Scene 1
My wife and I are walking down a long skywalk bridge which connects two MDACC buildings. On one side is the pedestrian pathway. On the other is the path for carts shuttling patients back and forth who have difficulty walking. The path narrows down and like in traffic, the natural thing to do is to zipper when merging. A doctor rudely cuts off my wife and runs into her handbag.
Scene 2
My brother, my mom and I are walking down the same skybridge the next day. Up ahead are two doctors conversing. They are standing in such a way as to block the entire pedestrian pathway. I quickly relate the story of my wife's experience and state matter of factly, "watch, they will make us go around them and go into the cart path." True to form, the god-like beings force us mere mortals to go around them. Behind us is an elderly and feeble woman in a wheelchair. My brother states, "if they don't move for the elderly minority woman....that's just sad." They break up their conversation before the wheelchair bound woman makes it to them but I have little doubt that they would have remained steadfast in the knowledge that their discussion outweighed any inconvenience the elderly woman would have encountered by having to move.
As we're driving home, we pass my school and I point it out to my wife. Her reply?
"That's where they make the assholes."
Doctors don't do themselves many favors when it comes to dispelling the accusation of having a god complex.
3 comments:
sometimes, actions of others merely serve as warning signs on our own journey. One of the real values of a lesson is its ability to be remembered.
I hope you can re-read this post in your second and third year of residency. Perhaps it will keep you human.
I'm not really worried about you, though.
-Steve
Don't worry, my wife won't hesitate one instant if I start to go down that path.
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