I must say I was deeply sceptical about the Bulletin comment, ¹ especially the assertion, ‘Ward rounds have been taking place for decades; had they been purely detrimental they surely would have been junked years ago.’ Maybe as someone who has mainly worked in psychotherapy and latterly as a community psychiatrist, I could be considered not qualified to comment, but the article took me back to my training with Dr Sidney Benjamin in Manchester in the early 1980s. He gave the example of videoing the exchange between himself and the patient in a separate room, with only the senior house officer (SHO) present to take verbatim notes of the consultation; the rest of the team could watch the interaction comfortably in another room. I think patients quite enjoyed ‘being on TV’; it was somewhat nerve-wracking for the SHO, as a perfect transcription was expected, but overall it was therapeutic for the patient and an excellent learning experience for the trainee. My occasional glimpses of intimidating ward rounds since as an observer have done nothing to convince me that Sidney Benjamin's format has been bettered.