Searching for medical Rumpoles.

need is morphing into the patient as perilous object. Ask medical school candidates what they have been reading and the answer will usually be some scientific magazine. Where is the medical equivalent of Rumpole of the Bailey, that famous creation of the late John Mortimer? Rumpole is a wise, unassuming barrister who strives to uphold the tenets of justice. If a fiction writer were to compose a medical version, he or she might show Dr Rumpole motivated not by career progression, money, or esteem but by the welfare of his patients and their relatives. With understated wit, he would illuminate the flaws in the medical establishment, challenge the status quo, and seek without effusive sentimentalism the golden thread running through the heart of medicine: an unwavering commitment to sick people. And for that he would be chided as a trouble maker by the great and the good of the profession. Would Dr Rumpole have studied the revised core curriculum in medical ethics and law? Probably not, yet his critics would be fewer and less self assured had they studied it. It would be foolish to expect miracles from the teaching of ethics and law: there will always be indecency and poor judgment, whatever the teaching. But to dismiss the activity as pointless because its impact cannot be shown conclusively is to discard a large swathe of worthwhile human activity. Throughout the revised curriculum, amid the dozens of specific learning objectives, shines the golden thread that binds all healthcare professionals. For that reason alone the new consensus statement deserves to be widely implemented. Daniel K Sokol is honorary senior lecturer in medical ethics, Imperial College London [email protected]