Romance in Primary Care

A rather peculiar letter was published in the most recent issue of The Lancet. A psychiatrist named Brendan Kelly has perhaps more time on his hands than is healthy. He did an informal analysis of the portrayal of various specialties in a sample of romance novels with medical settings. He presents the following conclusions:

• Most were set in primary care or emergency medicine settings.
  
  
• The most common pairing was between a male doctor and a female doctor followed by a male doctor and a female nurse.
  
  
• There was a "marked preponderance of brilliant, tall, muscular, male doctors with chiselled features" and "skilled, beautiful and determined, but still compassionate" female doctors and nurses.
  
  
• "Protagonists of both sexes had frequently neglected their personal lives to care better for their patients..."
  

As one who works daily in an academic, medical setting, I was astounded by the almost eery accuracy and realism these novels attained.

I did find two significant departures from reality however. First of all, anyone who's following the cataclysmic fall in physicians continuing on in primary care, point number four seemed a bit overplayed. More physicians seem to be neglecting their practices to better live their personal lives than the reverse.

Second, I wouldn't describe my features as "chiselled".