They are members of the last honourable profession. Going to work for them we hope is not about the dark art of spin, but saving lives. They are the blessed ones. They are the doctors.

You can't really find fault with the medical profession, despite last week's hullabaloo over the £250,000-a-year London GP. Having devoted their lives to caring for others and perfecting their bedside manner, the average doctor is a model of respectability. However, putting the needs of others before your own and regular confrontations with death has its price. Doctors are often exhausted. Very occasionally they make mistakes. But more often they simply cut corners.

This is how it works. Geraldine Healing has been a doctor for 20 years. She loves her job. Always of a virtuous disposition, Healing has eschewed the more glamorous branches of medicine. Not for her the surgeon's self-importance or the paediatrician's glow of righteousness. Instead she has specialised in one of the most in-demand, but least prestigious, arms of the NHS: STD medicine.

The GUM clinic is not for the mealy mouthed or lily livered. Healing does not blush. She has seen more dangly bits, front bottoms, back bottoms, and bashful boys and girls than most people have had hot dinners. She really has seen everything, from the inexplicable collision with a vacuum cleaner to the too-tight clothes peg.

But, Healing does not judge or lecture: she simply puts on a clean pair of gloves, informs, educates and suggests that perhaps some sexual practices are best left to the imagination.

Unfortunately, not all of her patients are so open-minded. People skulk in, looking first left then right before mumbling their name to the receptionist and taking a seat in the darkest corner of the waiting room. When they finally come into Healing's surgery, far from whipping off their undies so that the doctor can take a look, most are too embarrassed to tell her what is wrong.

Eric Widders, a 26-year-old management consultant, prides himself in being a man of the world: an acute understanding of business models, a full bank account, an active sex life and smart enough to avoid a visit to the STD clinic. In fact, when a girlfriend points out that perhaps a quick visit might be advisable, he dumps her. But three weeks of ruminating convince him he is suffering from a life-threatening disease. He turns up for his appointment.

Healing tells him not to panic. It's OK. His problem is really nothing to worry about, even though it is incurable and increasingly common. Widders, who was beginning to feel a little relieved, pales immediately. Incurable? Healing knows she has to step in. "It's just cold sores," she explains. "And where would you rather have them? On your face where everyone can see them or down below where nobody will know?"

Cold sores ... Phew. Widders leaves the clinic a happier man. Healing smiles. It might not be strictly true, but the good doctor knows that when it comes to making people better, herpes, unlike roses, really does smell much sweeter by another name.