On the day before writing this, I attended a seminar on medical professionalism. The room was filled with physicians at all stages of our careers. I enjoy opportunities to think about aspects of my profession that are beyond the digestive organs that I dally with daily. At the seminar, a video clip was shown from the 1991 movie The Doctor. The scene depicted an attending physician berating an intern in the presence of the medical team after he casually referred to the next patient to be seen as being ‘terminal’ without identifying him by name. If fact, it became clear that the young doctor did not even know the patient’s name. While the attending physician was correct to recognize that patients are living breathing human beings, not diseases or hospital room numbers, it was a breach of professionalism to humiliate an intern in public. After a few comments were offered by seminar attendees chastising the senior physician’s cruel approach to an intern, I raised my hand. I sh
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