March 31, 2006

• Tell the painful truth

  There once lived a young boy who wanted to be a doctor.  He saw how the other doctors lived in finery and luxury, and he said to himself, "Someday when I grow older, I want to be a rich and famous doctor, with a large group of assistants, so that I can work a few hours in my lavish office, prescribe a few medicines with a few unruly strokes of my pen, and have lots of cash to enjoy in all my free time."  His mom did not waste much love on him, but she was only too happy to encourage his drive for wealth - "Someday he'll be rich..." she chuckled to her friends.  "We won't live in a shack then," she winked knowingly.

  The boy hated dirt.  He always kept his room in pristine condition, washed his hands a dozen times a day, and preferred playing chess on the internet to hiking in the woods outside his house (he called it "The Grub").  He was the brunt of many jokes with his friends (he made sure that he always had lots of friends)... they called him the Wiener, the Lily, and other things.  He didn't like it when they spoke of him as if he were worthless, but he couldn't afford to lose his friends.

  When the time finally came for him to go to college, he somehow managed to squeak through the premed program by spending long hours memorizing all the biological terminology.  He hated the lab practicums, but he forced himself to learn the data because of his great and powerful longing - that soon he could be a real doctor and make enormous amounts of money to enjoy the pristine, pastel future.  Instead of familiarizing him with blood and bacteria, his coursework increased his terror of all the dark, slimy things of the earth.  But he gritted his teeth and kept studying.  He never asked questions in lecture, and was so pitifully affirmative of everything that his friends said, and so fervently so, that his new nickname became "The Yes Man".  His roommates didn't mind- it's hard to have disagreements with someone who agrees with everything you say.

  He passed into medical school, and his dream was nearing fruition.  Then something happened which threatened to change the course of his life forever.

  His first rotation was in the cancer ward, and specifically his job was to give examinations to patients and provide them with a first opinion on whether they had lung cancer or not.  When he found out who his first examinee was, he was terrified.  Mr. Leibenschwartz had lived on the boy's street for many years, and he was known to ream out anyone who crossed him, with language that would wilt an oak.  Furthermore, his staunchly held opinion was that he would continue perpetually in perfect health, and woe be to anyone whose nose even twitched at the cloud of smoke that continually hung around him, not even to mention suggesting the perils of chain smoking.

  The young medic willed himself to step into the examination room.  After a few seconds of examining the the old man, he knew what he had suspected and feared - the patient had cancer.  The dreaded task, so long avoided, suddenly loomed in front of the youth.  He had a choice.  To give a false prognosis would jeopardize his passing grade, but perhaps he could then let another doctor make the announcement.  But to look the old man straight in the eye and tell him that he had cancer... to tell him that he would die unless he quit smoking and started chemotherapy... to risk, for the first time in his life, making a real enemy who would yell at him and scream at him...

  Nothing in his life, up until now, had been more important than becoming a doctor and finally becoming rich.  But if this was what being a doctor meant...

  "Perhaps he doesn't have cancer after all," the boy writhed mentally.  "Or maybe if I just recommend that he get more rest and eat more vegetables, it will go into remission.  Or even if that doesn't happen," he sweated, seeing a way out, "If I simply tell him to come back in a month for another checkup, I'll be out of this rotation by then, and someone else will tell him about his cancer."

   
  Today I drove past a church near where I live.  On the sign on the front lawn was lettered the phrase of the week - this statement placed to catch the eye of a desperate, dying world and impart some vital truth.

  The sign said, "Live in the spirit of hope, so alive in this season of rebirth."

   

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