I recently read a review article on cystic fibrosis which highlighted for me the tremendous advances in the field of medicine since I left active clinical practice as a paediatrician in 1995. During my training as a paediatrician and subsequently as a senior research fellow I worked for various periods in a clinic at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital that managed children with cystic fibrosis. As a result of this experience when in 1983 I moved to Bloemfontein, I started a similar clinic to manage children with the condition in the Free State province. Over the 12 years that I spent in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at…