Doctors

The doctor who was insensitive to Julie was my first bad experience with a physician but, unfortunately, not the last.

Several years ago, there was a play on Broadway called The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. I’ll tell you a tale of an allergist. I don’t know if this allergist has a wife, but if he does I’ll bet she could tell a heck of a tale.

A few years ago I was having an unusually aggressive attack of allergies. I’m fortunate enough to live around a lot of trees. At certain times of the year, and it feels like a lot of times, those trees, with all due respect, throw off a lot of pollen, not to mention the pollen thrown off by the bushes and grass. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely hold the trees, the bushes, and the grass in the highest esteem, but sometimes they do throw off a lot of pollen, and this time I was sneezing my head off. Hey! Nothing’s perfect.

So I asked my local medical office if they could recommend an allergist. I’d never been to an allergist, but the sneezing had gotten to a point that I felt the time had come. My intention was to ask the doctor to suggest something perhaps stronger than the over-the-counter medications I’d been taking for the sneezing.

I sat alone in the waiting room for a while, and then this tall young guy who had shaved his head walked by. He was wearing the white jacket, so I assumed he was the allergist. He was. He didn’t even glance at me.

Soon, a nurse appeared, took me into a small room, and asked me to blow into a tube. She made some notes and then disappeared. She came back a few minutes later and said, “The doctor feels you should be able to do better than that.” So I gave it all I had. She made some more notes, disappeared again, came back after a few minutes, and said words to the effect that the doctor somehow thought I was cheating.

I assured her I wasn’t, and pretty soon the allergist appeared. He probably said hello, but that was it. Clearly, he had little use for small talk or any talk about exactly why I was there.

He began looking in my ears, then up my nose, and then down my throat. He still did not say a word. Then he asked me to lie down, took out a stethoscope, and began listening to my heart. Still not a word.

At that point, I considered getting up and walking out, which I’d never done in my life—in a doctor’s office, anyway. He looked at me very solemnly and said, “I hear a murmur.” I looked at him and said, “I’ve been examined regularly since I was born, and no one has ever said that.” He said, “I’m a musician, and I have a very keen sense of hearing. Some murmurs are meaningless, and some aren’t.” He suggested I see a cardiologist.

Still not one word about my sneezing. I said some things to him I’ve blocked out—no profanity, but I walked out and drove over to my internist, who briefly examined me and said, “You have a negligible murmur which isn’t even worth mentioning.”

I did go to a cardiologist, who said, “You have a negligible murmur which isn’t even worth mentioning.”

Rather than go to another allergist about the sneezing, which was worth mentioning, I decided to continue to sneeze. I figured there were a lot worse things than sneezing, and I’d just experienced one. Oh, yeah, the allergist wrote me a letter about six months later that I tore up without opening. What goes around really does come around.

In fairness to the allergist, I’ve since been told by a very good source that he has an excellent reputation, which just proves again there’s always at least two sides to everything.

I can’t end this story without saying a few hundred words about the cardiologist, who also concluded, “You have a negligible murmur which isn’t even worth mentioning.” (That’s probably why my regular doctors chose not to mention it.)

First, I met with the guy. He didn’t examine me. We had a pleasant chat, and he scheduled me for an echocardiogram, which reveals if a murmur is worth mentioning or not. His was a big cardiac practice, and I assume he just didn’t get my message that I needed to change the appointment because that was the day my eighteen-year-old son was to have his first scene in a movie. I wouldn’t be on the set, but I’d definitely be somewhere in the building.

Evidently, the cardiologist only heard I had changed the appointment, not the explanation. Although it’s a busy office, he shouldn’t have sent a letter, which I received on a Saturday, citing several reasons why I might not survive the weekend! It was such a frighteningly provocative letter, I chose to share it with no one, not even my wife—especiallynot my wife.

I called the physician on Monday and made an attempt to put a little lighter spin on his letter, but he interrupted me by asking, “What’s the first part of the paper you read every day?” I said, “The front page.” He said, “I read the obituaries.” We scheduled an appointment for the next day. It turns out, as I’ve said, that I have a negligible heart murmur that isn’t worth mentioning. I hope he reads this and takes a good look at himself. I think that’s good advice for all of us.

He called me about four months later, but I told his secretary I wouldn’t take his call and explained why.

I don’t ever recall not taking someone’s call to that point, but I was provoked to do it again within the past year. The son of a girl I went to high school with reached out to me. He’s a journalist and wanted me to see some things he’d written. He sent them to me, but I found them so hateful toward women that I had my assistant e-mail him that my experience with women was so different from his that I was really not his audience. Obviously insulted, he e-mailed back that he didn’t need me to be part of his audience, because he already had a huge audience. Then he e-mailed and asked if I would call a big speaker’s bureau head on his behalf. My assistant e-mailed him that to me that call would indicate support.

He then called me, and I didn’t take the call. Even for someone who likes to say yes to people, enough is enough.

The only other weird experience I’d ever had with a doctor occurred a few decades ago when I went in for a checkup and the doctor asked me how many women I’d been with. I asked him the relevance of the question, and he absolutely couldn’t answer.

He just stared at me and said, “There are a lot of weird people in your profession.” I looked at him and said, “There are a lot of weird people in your profession.”

Most recently, I went to a doctor to treat an ear infection and he wanted to operate on me for a brain tumor that an MRI at Yale revealed I didn’t have. Actually, I had no tumor anywhere and easily got rid of the ear infection with antibiotics, needless to say prescribed by another doctor.

Several years ago I was seated next to a Harvard scholar at a dinner party. The reason the host chose to sit me next to him was that the man had been told by a prominent doctor that he had six months to live because of a malignant brain tumor.

The host, knowing my experience with Julie and her brain tumor, sat me next to him. The man told me what had happened to him, and all I said was, “If you walk across the street to another hospital you may hear something entirely different.” Amazingly, he seemed completely taken aback by what I said. Well, he walked across the street and many more streets, and twenty years later, he’s alive and well.

When it comes to a serious medical diagnosis, never assume that what someone tells you, no matter who it is, is the final answer.

One last thought on doctors. Some but not all let their patients know they’re due for something. Every conscientious doctor should do that. Then, if something happens, it won’t be because the doctor didn’t do his full job.