Mal Fletcher considers the implications of the threat to carry forward the junior doctors' strike indefinitely.

In an Opinium study earlier this year, nurses and doctors were listed as the top two most respected professions in the UK, with 86 and 85 percent ratings respectively.

Of course, doctors have the same right to withdraw labour as do other members of society. They have the right to question government expectations of their working hours and remuneration.

However, the public expects of doctors a greater degree of selfless commitment to the common good, because of the high levels of respect - and at times deference - afforded them.

The BMA still enjoys a level of emotional support among some sections of the public. However, this will quickly seep away if doctors are seen to be self-indulgent or stubborn at the expense of their duty of care to the public.

For many people, the role of a doctor is more of a vocation than a career. We admire the intelligence that is needed for the study of medicine. We respect the years of formal study and the long hours of hospital training that are required before a doctor can register.

The fact that young people will endure all of this to pursue a career centred on serving others is something we find worthy of high regard. Perhaps unconsciously, we see it as a sign that doctors feel some kind of higher calling to their profession.

This may be a little romantic, but the assumption is probably based on the knowledge that most of us will never feel the same level of commitment to our own work, even if we enjoy it. (We almost certainly will never face the same life-and-death stakes if we fail at it.)

Were doctors, as a class of professionals, ever to lose the public's trust, this would almost certainly lead to a decrease in general public health. This is true on two fronts.

First, it may force clients (or patients) to become overly self-reliant when it comes to healthcare.

Medicos have already bemoaned Joe Public's tendency to consult online health apps for the purpose of diagnoses and treatment plans.

The internet can doubtless help us find useful suggestions for managing relatively minor ailments. Google-driven searches of health sites cannot, however, replace a session with a caring and involved human professional.

These searches are, after all, conducted by algorithms which are programmed to tell us want they "think" we want to know - based on our previous search histories. They do not represent truly random searches, so they won't always extend our existing knowledge far enough to be of use when it comes to medicine.

Besides, why should you or I spend hours or days online in the vain hope of replicating the skill of a medical professional? They've studied for years to achieve their level of diagnostic excellence.

Of course, if medicos don't want us consulting screens for professional help, they should spend less time reading from screens themselves.