On Friday night I was privileged to join Mr Chew and the A&E team at James Cook University Hospital for their night shift. It was an incredible behind the scenes insight into a world most of us never get to see.
There are so many thoughts I take away from this. The primary ones are deep respect and gratitude. The calm, compassionate, effective care the doctors and nurses provided was hugely impressive. Whether the issues were minor or very serious, nothing was too much trouble and never once did their professionalism (or good humour) falter.
I got to speak to all the different teams, both medical and non-medical, including North East Ambulance Service, a number of excellent officers from Cleveland Police and the porters and hospital security. A&E throughout the night is a blaze of activity, and the pace and seriousness if anything intensified around 3am, just when you might think it would slacken off.
The other unescapable issue is just how much of a nightmare drugs are for our local health service. So many of the most serious patients had overdosed. Watching the team deal with people who were fighting their best efforts to care for them - and in one memorable case, to save their life after a stabbing - was unforgettable.
There are too many people to name check them all, but people like Mr Chew and his senior registrar Dr Bowe, and nurses like Angel, Karen and Suzanne will be in my mind whenever I'm talking about the NHS in the future, and I learned a huge amount from them.
There are a number of practical issues I will discuss with the Chief Executive of South Tees, Siobhan McArdle, at the meeting we will have next month, which is exactly what I hoped I would gain from the night.
But more than that, this insight into the world of A&E confirmed that most of us really don't know the half of just how good our NHS is. These guys really are heroes. It's become a truism, but we are beyond fortunate to have them and they deserve our utmost respect.