Star Trek and the Future of Family Medicine

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2008

Abstract

As the specialty of family medicine continues its efforts to redefine itself in the rapidly changing and increasingly technological health care environment, it is important to resist the temptation to focus disproportionately on self examination and maintain efforts to better understand how physicians are viewed by the very people we hope to serve. Our collective culture’s perception of medical doctors appears to be a complex amalgam of sometimes contradictory elements that are difficult to reconcile. Various attitude polls reveal an increasing level of dissatisfaction and loss of trust in our previously highly esteemed profession. Yet, most patients exclude their own personal physician from such criticism. A hint of insight regarding what is clearly a multifaceted public view of the profession may be gleaned from carefully studying the shifting cultural icons drawn by the mass media, particularly television and film. Within that effort, the long running popular Star Trek series offers a unique opportunity to observe such changes over what has been for physicians 4 tumultuous decades.

Comments

© 2008 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine. Used by permission.

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