Res Medica

Abstract

The George Bernard Shaw Syndrome

Bernard Shaw really believed that a medical degree was a licence to kill. In a famous tirade written in 1906, he triumphantly proved that all doctors are humbugs and morally, if not always legally, criminals. Not only that, but "to make matters worse, doctors arc hideously poor," and-just in case you happened not to appreciate what a terrible crime yours is he added that "the greatest of our evils and the worst of our crimes is poverty, and our first duty, to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor." But Shaw must have felt that the great crime of poverty was not entirely the doctor's fault for he had yet more telling ammunition to fire. In accusing the profession of being unscientific and unkind, he touched two of the points upon which doctors over half a century later remain most sensitive. So much for G.B.S.