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A good enough doctor
  1. Anna Baverstock1,
  2. Fiona Finlay2
  1. 1 Paediatrics, Taunton and Somerset Hospital, Taunton, UK
  2. 2 Department of Community Child Health, Virgin Care, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Anna Baverstock, Paediatrics, Taunton and Somerset Hospital, Taunton TA1 5DA, UK; annabav{at}hotmail.com

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‘The best is the enemy of the good.’ Voltaire

We often aspire to do everything perfectly, but sometimes we need to be ‘good enough’. How often do we fail to achieve something because it isn’t perfect? The nature of medicine and those it attracts is some degree of perfectionism. Clare Gerada1 recently discussed this in a BMJ editorial. Healthy perfectionism is perhaps the nirvana we seek, here we set ‘high standards but drop these when required’. We may need to work to achieve this as we devise our own high standards, …

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  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.