Abstract
Future doctors
Shortly before reading Richard Smith's article on ‘Thoughts on future doctors’, 1 I listened to a female comedian use the ‘f” word repeatedly and tell a joke about the misspelling of the word ‘can't’. The audience laughed nervously, whispering that she couldn't have got away with it if she hadn't been female. I left wondering what a male comedian could have got away with -I didn't need to devote too much time to the question, I may say.
I enjoyed Smith's article and was encouraged by the emphasis on involving young doctors in the debate about the role of doctors. But I was left wondering why the future of the College of Physicians should be any brighter in the hands of young women rather than with young men as he implies. Surely it is the youth of the participants that matters rather than their gender? And what is his evidence that elderly male doctors are any more likely to pick students in their own image than elderly female doctors? Is it not the years of accumulated prejudice that matters here rather than gender?
Competing interests None declared