The ‘Country Doctor’ is one of the most iconic figures in medicine. Kafka and Balzac wrote novels about him (most examples are male), and Chekov based many of his short stories on his experiences and insights as a country doctor.1 John Berger wrote The Fortunate Man, with photographs by Jean Mohr, based on John Sassal, a GP in remote and rural Gloucestershire.2 W Eugene Smith produced a famous photographic and text essay on a country doctor in Kremmling, Colorado, for Life magazine.3 John Bain and Rosie Donovan in Scotland,4 and Tom O’Dowd and Fionn McCann in Ireland,5 recorded many country doctors in photographs. There is a substantial literature of potboilers, doing for country doctors what James Herriot did for country vets in All Creatures Great & Small.
More than any other figure in medicine, country doctors exemplify what Trish Greenhalgh …
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