BMJ  2006;333 (2 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7566.0-f

Editor's choice

A doctor's dilemma

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

"Let us hope the medical profession can continue to learn from all the other worlds that surround it and which it ultimately serves," writes David Connell in this week's journal (p 489). He's talking about the blues, but he may just as well be talking about sport, literature—or indeed the theatre. This year is the centenary of George Bernard Shaw's The Doctor's Dilemma, a play with even more to teach the medical profession today than when it was first written.

James Sabin of Harvard Medical School has given a good account of what the play can tell us (www.amrep.org/past/doctor/charlatans.html). "The play revolves around what high school students refer to as `lifeboat ethics,' the question of who should come first when there isn't enough to go around. The preface delineates a second quandary—no matter how we pay our doctors, we inevitably create destructive conflicts of interest. . . . [Full text of this article]

Fiona Godlee, editor

(fgodlee@bmj.com)


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