Jay GreesonHappy Doctor’s Day.
Yes, sir, today, March 30, is National Doctor’s Day. It has been since 1990, when Bush I made it so.
So let us celebrate the doctors among us. Now, you smart folks who have Ph.D. on your business card, while commendable and super-impressive, this is not for you. And while we smile at the memories of Dr. J, shudder at anyone who made it all the way through the early Dan Aykroyd vehicle “Doctor Detroit” and shake our heads in honor of the great fictional doctors from Frankenstein to Jekyll to Strangelove, we’re going to try to keep this one closer to home.
This is the day for the “Say ah” and “Turn your head and cough” kind of doctors. This is their day, so let me be the first this morning to say thank you.
Thanks to you and your caring and well-meaning staffs. Thank you for picking up the phone at 1:45 in the morning and not knowing who is on the other end of the line but for being there and reacting in a conditioned and life-cherishing way.
Doctors are easy targets, especially today, when they stand in the crosswalk between insurance debates and national politics and between lawsuits and emotional story lines. They are easy targets because generally they have nice cars and make comfortable livings. They are easy targets because wait times are long and frustration comes easily in our iPhone-staring society.
They also are easy targets because they and the rest of the health care industry all too often have to deal with the fractionally hard to find exceptions — be it eye ointment or a baby born with drugs in her system — that generate sympathy and outrage and public angst among the Internet morality mob who chafe their collective hands behind the anonymity of a keyboard.
It’s easy to forget that doctors do their job when the rest of us are at our most emotionally frazzled. Sick parents, hurting children, potential life-or-death moments that thankfully way more often mean life, and that’s because of the doctors. That’s their professional narrative, and we need them to be at their best every day.
So on this day, doctors and medical professionals everywhere and especially in our fair town, let me say thank you.
You were there on all of our best days and often our worst. You were there doing what you could, as best you could.
We are in a litigious time, when more and more of our best and brightest have to ask themselves whether they want to deal with the hassles of medicine and, amazingly, even if they can afford to be doctors with climbing student debt, malpractice insurance and the political spin cycle.
You can lament what you pay — we all do in all matters — but the ends of those medical means are segmented more than ever before.
So today, thank a physician if you see one, and remember that not seeing him is good but knowing he or she is there and willing to pick up the phone in the wee hours is even better.
I know our family is grateful. Our oldest child was very sick in the first weeks of his life in 2007, and the great care and patience of the folks at Erlanger and our pediatrician were answers to one of the thousands of daily prayers offered from the campus on Third Street.
It was a stressful time that was a blur and forever a hazy nightmare with a blessed ending. It was simply another day at the office for the doctors.
In fact, I thought through the process that it was a walk with God, and my wife and I frequently talked about our faith and how the entire process was a stressful and emotional and lengthy journey to hear a guy in a white coat with a lot of sheepskin on the wall tell us everything was OK.
Today I, for one, want to thank that fellow in his white coat.
Jay Greeson’s column will appear on Page A2 on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. His sports columns are scheduled for Tuesdays and Fridays. You can read his online column the “5-at-10” Monday through Friday at timesfreepress.com after 10 a.m. Contact him at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and follow him on Twitter at @jgreesontfp.