Time for hard decisions on patient‐centred professionalism

US physician Martin Duke argues that it served as a badge of protection.* This idea also surfaced in Sinclair Lewis’s novel Arrowsmith: ‘The Doctor, and the Doctor alone, was safe by night in the slum called “the Arbor”. His black bag was a pass. Policemen saluted him, prostitutes bowed to him without mockery, saloon-keepers called out “Evenin’ Doc” and hold-up men stood back in doorways to let him pass.’

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[12]  J. E. Groves.  Taking care of the hateful patient. , 1978, The New England journal of medicine.