Editorial: Judging a doc from his covers

Russell Wills' pint-sized surgery is buried in the inner-gears of Hawke's Bay Hospital.

Thank-you cards sit atop a cabinet. Over-burdened shelves are replete with folders, paediatrics publications and scores of books on children's development, poverty, abuse and family violence.

These titles obviously apply directly to his roles as Children's Commissioner and paediatrician.

Yet the spines of a few philosophical and poetry works stand in stark contrast to the medical tomes: Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Glenn Colquhoun's Playing God, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince and two works by Benjamin Hoff - The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet.

Naturally one shouldn't judge a doc by his covers. But there's plenty to infer from the east-meets-west literary blend.

I won't deduce too much, but a few of these warrant quick elaboration.

In his poetry collection, Colquhoun, himself a GP, captures beautifully a doctor's empathy, medical ethics and quarrel with death. It's a Montana Award-winning no brainer for anyone in the profession.

Hoff and Machiavelli are both writers of philosophy, but it's the ancient Chinese The Art of War that really caught my eye. Who knows. Maybe its influential military strategies (often applied outside warfare) assist in the tact and political courage implicit in Wills' dual roles.

Thing is, it's near impossible to separate the doctor from the commissioner.

Here's a man whose duty of care extends to more than those he sees in his surgery. The Office of the Children's Commissioner advocates for young people up to the age of 17, which statistically means there's 983,748 children in his care.

Today's front page lends credence to the worth and grim spectre of his vocation. At the bottom of page one we see an unconscionable act of violence committed on a 5-week-old baby. At the top of page one we feature someone with the credentials, statutory powers and disposition to tackle the scourge.

As I left his clinic this week, I noted a Dr Seuss line stencilled in black print on an otherwise barren wall: "A person's a person, no matter how small."

In this paper's view, there's not an individual in the country better suited to this role - neither is there an individual in this region more befitting of the title of the 2014 Hawke's Bay Today Person of the Year.

Congratulations to the good doctor.