My first connection with the Royal College of Psychiatrists was when, whilst still a general practice (GP) trainee, I became an inceptor. Inceptorships are now a thing of the past. It’s what you could become before you had membership. Now you would be an ‘associate member’. But I like the notion of being an inceptor. It’s an old-fashioned word. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary says an inceptor is a person ‘who incepts or is about to incept at a university’; and to ‘incept’ means to ‘undertake, begin, enter upon’, but its use is rare. Still, beginnings are usually exciting and I like the idea of entering upon one’s career.