There are two types of doctor who remain at the interface of healthcare and society—general practitioners (GPs) and emergency medicine (EM) consultants. GPs manage millions of patients encountered in the community and skillfully refer to secondary care. EM doctors treat emergency cases and admit patients needing specialist hospital care.

What becomes immediately obvious at the outset is that GPs and EM consultants are an endangered species of doctors belonging to the “jack-of-all-trades” family. Their role is essential to ensure that hospital …