For the past five years, the health care industry has accounted for one seventh of the U.S. economy. In The Doctor's Dilemma , Shaw actually confronts us with three distinct dilemmas. The Preface delineates a second quandary - no matter how we pay our doctors, we inevitably create destructive conflicts of interest. Finally, Shaw dramatizes the clash between intellectual integrity and the fear of death. Integrity requires us to face facts.
Fear prefers the consolation of fantasy.
Vivian Leigh and John Turnbull in the 1942 production at the Haymarket Theatre. In ethics classes today, students debate which swimmer to save when there is only one place left on the lifeboat, but Shaw was the first to see that in health care the lifeboat problem is not just a classroom exercise. Dr. Colenso Ridgeon has a limited supply of his new antitoxin, which appears to cure tuberculosis. He has to choose. Sir Colenso takes for granted that the choice should be determined by moral worthiness.