BMJ Rapid Response

 

The role of the doctor is four–fold:

 

• To preserve health
• To manage disease: treat, mitigate or palliate
• To act as patient advocate
• To educate: self, colleagues, patients and the public at large

 

The nature of medicine is changing much faster than the practice of medicine: we are human and as such the older we get, the less flexible, the less malleable. The role of the doctor cannot be tied up in specifics because life is complex, uncertain and – at the individual level – entirely probabilistic.