Trevor Philpott reports on
The Hospital: The Consultants

The consultants, especially those in the London teaching hospitals, are the kings of the medical world. We want to believe they know all the answers, that they can perform miracles. Legends grow up around them, about their uncanny skill and their wealth.

This film is a profile of three of them: two work on the exciting frontiers of modern medicine, a heart surgeon and one of the country's leading kidney physicians. The third consultant is a geriatrician. His patients too have a right to the finest medical skill, even though, outside the hospital, there may be no one left in the world who cares whether they live or die.