Connect
MJA
MJA

The little black bag

Martin B Van Der Weyden
Med J Aust 2005; 182 (3): 97. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2005.tb06603.x
Published online: 7 February 2005

A lot has been written on what doctors should be — committed, compassionate, competent, communicative — but doctors do not have a monopoly on such human attributes; they apply equally to other healthcare professionals.

So, what do doctors do that others don’t?

Since time immemorial, doctors’ primary function has been the consultation: the gathering of information, the diagnosis and explaining of its consequences. In this process, simple technology is critical — the stethoscope, the clinical thermometer, the oro/ophthalmoscope, the sphygmomanometer and humble neurological tools.

Beyond their clinical utility, these instruments are also symbols of the doctor’s craft. The little black bag is another such symbol. Its identification with doctors was captured in the pages of Life magazine in the 1940s, which featured a photograph of a country doctor making a house call, carrying his black bag.

US physician Martin Duke argues that it served as a badge ofprotection.* This idea also surfaced in Sinclair Lewis’s novel Arrowsmith: ‘The Doctor, and the Doctor alone, was safe by night in the slum called “the Arbor”. His black bag was a pass. Policemen saluted him, prostitutes bowed to him without mockery, saloon-keepers called out “Evenin’ Doc” and hold-up men stood back in doorways to let him pass.’

But no more! Public sightings of the little black bag are now rare, and house calls are ranked among medicine’s occupational hazards.

With the ageing of the population and the shift from hospital to home care or residential care, could the little black bag stage a comeback? If it did, the question might arise as to who would then carry the black bag — doctors or nurse practitioners?

*Pharos 2004; Summer: 14-16.

  • Martin B Van Der Weyden1

  • The Medical Journal of Australia


Correspondence: 

Author

remove_circle_outline Delete Author
add_circle_outline Add Author

Comment
Do you have any competing interests to declare? *

I/we agree to assign copyright to the Medical Journal of Australia and agree to the Conditions of publication *
I/we agree to the Terms of use of the Medical Journal of Australia *
Email me when people comment on this article

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.