If last week’s Confessions of a Copper was Gene Hunt’s Life on Mars, only for real, then Confessions of a Doctor (Channel 4) is Carry on Doctor: the Documentary. To begin with anyway, then it turns into an entertaining yet also serious look into how general practice and the role of the GP has changed in the past half-century or so.
In the good old days (the 1960s), doctors were men and nurses were women, and they used to play Doctors and Nurses, the adult version. “We tried to concentrate on what the patient was saying but there were lots of distractions,” says Robert here. “Marvellous, wonderful stuff.”
But with all the fun and games, and these lovely nurses everywhere (marvellous, wonderful stuff), it was hard not to become involved, Robert says. “Um, one such involvement, ended up with um, yup, one particular person becoming pregnant.” Oops. I’m guessing that person wasn’t you, eh Robert? Never mind, although abortion wasn’t yet legal, in doctors’ circles there was always someone who could help out, know what I mean? “The baby was sort of got rid of,” he explains.
It did become more complicated for Robert, as he later had a Catholic awakening. After which he would try to persuade his patients to change their minds about having abortions, showing them his special ruler with the foetus at four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks. Not foetus, baby. “Don’t get rid of your baby, poor little baby!” he’d implore them.
“Did you ever feel that actually it was the woman’s choice?” asks the film-maker, politely. Yeah! I’d also like to ask him if perhaps he’d sworn the hypocrite’s oath on qualifying, by mistake.
Anyway, this doctoring lark wasn’t just about making and unmaking babies. After swearing their oaths, some young medics decided to go into general practice. This involved not so much an interview, more of a sherry evening, where it was established if you were the right sort of chap, and whether your wife the right sort of chapette, could speak proper etc. And – especially if you were Asian – whether you could play cricket, in which case your Asianness was forgiven. If you were a half-decent doctor, then so much the better.
Once in, well, there you were. “I couldn’t believe it was such good fun, it was just absolutely wonderful,” says Robert. They didn’t get everything right. “Mistakes were made, but patients weren’t educated enough to know mistakes had been made,” says another doctor, called John.
You had your patients’ trust, and respect, they never questioned you, they dressed up for you. Doctor knew best. Yes you worked hard, but you were a pillar of society. And you carried around a bag of lovely drugs, like heroin, which would take away their pain. And if it took away their life too, well they were dying anyway, and you were doing your best, by the patient.
The good times didn’t last. People began to decide they did want to know what was going on, that maybe doctor didn’t always know best. They wanted to make their choices, about contraceptives, and abortions, which was tricky, especially for Robert, and his newly discovered morality. Women started to become doctors themselves, imagine!
Later, a really bad GP called Harold killed lots of patients – not while trying to help them but because he wanted to kill them. And that complicated things further, both with the drugs doctors carried, and the regard they were held in. No longer were they automatic pillars of society. Nowadays, surgeries are businesses, doctors are box-ticking bureaucrats. Yes they might get paid nicely, but what’s the point if they’re not having a jolly nice time too? Boo.
A couple of surprises in the latest from Denmark, The Legacy (Sky Arts 1): no murders, and no familiar faces yet, I don’t think, though there is the bridge from The Bridge at least. In other ways it is familiar. Well, it’s a family saga for one. About a matriarchal artist who lives in self-conscious chaos in a big house with an old aeroplane (but is it art?) in the front garden, and her complicated family. More complicated than they (and we) know as they/we discover when she – Veronika – dies. I don’t much mind about her going, she was infuriating.
But it’s also familiar, if you’re done Danish before, in that it creeps up and envelops you. And its characters are so intriguing, the relationships between them so complex and real, that I’m already beginning to properly care about them. Gro, Signe, Frederik and the rest: they’re my family too now.
