Sex and doctors: ER medics best placed to win hearts

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — If romantic fiction is any guide, any doctor looking for love would be advised to be an emergency room surgeon or deliver babies rather than practise colon resection or remove in-grown toenails.

So says Irish physician Brendan Kelly, who -- with a bravura contempt for the effect this endeavour could have on his mind -- has probed at length into the burgeoning literary field of medical romance.

Hospital novels are one of the fastest-growing areas of romantic fiction which, according to the Romance Writers of America, generates 1.2 billion dollars in annual sales and accounts for 39.3 percent of all fiction sold in the United States.

In an offbeat letter published in Saturday's Lancet, Kelly describes the typical plot structure and...