Who is your favorite doctor character in fiction?
Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories. I’ve been hooked on Sherlock Holmes for years — every story is a kind of diagnosis — and Watson’s is the inviting voice of the entire series. He is intelligent, observant and faithful, the way we want all doctors to be. He is also guileless and naïve, where Holmes is neither, and that is his ultimate limitation in each mystery. But his lack of cunning is why we trust him — and why Holmes does, too.

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Atul Gawande: By the Book
www.nytimes.com
The author, most recently, of “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End” is a great fan of Dr. Watson: “He is intelligent, observant and faithful, the way we want all doctors to be.”