DOCTOR AS DEMIURGE.(physician and patient relationship)

THE LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DOCTORS AND PATIENTS

Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses you may have of him, for the Lord hath created him. For of the most high cometh healing ...

--Ecclesiasticus 38

MANCHESTER DOCTOR Harold Shipman was found guilty of murdering fifteen patients by lethal injection, but authorities now blame him for almost 300 deaths, which makes him Britain's most successful serial killer. Dr Shipman despised his patients, most of whom worshipped him. When his patients became too bothersome, he just despatched them in the quickest, most effective and seemingly detection-free manner he could conceive. While he is now a rather large footnote in the annals of forensic medicine, the question remains: How different was he from the rest of the profession?

Difficulty with doctors is not new. Plato complained that physicians insisted on treating slaves with the same care they gave to free men or philosophers--and that they treated sick philosophers like slaves. Chaucer said his doctor believed that gold in his pocket was the best of all treatments. Francis Bacon, reflecting the experiences of many, coined the line "Cure the disease and kill the patient".

James Joyce, one of the more awkward patients in literary history, knew something about doctors, having preferred their companionship when a student at Trinity College. In Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus is staying in the Martello tower with Buck Mulligan, a medical student. Dedalus is haunted by the memory of his mother, who recently died from cancer. When he confronts Mulligan about his attitude, he receives the following reply:

 
   And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You saw only 
   your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and Richmond and 
   cut up into tripes in the dissecting room. It's a beastly thing and nothing 
   else. It simply doesn't matter.