Many patients have conditions that will subside regardless of therapy. A doctor's expertise is the ability to differentiate these cases from the more serious, life-threatening ones. Only physicians, who undergo lengthy and intense instruction, can provide this protection for the patient. Lately I've noticed a particular concentration on domestic violence in medical journals and conference announcements. I can't help noticing that these articles always focus on the victim of domestic violence rather than on the perpetrator.
Men are responsible for much of the violence in the world.
But I have never read an article in the primary care literature advising physicians on how to screen their male patients for violent behavior. Although extreme violence tends to be viewed as a criminal or psychiatric problem, the international pervasiveness of domestic violence suggests that it is normative of male behavior. I would like to see medical research approach violence as an aspect of male health. There should be screening questionnaires and mnemonics to help clinicians determine risk factors for violent behavior in men, just as there are for heart disease or prostate cancer. Perhaps a future article in Hippocrates could address this issue.