Posted August 9, 2019
Since the earliest I can remember, going to the doctor meant getting a needle in the rear end. When I was a preschooler, our family doctor seemed genuinely old. He had been a general practitioner for thirty years or so before I went to him. As soon as I could read, I noticed that his ancient medical degree dated from the 1920’s. His methods were not refined. He gave me what he thought was a smile, had my parents forcibly flip me upside down onto his worn, paper-covered black leather examination table, and jab me in the keester. I couldn’t have been thinking too deeply at that age, but evidently the impression those hypodermic needles made on me were deep in more ways than one. Somewhere in the back of my mind it seemed that there must be more to medicine than silver-colored instruments and pain. Read more.