Why do people want to become doctors? The reason must surely be to want to heal people. Yet along the way this idealistic impulse may be lost. Doctors may see themselves simply as service providers; their role may become politicised, as in the current junior doctors’ dispute with the government over pay and conditions; they may be worn down by the longstanding problems of the NHS; or they may put their own expertise before their patients’ needs.
I make these comments as I have just come across two doctors in books I have been reading who didn’t lose their humanity along the way and who recognised that they were in a privileged position of responsibility concerning those in their care. One is mentioned in Andrew Solomon’s book Far From the Tree and refers to the late Dr Steven Kopits who was a paediatrician at the John Hopkins Hospital in the US, specialising in helping dwarfs, children born with achondroplasia and similar conditions.
