SPLPassion in Medicine!

I remember telling you before how I am always surprised at what the media chooses to pick up from The Lancet content every Friday. This week is no exception. As you will see in this week’s Lancet Digest, this week’s Lancet includes articles that are part of the mult-journal contribution to the Council of Science Editors theme issue on global poverty and human development. But what is all over the news today? A Lancet letter about medical romance novels. The letter is incredibly funny though and it is good to have a bit of light relief every now and then. In case you have missed it in the news, here it is the letter in full. As long as you know that your motives will now be under suspicion if you want to go into emegency medicine! Rhona

Lancet letter: Medical Romance

Romance fiction generates US$1·2 billion in sales annually and accounts for 39·3% of all fiction sold in the USA.1 In recent decades, medical romance has emerged as a substantial subgenre within romance fiction and, to explore this area further, I studied 20 randomly selected medical romance novels.

All novels contained heterosexual romantic plots in which both protagonists were involved in medical work. Most were set in primary care or emergency medicine settings (seven each), including emergency medicine departments (five) and airborne medical teams (two). The remainder were set in general hospitals (three) and maternity settings (three).

All central male protagonists were doctors who worked in emergency medicine (six), primary care (six), surgery (five), obstetrics/neonatology (two), or paediatrics (one). 11 central female protagonists were doctors who worked in primary care, obstetrics/neonatology, training or residency programmes, surgery, anaesthesiology, or emergency medicine. The nine other female protagonists consisted of eight nurses and one paramedic. The most common pairing was male doctor with female doctor (11), followed by male doctor with female nurse (eight).

There was a marked preponderance of brilliant, tall, muscular, male doctors with chiselled features, working in emergency medicine; they were commonly of Mediterranean origin and had personal tragedies in their pasts. Female doctors and nurses tended to be skilled, beautiful, and determined, but still compassionate; many had overcome substantial personal and professional obstacles in their lives. Protagonists of both sexes had frequently neglected their personal lives to care better for their patients, many of whom had life-threatening illnesses from which they nonetheless managed to recover.

These novels draw attention to the romantic possibilities of primary care settings and the apparent inevitability of uncontrolled passions in the context of emergency medicine, especially as practised on aeroplanes. These novels suggest that there is an urgent need to include instruction in the arts of romance in training programmes for doctors and nurses who intend working in these settings.

Brendan D Kelley
Department of Adult Psychiatry, University College Dublin, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, 62/63 Eccles Street, Dublin 7, Ireland

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