Content area
Abstract
[...]a fellow guest asks you to give a talk on the subject at some future meeting of medics, masons, or morris dancers, or whomever he happens to be associated with, and although you know it is a very bad idea, you hear yourself saying “Yes, I'd love to”. During the incubation, which can last for many months, you will develop sudden feelings of gloom on flicking through your diary, and might have episodes of anxiety, mild panic attacks at times associated with palpitation. [...]I have spent months studiously ignoring anything to do with travel arrangements, conference speeches, or locums, while becoming increasingly irritable and having some of the most graphic anxiety dreams of my adult life—quite unsuitable to recount on the pages of The Lancet.