The Human Touch.

I was just watching an old episode of House in which the young woman doctor in the team – whose name I can never remember so let’s call her Doris – is being told off by the consultant oncologist for being unprofessional.

Dr Onc – because I can never remember his name either – has been watching the lovely Doris chatting amiably with a young woman patient who has just been revealed to be suffering from terminal lung cancer. What Doris should have been doing was not chatting amiably, but calmly informing the patient that she has only about six months to live.

‘It’s not your job to be her friend,’ says the very professional Dr Onc rather too sternly for my liking.

But the lovely Doris seeks to correct him. She informs him that the patient has nobody close in her life. Her husband has left her, her parents are dead, etc, etc. And then she gives him the punch line:

‘When somebody dies it should matter. Somebody should be upset.’

Well, I’m not entirely sure that I agree with her, but I did appreciate the thought.