But if you believe that alcoholism is defined by a preoccupation with drinking, a steady increase in the amount you need to drink in order to get the same effect, and an inability to give it up -- and most in the medical profession do -- then more and more women fit the profile quite nicely, though often come to the realization on their own.
Mr Milburn - whose conference address will be his first high-profile speech to the members of the medical profession since the Budget - is also said to favour the money being spent on training new staff, replacing outdated equipment and replacing old technology.
But putting the anger "into context", Dr Shepherd explained how the medical profession had re-defined the illness to include a "wider spectrum" of conditions and triggers.
Earlier this month, doctors passed a motion of no confidence in the GMC at their annual conference and next week a Labour MP is to put forward a motion in parliament calling for an end to self-regulation for the medical profession.
The jury has heard the pensioner had a long-held mistrust of the medical profession and did not want any outside help.
"It's not so much what the hospital, what the coroner, what the medical profession understand the situation to be - it is what is understood by the individuals giving the consent - the parents, " said Mr Cohen.
Panorama asks whether some of the medical profession have become addicted to prescribing anti-psychotics and whether many of these patients could be better cared for without such reliance on these powerful drugs?
The study, which began in May 2006, also found trainee doctors are now more likely to enter the medical profession at a later stage of life - the average age of respondents was 27, compared to 24 in 1995.
Today it is impossible to be an expert about everything, yet the medical profession do not appear to have properly sub-divided their skills into contemporary areas of knowledge for the purposes of giving evidence in the courtroom.
Certainly medicine remains a popular profession in America: there are almost three applicants for every medical-school place, up by two-thirds from a decade ago.
Music's anxiety-reducing qualities have long been recognised outside the medical profession.
Mis-undertandings about the pill are widespread, even among the medical profession (the main one is that it causes cancer).
HMOs to choose from, a mixed economy of for-profit and non-profit hospitals, and citizens less inclined than ever to accept whatever the medical profession condescends to offer.
The leaders of the health care industry and the medical profession, not to mention the political establishment, have a single, all-purpose response they fall back on whenever somebody suggests that the United States might usefully study foreign health care systems: "But it's socialized medicine!"
But the organization has reflected deep divisions in the medical profession by joining conservatives in refusing to back Obama's call for a government-funded public health insurance option.
After a two-month coma, I slowly came out of it, putting many doctors and the general medical profession in disbelief.
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