The Doctor's Dilemma

by Bernard Shaw

"The Doctor's Dilemma" by Bernard Shaw is a play first staged in 1906. It explores moral conflicts created by limited medical resources when a doctor discovers a tuberculosis cure but can only treat ten patients. When asked to save one more person, he must choose between a selfless medical colleague or a brilliant but immoral artist—a decision complicated by his attraction to the artist's wife. The play satirizes the medical profession's tension between public service and private gain.