George Eliot's Middlemarch: a contribution to medical professionalism.

The qualities of medical professionalism have been questioned in the last few years. George Eliot's 19(th) century novel Middlemarch illustrates some of the truths that should underlie the physician-patient relationship, and depicts prophetically some of the developments that were to occur in reality in the medicine of the 20(th) and 21(st) century. Her insight into the problems facing a medical researcher and the fictional conflicts between vocation and marriage are real issues of medical professionalism even today.