Reimagining the doctor-patient relationship

Doctors, along with perhaps lawyers and clerics, are the archetypal professionals. Those of us born well before the twenty-first century are familiar with role models of friendly but authoritative men (and they were all men) saving lives through the application of their encyclopaedic scientific knowledge applied to the grateful, deferent patient before them (Dingwall and Lewis 1983). Doctors were at the pinnacle of the career ladder, the scaling of which required the highest academic performance which was rewarded by both high social status and good pay. We looked to doctors to make us well in our hours of need, and held them in the greatest respect (Porter 2002). However, this doesn’t really tell the whole story.