ABSTRACT
The physician has always been an ambivalent figure for patients; this did not begin with current, so-called scientific medicine. People often think of the old family doctor who was not interested in the finer details of laboratory tests but who took care of the patient as a human being. This was so in past years and it continues to be so in many situations now. But if author look back to the ancient Greeks, there is Aristophanes writing Apollo the physician may cure them since he is paid for it, reflecting the attitude of recent polls that show many people view all physicians as money-grubbing, cold, and indifferent, all physicians, except one, their own. Patients have always had magical expectations of their doctors, often viewing them as parent-surrogates. Most medical students hope that unlike other physicians in the past they will cure everyone, and they find themselves crushed when early on they lose their no-hitters.
