The Human Mind

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7421.995

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Iain McClure, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist (imcclure@vol.scot.nhs.uk)

Vale of Leven Hospital, Alexandria

BBC 1, 1 to 15 October at 9 pm

Rating: Embedded Image

Robert Winston has developed his television career beyond the wildest dreams of previous media doctors. First appearing in powerful human interest documentaries, rooted in his specialty of obstetrics, he has now transmuted into a TV icon. Introducing this, his latest three part series, Winston said he was going to take us to where no TV doc had been before, to “the final frontier” of medical science, “the human mind.” But hold on a minute, what's an obstetrician doing talking about the brain? Has Winston strayed too far from his home turf? Would this series be his final frontier?

Has Lord Winston strayed too far from his home turf?

Until recently, television tackled medical science in a pretty formal way. In the 1970s, in The Body in Question, Jonathan Miller worthily analysed the history of …