The Citadel by A.J. Cronin
Not Just A Book About A Doctor, For Doctors
This thrilling novel of a doctors life has been the subject of a Mobil
Masterpiece Theatre dramatic series on PBS. Cronins distinguished
achievement. . . . No one could have written as fine, honest, and moving a
study of a young doctor as The Citadel without possessing great literary
taste and skill.--The Atlantic Monthly.
Personal Review: The Citadel by A.J. Cronin
I am a premedical student completeing my 3rd year of college. I read this
book because it was recommended to me as one of those books that
aspiring doctors should read before entering the profession.
The story is a chronological account of Manson's life from his graduation
from college, through his professional life as a physician in 1920's-1930's
England. The book sketches Manson's change from his schoolboy
idealism to cynical medical profiteer and his final return to the high ethical
and medical standards with which he begun his medical career.
Throughout the book, the reader will consistently encounter two major
themes. First is the resistance of the highly conservative medical
establishment of the 1920's England to any sort of change illuminated by
the advancement of science. Manson again and again butts heads with his
fellow doctors, patients and medical societies when he uses "unorthodox"
treatments that actually deliver clinical results as oppose to the cod liver oil
and patented concoctions that deliver no results except to line the wallets
of greedy doctors.
The second theme is the dishonesty of many in the medical establishment.
By pandering to rich patients, by telling people what they want to hear, by
sucking up to social elites while ignoring those in actual plight, a dishonest
doctor stands to profit immensely. On the other hand, an honest doctor
who delivers the sad, untolerable, but ultimately true diagnosis is shunned
as a quack. Witness the rich middle class wives who are nothing but
hypochondriacs mooning over charlatans promising them cures with their
patented cures that are nothing but colored water. Then compare that to
their shock and abhorence at Dr. Manson's abrasive but true diagnosis that
the only thing wrong with them is their fat, lazy, sedamentary lives.
Being a reader or a patient it might be easy to to criticize Dr. Manson for
his fall into the ranks of such evil men. However, unless one has suffered
through the insanely long, difficult and expensive process of being a
doctor, one cannot truly understand the frustration that Manson felt seeing
less qualified colleagues who pander to patients drive in luxury automobils
while he himself have barely bread to eat.
Although much has changed for the better since this book was written by
A.J. Cronin in the 1930's, the reader is reminded that the same evils that
existed back then exist now today. Flashy, expensive treatments pander to
those diseases like aging skin and sagging [...] will ultimately have their
patrons. Yet if the reader has learned anything from this book, its that the
gruffy advice he gets from his physician who recommends nothing but an
asprin and a good nights rest may be the least thing he wanted to hear, but
will be the best and most honest advice.
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