I have been thinking about the training that obs recieve at medical school and it has occured to me that as part of thier training they should all have thier appenixes removed (the old way - no keyhole surgery). It should be done at a totally random time during thier studies and afterwards they would be expected to get back into the swing of things as rapidly as possible. If they complained they would lose marks. I'm not suggesting this to be cruel to them but to increase thier empathy. My brother had an emergency appendix removal at about the same time that Imran was born and his recovery time was quite similar which is what made me think of it. If all obs had to experience an operation on thier stomach and the recovery afterwards maybe they would be less likely to recomend them and our c-section rate would be lowered.