A doctors note
Of thanks
When was the last time you saw your doctor? Whenever it was, I’ll lay you a dime to a dollar, you were ill. That’s not ironic, it’s the whole purpose. I know a guy who rents out tents. But I wouldn’t call on him unless I wanted to hire a tent.
Some of my clients pay the bill, and some even say thank you. But how often do you write to your doctor and say, “Wow, that therapy really worked, thank you!” Instead, when the doctor doesn’t hear any more from you, they did good. Or you’re dead.
I’m not dead, so I wrote to my doctors, and wanted to share it with you.
It’ll be 20 years. More or less. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. Why do we wait for anniversaries to express a word of thanks? Weren’t we grateful a few days before or after? We focus thanks on a date, but, between two parties, thanks are always there. And they’re always here. Thanks.
I visited a friend in Holland last weekend, whom I met 20 years ago. He noted the fact and I had to cast my mind back to confirm he was right. For ten of those 20 years, we didn’t hear from each other or meet. But, now we’ve resumed the friendship, it still feels like we met yesterday. Yesterday, 20 years ago.
When I came to Herent, it was from Glabbeek, where I’d had such a good GP, Janneke, that I remained on his list for a few years afterwards. Driving an hour across country roads when you’re under the weather is a mark of respect and faith, but isn’t the best of policies. I came once to Diederik and reported back, when asked, that he hadn’t taken my blood pressure. My then cohabitant took a dim view. Of the absence of blood-pressure testing. I vowed to beat a wide circle around Warotstraat.
However, Doctor Christine, who lived virtually opposite me in Kroonstraat, was on the point of retirement and didn’t see the point of taking me on as a new patient, although she did deign to take me on for an appointment. So the wide berth around Warotstraat was broached, and my next ailment was tended by Johan. Doctor Johan. By this time, there was a German in house, and that gave Johan a chance to brush up his Deutsch, so all was well, and, as we tumbled ill to misfortune, Johan made that well as well. As well as well can be.
One afternoon in the surgery, Johan was unable to observe what we two could, from our vantage point, observe, and that was the lawn being mown outside by an MD in UP. Underpants. With a nonchalance attributable only to the mighty or the arrogant, the lawn was mown in undergear. I would later remark to Diederik about my wonderment at the discovery of penicillin, an insight that has saved thousands, if not millions, of lives. “Serendipity,” came Diederik’s remark in response. And, in that instant, I knew that the man who had mown the lawn that day was not arrogant, but mighty. Mighty is he who can effect deep research by looking with their eyes.
Penicillin was Fleming’s great gift to the world. He should be sainted, especially when you read all the great difficulty he had in persuading the medical establishment of the wonder of his discovery. Pharma is the doctor’s right hand, without which they’d still be rubbing herbs together with a pestle and mortar. Molière called his play Le malade imaginaire; he should have called it Le médecin imaginaire. But pharma is wily and cunning, and they say that doctors are as well: where would they be if wonder drugs could cure us of all ailments overnight – bottles of Doctor Good sold off the back of a traveller’s caravan?
Faith in the medical profession goes allied with faith in the doctor as a person. Faith that the remedy fits the ailment. I know a researcher at Antwerp University who defended a thesis entitled Advancing RNA-based T-cell receptor redirection of lymphocytes to improve antitumor responses in adoptive T-cell immunotherapy for acute myeloid leukaemia. I think I understand half a dozen of these words. At the defence, the questions were opened to the floor and I never miss the chance to ask a question. How much does the treatment cost for each patient? The answer was as unhesitating as it was astonishing: one million euros. Is that what a life is worth? One million euros? Someone I know has been diagnosed with leukaemia; he was a high-ranking official in the EU. I suppose he’ll qualify for this treatment, if it’ll do him any good. He maybe will have an insurance policy that covers the cost. One million euros could alleviate a lot of famine. Or it could buy some bombs for the Russo-Ukrainian War. I’m glad I don’t have the decision of where to spend one million euros. I suspect that you’re also glad of that.
But I suspect – for a suspicious mind is a healthy mind, and can stumble perchance upon serendipity – that HIV has long since been cured, and that the cure lies somewhere safe, in a safe, until such time as anti-retrovirals have earned their keep. One virus cannot be conquered in decades, and another succumbs miraculously after six months. Do pharmacologists take the Hippocratic oath?
I never had a sense of being overcharged for the services rendered by you. Quite the contrary. Ten minutes of treatment always went accompanied by 20 minutes of wellness. I would later read that time taken with a patient in a consultation lays the way for much good health in the patient’s future. A rushed consultation sets the way for many more of the like. I don’t know if you’ve read such articles; perhaps you never needed to, because you knew that what they observed was what was the case.
You never see me in the good times; you only see me when I have something to complain about. You react with alacrity when alacrity is needed, and with compassion when sympathy is felt and not simply played. You are a part of my life, and a part of my community, and you are greatly valued, because you ask little monetary value for what you give to me, and to my community. And I thank you: for 20 years of loyal service, in which I’ve never truly had any complaint. Not even at a missing blood pressure reading or a pair of natty underpants.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Dr Johan brushing up his Deutsch in a potentially life or death situation? Hm. Zehr gut.