A patient choosing a doctor reads the profile before she books. A lot of the time, she finds a CV set in paragraphs. The doctor’s training, the fellowships, the years in practice, and a closing line about patient care, a line that could sit under every doctor’s profile.
The facts are usually all there. What is missing is anything the doctor would say in person. Why they chose the specialty. The question every patient asks them at the end of a first appointment. That comes only when somebody sits down with the doctor and asks.
I write physician profiles for clinics and hospitals in the UAE, the wider Gulf and the UK. Each one is written from a conversation with the doctor, and runs long enough to hold what they said.
This is the opening of one, written from a recorded conversation with a kidney consultant:
His parents were both doctors. His father was an anaesthetist. In Malawi, in the 1980s, the family would travel, and his father would bring a bag. Medicine, equipment, whatever fit. Word would reach local people that a doctor was there. And they would come.
The rest of the work is on the work page.