It is a sad fact of life that not all doctors look like George Clooney.

Not all of them have his big brown eyes, his wide, boyish smile, his unbeatable bedside manner... sorry, drifted off there for a moment. The fact remains that most hard-working medics look less like delicious Dr Doug Ross and more like lacklustre Dr Legg, the gaunt pair of walking eyebrows that used to stalk the sick and senile on the set of EastEnders.

It is probably a good thing that not all our doctors are smouldering balls of sultry sensuality - just think how long you would have to wait to get an appointment.

It takes weeks as it is to see your GP, if, that is, you can actually make your way past the Spanish inquisition in reception. Just imagine how long the queues would be if the doctors were dishy. The waiting rooms would be packed with women struck down daily by a mystery bug that only Dr Love can cure.

So it's probably for the best that as a rule our medical profession is as physically unpredictable as the rest of the misshapen collection of odds and sods we call the general public. And anyway, what does it matter what they look like as long as they can do their job?

Well, actually, it seems to matter quite a lot. According to new research, our opinion of a medic's ability is not only affected by their physical attractiveness, but also by what they wear, how much they weigh and even if they have facial hair, an earring or a ponytail.

The Australian study showed that patients had more confidence in doctors wearing at least two items of formal clothing. Although in Australia this could simply mean no stains on their T-shirt and only one hole in the bum of their khakis.

They had less confidence in doctors wearing unusual, retro clothes, flared jeans or a floral Hawaiian-style shirt. But the thing that damaged patients' faith most was if the doctor had a nose ring. Presumably they believed if their GP looked like a bull, maybe he talked bull too.

I don't care what a doctor wears - as long as it's not white socks with loafers, they should be struck off for that particular offence against fashion - and I don't really mind if they have a beard, an earring and a ponytail, although the women could probably benefit from losing the facial fuzz.

I would feel obliged to raise an eyebrow or two (to be honest, lack of plucking means I only have one at the moment) if an overweight GP started lecturing me on healthy eating, or a skinny medic who looked like they hadn't slept since 1972, had a large cup of steaming caffeine on their desk and a twitch that made them leap from their chair every thirty seconds starting giving me some spiel about stress.

But, in general, I am all in favour of doctors looking as human as the rest of us (or as human as you can look with only one enormous eyebrow).

In fact, the only thing I really can't stand is if they have the temerity to look younger than me. Nothing makes me feel older and more mumsy than a twenty-something doctor. Especially if that twenty-something doctor still has traces of acne, gets his shirts ironed every week by his doting mum and is too young to remember when Paul Weller was an angry young man with something to say and not a miserable old geezer who just wouldn't shut up.

No, give me forty-something Dr Doug anytime. He may be going a little grey at the temples, and his smile lines might be deepening by the day, but at least he doesn't refer to the 1970s as "the olden days".

So what if he isn't actually a trained medic; he looks the part doesn't he? And that, according to the new research, is what matters.

Updated: 10:26 Tuesday, January 28, 2003