Content area
Full Text
Our Doctor Myth series: Most say it is because members of the public are medicine 'outsiders' that they see arrogance in physicians
THE 1993 THRILLER Malice offers a portrait of a surgeon- one dripping in absurd Hollywood bombast - that reinforces a stereotype of physicians in the public's mind: the arrogant doctor with unquestionable knowledge and skill, godlike in his own estimation.
In the movie, a young Alec Baldwin plays Dr. Jed Hill, a brilliant trauma specialist who believes he can do no wrong. Malice reaches its climactic ending when, following an evening of pounding shots at the local bar, our protagonist rushes to the emergency room to operate on a woman with a ruptured ovary Against the protests of other doctors, he also removes the patient's second ovary, falsely believing it to be necrotic, leaving her sterile. Lawyers become involved, leading Baldwin's character to deliver the following speech with steely, white-knuckled aplomb:
"The question is, 'Do I have a god complex?' Which makes me wonder if this lawyer has any idea as to the kind of grades one has to receive in college to be accepted at a top medical school." Dr. Hill continues in this manner before concluding with this modest thought: "But if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on Nov. 17, and he doesn't like to be second-guessed. You ask me if I have a god complex? Let me tell you something: I AM GOD."
It's quite the soliloquy. But is Baldwin's blustering performance reasonably or even remotely accurate to anything doctors have seen or heard, let alone experienced? Probably not.
Regardless, similar - if not so over-the-top - iterations of this type of characterization are regularly broadcast on television - on House, Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, ER, Chicago Hope, St. Elsewhere - and in a litany of big screen productions: the brash, egomaniacal, sometimes omnipotent doctor.
Still, if media merely reflect the culture we live in but don't create it, where does this depiction come from?
We asked a variety of doctors for their opinions, including Toronto ER physician Dr. Brian Goldman, who hosts the CBC radio show, White Coat, Black Art.
"Are there doctors who have god complexes?" Dr. Goldman asks. "Absolutely."
However, he...