In 1975, seven years after registration, I had two small children and a part-time post as Staff Medical Officer with an Area Health Authority in London. For various personal and medical reasons I had decided to have a family early in my marriage. I felt it right that their upbringing should be largely done by me, and the alternative, if I worked full time, would be to hand over their care to someone else. I knew, however, that I should not be satisfied with a purely domestic role and part-time work in occupational health provided a compromise at the time. But I was uneasily aware of the lack of a definite goal and of my own doubts about continuing long term in this type of work.