However, he has failed to notice that spotting medical conditions has its roots not only in our personality and family background but also in the way we are trained. As clinical students, we are indoctrinated with the need to notice things. Being observant is vital, be it the position of a leg following a fall, thyroid eyes, Marfan's syndrome, or even plain obesity. However, the training of our observational skills can often get out of hand.
Doctors sometimes use it to enforce their position of power and authority over the patient.
There cannot be a greater example of objectification of patients than this. On a more humiliating level, a bored consultant on a cardiology ward round suddenly asked me what I had thought of a young child in an oversized pushchair who we had passed in the corridor. I responded, as I often do, with dumbstruck silence. He went on to tell me that the correct term was dysmorphic and that it was important to spot. It may be important to spot this in the consulting room or the ward, but surely it is also important that we learn to separate medicine from the rest of our lives.