In praise of physicians/surgeons

The other day I wrote about a really nice post someone wrote about a cardiologist with whom I have had a relationship since postdoc years.

I also have several physician friends and colleagues IRL and on these interblogs who must constantly be questioned about their motives, their pharma connections, etc.

Let me state from this place and time: t
There are far more physicians who uphold our idealistic Rockwellian view of them than not.

Two years ago, I shared a cab with a doc on his way to a basic and clinical cancer research meeting focused on an organ we both study. Good guy. I might have seen him one more time in the intervening years.

Recently, a friend of mine had a parent with cancer in said organ. I e-mailed Cab Doc and asked for a referral. He said he'd take care of my friend's parent himself.

Cab Doc operated on my friend's parent. Successfully, with a good prognosis.

I wrote to thank Cab Doc.

He wrote me back to thank ME for caring so much about my friend and his parent.

Good guy, eh?

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Docs are shallow, self-centered, egotistical, nasty jerks.
However, on average they are simply radically less dramatically so than the rest of the human population.
There's a reason Arrowsmith is the closest thing Sinclair Lewis ever got to writing a hero.

I tend to agree with Becca somewhat. I've run into a number of God Complex and Jesus Freak doctors.

But I love my primary. He's a 40 something Italo-American like me. We both have a love of the Italian language too.

it only took going through ~7 not-so-good doctors for us to find a good one... but the good one quite literally gave me my husband back from the clutches of despair. (even though this kind of thing does give him a superiority complex.) this doc also encouraged him to go back to school and engaged his interest in New Field.