Insubordinate, frequently irritating, cynical, totally human, and 100% caring—who could ask for a better doctor than Dr Benjamin Franklin Pierce?

I've always felt embarrassed that my medical hero is fictional. Be that as it may, I believe that M*A*S*H, the story of the 4077 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean war, reached closer to the heart of what it means to be a doctor than any other work of art that I know.

You can taste M*A*S*H in three distinct flavours. There was the original novel by Dr Richard Hornberger, written under the pseudonym Richard Hooker while he was waiting to see patients in his clinic, and …