tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19411997.post2906993385491313100..comments2023-07-21T07:01:10.447-04:00Comments on A Jolly Company: Every accidental crackNathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07288330419297657142noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19411997.post-59446141794987152532007-03-03T09:38:00.000-05:002007-03-03T09:38:00.000-05:00MrStandfast - But I should add, I think you are ri...MrStandfast - But I should add, I think you are right about pastors. It's like that quote I posted a while back: the son of the family who winds up in medical school is the guy too weak to work a plow, too stupid for law, and too immoral for the clergy.<BR/><BR/>I guess, through all of my comments, runs a rather romantic conception of the profession of physician, but I think ideals are important, and important to keep straight. That's what I'm trying to do.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07288330419297657142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19411997.post-46113373508603154322007-03-02T10:10:00.000-05:002007-03-02T10:10:00.000-05:00MrStandfast - Medicine is not plain business. It ...MrStandfast - Medicine is not plain business. It can't be. Plain business conceptions of medicine lead to checklists, insurance organizations, and socialized medicine, impersonal and unfeeling. There may be good in all those, but the good is in how much they preserve the human, sublime character of medicine. In other businessses, attention to civility, decorum, and all the sundry details of interpersonal interaction contributes to getting the job done by helping everyone to work smoothly together. In medicine, they are the job.<BR/><BR/>But medicine is not a job, it is a life. And it is perhaps in that that the conflict I see arises. Quite literally, almost everything I do in life will revolve around the fact that I am a doctor. If I'm on vacation, away from my pager even (should that ever happen) and I see a medical emergency, I must respond, as a human, as a private citizen, and as a doctor. Now a garbage man might respond too, he might even be an EMT (and therefore better equipped for an emergency outside the hospital), but the difference is that my licence is on the line. It's the same every minute of every day.<BR/><BR/>Maybe that's just a societal construct. But doctors, for all their personal calling and responsibility, cannot exist outside of society. None of them would want to.<BR/><BR/>All that said, I like your line "everyone comes of age in their own milieu." This I cannot argue with. However, like Frost contemplating the untraveled road, I cannot help but wonder what another millieu would have been like.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07288330419297657142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19411997.post-14249302956660178562007-03-01T22:41:00.000-05:002007-03-01T22:41:00.000-05:00alice - wow, that is cold comfort :) I know what ...alice - wow, that is cold comfort :) I know what you mean though. Though the novelty has still not worn off for me, I find myself offering minor bits of advice to friends who ask me about illness and such, but I still notice the change in the way I talk when I do.<BR/><BR/>t p g - thanks!<BR/><BR/>I should add, for anyone who reads this far, that I don't mean to disparage other professions in the above post. It just seems to be an implicit attitude in many doctors that there really is no more important profession. I want to maintain some sense of perspective, but perspective is exactly what it is most difficult to acheive in this environment.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07288330419297657142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19411997.post-59650546525328902232007-03-01T17:25:00.000-05:002007-03-01T17:25:00.000-05:00Great post. I wonder who I'd be if it weren't for ...Great post. I wonder who I'd be if it weren't for all the exposure to the extremes of good and bad on a daily basis in the hospital.alwaysthegoodgirlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04695562267752365420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19411997.post-11882480322391049262007-02-28T10:43:00.000-05:002007-02-28T10:43:00.000-05:00On the other hand, if we don't know what 'normal' ...On the other hand, if we don't know what 'normal' is, we can't miss it so much, right?<BR/><BR/>I've realized that I can't even ask friends at church how they're feeling without my language being tinged by all the training on "medical interviewing," and their answers are usually colored by the knowledge that I'm almost a doctor. <BR/><BR/>How do normal people think about life and death and sickness and health? It must be funny not to have all the pathology, prognoses, and side effects of treatment attached to every statement.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com