Marshall Marinker: an appreciation

Image supplied with the kind permission of Marshall’s family. As a young GP, Marshall Marinker made two decisions that were to profoundly influence his professional life. They were to result in him becoming one of the greatest influences in developing general practice as an academic discipline. First, in 1965 he applied to join a research group to look at the doctor–patient relationship, a previously ignored field. The group was being set up by Dr Michael Balint, a Hungarian psychoanalyst then working in London. At the end of the interview, accepting him into the group, Balint said to Marshall, ‘You’re going to love the work; after all, you’re a little bit crazy’ — an anecdote Marshall shared …