We’re quite happy to think badly of most professions. The corrupt politician, the sleazy hack, the bent copper and the vain actor are all familiar entertainment tropes. But when it comes to those who keep us alive, we understandably don’t find the fact that they may be wrong ‘uns in the least entertaining.
It’s the topsy-turvy world-gone-mad incongruity that disturbs us. Healthcare workers are there to make us better, not worse. We call nurses ‘angels’ and while the promise ‘First, do no harm’ isn’t actually part of the Hippocratic Oath (it’s from another of Hippocrates’ writings called Of the Epidemics) we’re rightly appalled when a Harold Shipman or a Lucy Letby comes to light. When we are at our sickest we are at our most vulnerable. The thought of Dr Death or Matron Murder creeping along the hospital corridors on the way to our bedside is enough to freak out the most stoic of us.
It’s a fact that absolute power corrupts absolutely – and what power is more absolute than the ability to administer death or preserve life?
I’m friends with a few doctors, and they’re delightful.
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