Doctor Hack

-Can I tell you how much I hate doctors? Not all doctors. Not the ones who are friends who I know and see personally and in an unrelated means to professional needs (now that I think of it, I don’t have any friends who are doctors – maybe that says something). Just the ones I get stuck going to see, and by default, all those I have in theory to see for medical consultation. -I think doctors are the sadists of our era. Imagine if you would a leap back in time to the “Inquisition” in which men were flayed or roasted, and stretched on racks. Then jump back and picture the dermatologist or the proctologist who poke and prod, after scaring the daylights out of you with tales of cancers and other painful, lingering deaths, begin to carve on you to remove a spot or snaking a camera in places they it does not belong. What is the difference?
-Doctors love the value of fear. Think about it. Why else would we bother to see them? We don’t have the advantage of years upon years of education and training [I do find it amusing that the guy in my fraternity who took 7 years to graduate was called a slacker and bum, while other guys who stay in school for 7 years we choose to call M.D.]. We are forced to rely on that education and training to diagnose a tinge or winge, or worse. The Doctor, who cannot possibly know on the spot exactly what ails us, can reach into his black bag of medical litany and bluff his way through an explanation which we cannot contest. There is a huge leap of faith necessary in every visit and diagnosis.
-And this, if you get any kind of bedside manner, is a small plus. My last few doctors have been one step short of ghoulish. While I understand that one of my other favorite professions, lawyers, have made a nuisance of themselves in the medical profession via malpractice suits and other superfluous suits, doctors now seem determined to cover their keysters by presenting you the most dire of all possible consequences in everything they see. A pimple is a potential cancer, a sore knee a potential joint replacement and, God forbid, a headache a tumor.
-And this if the doctor will see you, let alone be on time to see you. This profession is renowned for its complete inability to run on a real business schedule. When was the last time you went to the doctor and he was actually on time? A doctor’s office is run like the Department of Motor Vehicles. Once you have passed the generally surly reception staff, you get to sit in some generic waiting room with only 7 month old copies of magazines you would never spend a penny on, like “Crocheting Monthly” and “Cuddly Pets Digest”. You wait, and wait, endlessly (“Next line, please. Where is your form, please”), and yet once you are in the examination room, you get a fly by from the doctor worthy of Tom Cruise in “Top Gun”. No other business runs this way.
-I’d like to know whom my doctor goes to for his yearly check up. I can only hope his experiences are as miserable as mine. If he has time, he could stop by my house. I’d be more than willing to consider leaving him with my 4 kids for 30 minutes in a small room while he waits for his “appointment”, and then you can bet your “Sweet Betsies” he would know the meaning of “Moon River”.