term "surgery" is outmoded in the medical context, how much more so is this the case when borrowed by Members of Parliament to describe the place where they interview their constituents. The time has come for this anachronistic and gory title to be dropped and replaced by a more suitable name such as "MP's advice centre" or "MP's consultation bureau".