Doctoring Doctors

To the Editor: In addressing the challenge of "doctoring doctors," Dr Schneck¹ highlights the anachronistic choice by physician/patients of inappropriate collegial relationships rather than the more appropriate physician-patient relationship. The complexities of this preference are embodied in this folkloric tongue-twister²:

Why would a physician who "wants to be doctored" ever want to be doctored differently from "the way the doctoring doctor usually doctors?" Physician/patients seek personal physicians on a social rather than professional basis for the same reasons they fail to acknowledge patients' psychosocial concerns. Physicians generally deny emotions in themselves as they do in their patients. To sustain this scotoma they select a physician who is also a friend and colleague. An equitable relationship sidesteps the one-downness of the sick role of patienthood. Both parties enter into a corrupt bargain to be nice to each other even at the risk of overlooking important (and perhaps fatal) medical problems. In his or her determination not to be discovered or surprised, the physician/patient sacrifices thoroughness for comfort.