Did you know that Mills and Boon, the publishers of romantic novels, have a whole section dedicated to medical romance stories? Well, an Irish psychiatrist, Dr Kelly, has analysed about twenty of them and come up with some interesting findings. He found
marked preponderance of brilliant, tall, muscular, male doctors with chiselled features, working in emergency medicine.
He said they were commonly of Mediterranean origin and had personal tragedies in their pasts.
Oh well, that rules me out!
A spokesperson for Mills and Boon said
the medical setting offered much potential for human drama.
“We see exactly the same on televised medical dramas. In these kinds of professions, there is the need to remain emotionally distant, which spills over into private lives – there’s nothing more thrilling than a damaged hero.”
Hey, isn’t that all of us? Aren’t we all damaged heroes?
This little piece got me thinking though about the way doctors are portrayed in fiction and what kind of influence that has. I’ve wanted to be a doctor all my life. First stated that intent at the age of three! And it wasn’t a family connection. There were no medics in my family ever. What I do remember though is watching a soap opera on TV when I was a child – “Dr Finlay’s Casebook”. Dr Finlay was a Scottish GP working in the fictional village of ‘Tannochbrae’ (actually Callander, very close to where I was born and live now – Stirling). I was hugely impressed with Dr Finlay and I have deep seated memories of wanting to be a doctor like him. There were other doctors on TV then. Dr Kildare, for example. Couldn’t stand him! Waltzing around in his white coat like God’s gift to medicine! So, I guess, fictionalised doctors made an impact on me.
How about you? Which fictionalised doctors impress, or impressed you? Did any of them inspire you to become a doctor? or a nurse? Or even put you off the idea for life? Which doctor in fiction would you most like to be your personal doctor? Go on, tell me.
Heroes Not Zombies 
Dr. “Bones” McCoy would probably get along with me. Gruff at times, but still compassionate, and able to think outside the box. I don’t think he’d tell me if I had inoperable cerebral aneurisms if he’d given his word not to. He’d also do his best to solve the quandry with the best outcome for everyone, profit be d*mned. He wouldn’t shrug at me and say “But you’re in good shape for your age.”* if I came to him with concerns about my weight. Sometimes I need a boot to the rear, and he’d certainly administer that when needed.
*I do not understand this, but even when I was 40 pounds overweight my doctor looked at me and said “But you are in good shape for your age.” I wasn’t in good shape for me, and that was that! And I surely wasn’t as healthy as I should have been. It’s just that there are so many obese people in this area, and several MORBIDLY obese people that I don’t think “normal” overweight people phase them anymore.
Er, that’s the ship’s physician from the first Star Trek series, btw. *blush*
Below is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article titled Leonard McCoy.
Quote: McCoy is a physician of considerable skill, capable of successfully treating creatures whose physiologies he is unfamiliar with, such as the Horta (“The Devil in the Dark”), though he often hesitates at operating on Vulcans due to his relative unfamiliarity with their anatomy[4] and has no practical knowledge of Klingon anatomy [5]. As a doctor, McCoy prefers old-fashioned, personalized or less-intrusive remedies to cutting-edge treatments and computerized medicine, once complaining that the refit Enterprise’s sickbay was more a computer center than a medical office.[6] He also is a great believer in the body’s own recuperative powers, though he also realizes that medicine as it exists in the 23rd Century has to help along the process.
Ah, yes, Bones! What a great choice. Hey, Kat, thankyou SO much for posting the quote from Wikipedia about Dr McCoy. I love the reference to preferring personalised, less intrusive remedies and to believing in the body’s own recuperative powers. Definitely an inspiration!
Dr Finlay and Janet were the subject of much improvised sexual innuendo when I was a teenager. The two had no sexual appeal (at the time for a teenager) so this made Janet’s unbridled and sometimes graphic lust for Dr Finlay all the more risible.
We are of the same generation and, as you point out, it was the all-American Dr. Kidlare that set the standard then. But Dr Gillespie had the gravitas. But I Huge Laurie in House seems too much the wounded doc. I just don’t think Dr Finlay would be that attractive for TV viewers. But what do I know, I turned my TV off in the mid-1980’s, but I do watch video on the net and get DVD’s.
Wow! Christopher! Are we thinking of the same Dr Finlay here?! Janet’s graphic lust for Dr Finlay???!!! That totally passed me by! Seriously, Christopher, Janet was an old lady! And a very prim, presbyterian old lady at that! Maybe you watched the series at a slightly later stage in life than me? I guess this is one of those cultural things because when I mention Dr Finlay to a Scottish audience of doctors there are always several of them who agree he was inspiration to them too. Just like I’m always saying, how different we all are – vive la difference!
Yes the sheer incongruity of Janet being a vixen was what made it funny. The same indeed.
“Aye Janet! You’re still a fine looking woman!”
“Oh! Doctor Cameron, no, no..”
Ah! Dr CAMERON!! That makes more sense! Oh yes, there were always lots of jokes about that!