Never has the key imbalance of power in the doctor-patient relationship been so evident to me than the other day when I went for a one-month follow-up visit, only to discover that my GP had grown a luxuriant beard in the interim. I sat there and answered his very personal questions about my well-being, and wondered what it is about the unfairness of  the social norms of the practice of medicine that I could not reciprocally say, ‘But enough about me! Why do you now look like a lumberjack?’

  12:20 am  |   August 1 2009   |  View comments