Unless you happen to be a parent, or sibling, or partner, or a friend of a doctor, or a doctor yourself, it is unlikely that you will see doctors for what the overwhelming majority of them are — regular, normal, fallible human beings just like the rest of us. We go to a doctor when either we, or someone close to us, are unwell with the hope that the doctor’s knowledge, wisdom, and experience will help us get better, recover from whatever it is that is ailing us, and go back to the business of our quotidian lives. Since, for most of us, most of the time, this is precisely what happens, practically every visit to a doctor confirms for us the vital beneficial role doctors (of whatever kind or specialization) play in society. Words most often used to describe a good or ideal doctor include ‘confident’, ‘empathetic’, ‘humane’, ‘personal’, ‘forthright’, ‘respectful’ and ‘thorough’. In times of crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the selfless heroism of doctors (and other medical professionals) was rightly lauded by all sections of society, adding further gloss to this noble profession. We have hailed them as ‘warriors’ and celebrated their contribution to society in a time of fear and confusion as nothing short of superhuman. Which is not only just and fair, but also an accurate reflection of the way in which members of the profession helped the rest of us cope with and, with luck, overcome the dread contagion. So far so good.

But what happens when a doctor fails us, that is, does not succeed in making us better? When they are unable to heal us or, worse, prescribe a treatment or a medicine or a recovery regime that actually causes our condition to deteriorate? Even when we know that this was done in good faith, and with perfectly honest intentions — which holds true in practically a hundred per cent of cases — we tend to react with a bitterness that is often disproportionate to the actual setbacks we may have suffered. I am not talking of a patient dying, or being left permanently disfigured, but of those instances when we, or a loved one, do not go back to normal as easily and swiftly as we had hoped, and maybe even been told to expect by our physician. From being a saviour, the doctor then becomes for us an oppressor, and we turn her/him from effulgent hero to irredeemable villain. Worse still, we waste no time in spreading the word of the doctor’s perfidy to anyone who cares to listen.

None of which seems to apply, and certainly not to the same degree, to members of other professions. If the person whom we consult in order to fix a computer, or a car, tries honestly but fails, we typically tend to move on, accepting that they did their best. Not so for doctors. We feel entitled to a 100 per cent success rate from our physicians, and when that does not quite happen, we seem to go overboard with our criticism and calumnies. Part of this no doubt has to do with the fact that when we visit a doctor, we allow them access to the most private — most intimate — parts of our selves — whether physiological or psychological — and this makes us feel our frailty and vulnerability all the more acutely.

Perhaps this is what prompted the organizers of the 70th reunion of the Calcutta National Medical College to host a debate on the motion, “Doctors are misrepresented in popular culture”, a couple of weeks ago, where a team of doctors challenged the motion — asserting that doctors are not, in fact, misrepresented in popular culture — whilst a team of non-doctors defended it, contending that doctors deserve better than the bad press they have got in the popular media, especially in recent times. It was instructive to see how the non-physicians spoke of the often irresponsible (and sometimes callous) ways in which popular media portray doctors, turning their whole tribe into despicable villains when just a single member of the tribe fails to live up to the high standards we have set for them, whilst, on the other hand, the doctors themselves pointed out that such representation was more often than not fairly accurate, given that doctors can be (as a member of the doctors’ team put it) good, or bad, or ugly, depending on circumstances.

While members of the doctors’ team spoke of the many pitfalls in the average doctor’s life, contending that describing a physician as greedy or incompetent or worse was not really a misrepresentation, merely an accurate reflection of a complex and often contradictory reality, team members defending the motion pointed out the many instances when the depiction of doctors was not just a misrepresentation, but a complete fabrication or denial of facts (such as, for example, that there are virtually no women doctors to be found in Indian films, even though they make up close to 50 per cent of the profession). Fortunately, not all of the debate took place on such lofty notes of high seriousness, with one member of the defending team trying to make out the case that the misrepresentation of doctors in popular culture worked to the doctors’ advantage since such fictional doctors are usually a lot more glamorous and attractive than the average doctor.

Despite all the verbal contortions, the motion was defeated by a show of hands among the 100-odd doctors in the house, thus establishing — even if for a brief duration — that doctors are not, in fact, misrepresented in popular culture. But that wasn’t the most important lesson I took away from this debate. In his Preface to The Argumentative Indian, Amartya Sen makes the crucial point that “[t]he nature and strength of the dialogic tradition in India is sometimes ignored because of the much championed belief that India is the land of religions, the country of uncritical faiths and unquestioned practices.” But he also makes the vital assertion, “Discussions and arguments are critically important for democracy and public reasoning. They are central to the practice of secularism and for even-handed treatment of adherents of different religious faiths (including those who have no religious beliefs). Going beyond these basic structural priorities, the argumentative tradition, if used with deliberation and commitment, can also be extremely important in resisting social inequalities and in removing poverty and deprivation. Voice is a crucial component of the pursuit of social justice.” It might be too grand a claim to make for what, after all, was a college-reunion event attended by a few folks, but it seems to me that such a debate harks back to the “strength of the dialogic tradition” that Sen writes of, one where contending views strengthen, and not undermine, a tradition of robust democracy. At a time when most ‘debates’ — especially those on the idiot box — are usually no better than slanging matches and monologic diatribes, the fact that two groups of individuals could hold forth on a fairly contentious issue with logic, wit, and mutual respect (not unleavened with the occasional barb) leads me to believe that there is hope yet for the tradition of civilized public disagreement, which seems so threatened in our increasingly shrill and intolerant times.