A Tangled Web

SIR LANCELOT SPRATT HAS GONE MISSING....



I always enjoy reading Theodore Dalyrymple. His black humour appeals to me - and in this article from the Daily Telegraph the other day he makes a number of points well worth a study.His contention is that the demise of the traditional British white doctor, the "Sir Lancelot Spratts" if you like, carries a serious consequence for the already rotten NHS. As he concludes,



"No doubt those who see the whole of history as a tale of oppression by dead white males, from Plato to Ronald Reagan, will rejoice at or applaud the demise of the socially prominent white male doctor. But even they, when they are ill, will want their doctors to be as good as possible. There is nothing quite like serious illness, after all, for unmasking the frivolity of ideology. And if the social prestige of medicine is destroyed, it is quite likely that its quality will follow shortly afterwards. It is not that white males necessarily make the best doctors, of course; but if we don't want to be doctors, then you are in trouble."