None so deaf. 171st annual oration. Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast 1st October 1998.

The tradition of the Annual Oration was introduced in the days when almost all clinical studies were carried out in this hospital, to welcome new clinical medical students. The world has changed since then and with it the curriculum, the academic calendar and, more than anything else, medical care. Although we may bemoan many of these changes, few of us would want to go back to medicine as it was when I was a student.