Should Political Candidates Become More like Doc Martin?

Bedside manner is central to the way medical doctors interact with their patients.  Being affable is the key, defined by the online dictionary as “friendly, good-natured, or easy to talk to.”  What’s said tends to be what the patient wants to hear, no more or no less.  The patient is the customer who controls cash flow and repeat business.

          The popular BBC series Doc Martin, set in a small coastal town in picturesque Cornwall, offers a different model, almost a throwback to the physician whose main responsibility was to the scientific reality behind the medical situation at hand.  The doctor’s knowledge was based on long years of gaining abstract wisdom, while the shortsighted patient was almost like a child at the mercy of misconceptions and emotional appetites.  The character Doc Martin is medically honest at all times, his abruptness making for high humor in our professional world where the customer is always right.

        Television commercials seem to put the selection of various medicines in the hands of consumers, who then request prescriptions from their doctors.  The dispersal of antibiotics is often patient-driven.

       Higher education fully exemplifies the bedside manner of faculty who must please and retain students at all costs, if they value their careers.  Being affable is almost an understatement in a world where student evaluations determine whether tenure will be awarded, promotions granted, contracts renewed, or salary increments obtained.

      The political world rewards crowd pleasers who say the right things.  Forget about what needs to be said.  To heck with austerity.  Perhaps the politician will employ a nerdy professional type well out reach of public scrutiny who will keep track of the facts and realities that must be dealt with. Should political candidates become more like Doc Martin? Not if they want to get elected.