Man, medicine sure has changed
since I was younger.
I know, I know—I sound like an
old fart.
That’s only because I am.
I needed a physical, and since my
old doctor quit the profession and moved to Bora Bora, I went to a new doctor. New to me, that is; although they all look ten
years old these days.
At any rate, I was ushered into
the examining room after only a ten minute wait. “This is pretty good,” I thought.
The doctor came in directly.
“Don’t you want me to take my
clothes off and put on one of those hospital gowns?” I asked.
She looked at me as if I had just
suggested something filthy.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Well, how can you do a complete
physical if you can’t see my body?”
“That won’t be necessary,” she
repeated.
“But suppose I have a mole on my back that’s turned black with cancer? If I leave my clothes on, you’ll never see it.”
“Do you have a mole on your back that has turned black?”
“If it’s on my back, how am I supposed to know? Isn’t that
your job?”
She laid a George Dubbya smirk on
me and replied, “Let’s begin, shall we?”
Sigh.
She put on three pairs of
surgical gloves, a pair of mittens and over that, a pair of chain mail
gauntlets, then picked up her stethoscope.
She placed it against my back and asked me to inhale and exhale
repeatedly.
I also find it interesting that
they keep whatever information they glean from such procedures completely to
themselves unless you pry it out of them.
“So?” I ask, as she puts the
stethoscope in her pocket.
“‘So’ what?”
“So how do my lungs sound?”
“You’re breathing.”
“Oh, good.”
Next, she stands as far away from
me as she can and looks into my ears.
I refrain from further inquiry
this time, keeping my growing irritation to myself.
The blood pressure cuff next.
“Hmmmm,” she hmmmms.
“What?”
“Your blood pressure is a little
high.”
“Qu’elle surprise.”
She walks
across the room and sits at her computer, typing away.
She has not
checked my glands, looked at my throat, examined my breasts or weighed me.
I’m beginning
to question if I’m even there. What she’s
done so far is avoided touching me at all.
I feel diseased.
The visit was
doing nothing for my self-esteem, let me tell you.
Once she gets
her nose out of the computer, she prints off and hands me a sheaf of paper…a big sheaf of paper.
“What’s this?”
“Referrals.”
“For
what? What’s wrong with me?”
“I have no
idea.”
Suddenly, I
have an awful thought. “Are you the
receptionist?”
“No.”
“Maintenance
personnel?”
“No. I’m the doctor.”
“Prove it.”
“Why?”
“Because, so
far, you have barely looked at me, are treating me like I have Ebola, and haven’t
asked about my medical history. Is this
the way you deal with all your new patients?
Is there something about living, breathing humanity that you think requires
genocide to cleanse the planet? What the
hell is going on here?”
She sighs and
shakes her head. “Please take these
referrals and make appointments with the specialists on them, then get back to
me when you have the results.”
“Don’t they
send you the results?”
“That won’t be
necessary—you’ll have them.”
I paged
through the half-ream of paper she gave me.
“Let’s see…cardiologist, even though, had you asked me, I could have
told you that there is no history of heart problems in my family. Endocrinologist…uh, I think I’ve probably
stopped growing and am of a normal height.
Pulmonologist…I ran the Boston Marathon this year and came in second. Dermatologist…my acne days are rather far
behind me. Rheumatologist…not a bit of
arthritis, either.”
The list just
went on and on.
“So what you’re
saying is that you want all these other doctors to do your job for you, while
you get paid to play World of Warcraft or whatever you were doing on that
damned computer. Christ, you didn’t even
draw my blood!”
“That won’t be
necessary.”
“Oh, right,
because I have to go to a specialist for that, too, right?”
“Yes.”
“Where,
exactly, did you get your diploma?
McDonald’s?”
“Guadalajara
University.”
I gathered up
my paperwork and left.
When I went to
the front desk to check out, the perky little blonde asked, “Would you like to
make your next appointment?”
“That won’t be
necessary,” I replied.
