ABSTRACT
Respiratory physicians are a different breed to cardiologists. They don't drive fast cars, don't buy yachts and don't get invited to all the best cocktail parties.1
We have previously touched on the public perception of the heart. It's big, it's important, and they can see why. The heart is basically a pump. Without it, the blood doesn't go around and you die. Simple as that. I suppose there is some disparity here, as the general public doesn't quite heap the same adulation on central heating plumbers as it does on cardiologists (among doctors, the converse is true), but this may be because cardiologists aren't quite so hands-on. Not so much the man cutting the pipes as the engineer who knows how to work those little electronic gadget-boxes designed to ensure that the central heating always comes on at two in the morning, except when it stays on all day every day if you're holidaying in the Algarve. Even that analogy doesn't hang together, since there is no major kudos for the plumber himself, yet oodles for the cardiothoracic surgeon who is, after all, a cardiologist with a spanner.
