The Doctor's Dilemma

by Bernard Shaw

Overview

The Doctor's Dilemma is a play by George Bernard Shaw first staged in 1906. It is a problem play about the moral dilemmas created by limited medical resources, and the conflicts between the demands of private medicine as a business and a vocation.

The eponymous dilemma of the play is that of the newly honoured doctor Sir Colenso Ridgeon, who has developed a revolutionary new cure for tuberculosis. However, his private medical practice, with limited staff and resources, can only treat ten patients at a time. From a group of fifty patients he has selected ten he believes he can cure and who, he believes, are most worthy of being saved. However, when he is approached by a young woman, Jennifer Dubedat, with a deadly ill husband, Louis Dubedat, he admits he can, at a stretch, save one more patient, but that the individual in question must be shown to be most worthy of being saved. However, the situation is complicated when an old friend and colleague reveals, he too, needs treatment. Sir Colenso must choose which patient he will save: a kindly, altruistic poor medical colleague, or an extremely gifted but also very unpleasant, womaniser, bigamist and amoral young artist. Sir Colenso falls instantly in love with the young and vivacious Mrs Dubedat and this makes it even harder for the doctor to separate his motives for the decision of who shall live. (wikipedia.org)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789360462932
Publisher:	Double 9 Books
Publication date:	01/01/2024
Pages:	94
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.23(d)

About the Author

From 26 July 1856 to 2 November 1950, Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, and political activist George Bernard Shaw was alive. He preferred to be referred to simply as Bernard Shaw. From the 1880s until his death and even after, he had a significant impact on Western politics, theater, and society. He produced more than sixty plays, including classics like Saint Joan (1913), Pygmalion (1913), and Man and Superman (1902). (1923). Shaw became a well-known playwright during his time and was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1925 for his works that combine historical allegory and contemporary satire. Before Shaw's first play, Arms and the Man, published in 1894, became a success in the public eye, years passed. He tried to infuse new realism into English-language drama, influenced by Henrik Ibsen. He had established himself as a reputable theater and music critic by the mid-1880s. After having a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and swiftly advanced to the position of principal pamphleteer. Before Shaw's first play, Arms and the Man, published in 1894, became a success in the public eye, years passed. He tried to infuse new realism into English-language drama, influenced by Henrik Ibsen.