What is the value of optimism in medicine? At a moment of perpetual crisis and controversy, with record numbers of excess deaths and uncertainty about future waves of COVID-19, is optimism an appropriate response? The optimists tell us there is much to be hopeful of in a medical career that is both a privilege and an opportunity.1 These views may chime with the rose-tinted world view of Dr Pangloss, Voltaire’s fictional professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology, but we may ‘rationalise the irrational in times of perceived helplessness’.2 To avoid false comforts, we need to create an environment that is hospitable to questioning and change.
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