The Doctor's Dilemma deals directly with the choice available to doctor's who practice medicine privately: they are able to choose who their patients are. And, thus they are also, in the case of Ridgeon rejecting to treat Louis, able to choose who to allow to die. While Ridgeon and his fellow doctors sit about discussing the morality of Louis and determining his fate as to whether or not he is a man worthy of being cured, they themselves become men of dishonor. Shaw is pulling back the curtain on the dangers of medical practitioners. That they know their ability to cure patients, to prolong life. Yet, they take that to mean that they are to be the judge, jury and executioner as to who should be given life, as if they are shaping society by who they choose to treat and who they allow to die.
Moreover, Shaw reveals the selfish nature of man through Ridgeon's character. That he knows he has the ability to cure his patients of tuberculosis. But, by knowing how to do so, he also knows how to ensure their death. He then wields this power in a malignant way in order to get what he desires: Jennifer. The pettiness of the doctors believing they are the men that should shape society points to the delineation between artist and medical practioner. Doctors believe themselves to be elite as they can provide years on one's life, but unlike an artist, they cannot provide beauty, peace, joy to the human soul. Ridgeon even says that in all his years of examining patients he's never come across an organ known as the soul. An artist is a doctor for the soul. A doctor is an artist of the human body. How one chooses to use such gifts is what can change, and further enhance or decrease the quality of our society.
