11.14.2005
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Yes, it's not nice...
...but every now and again, don't we all wish we could be like Greg House, M.D.? As in the character played by Hugh Laurie on the excellent Fox show, "House, M.D."
The eponymous (love that word, don't you?) show's lead character is a curmudgeon's curmudgeon. He is nasty. He is cruel to patients. He has the bedside manner of a bull in a china shop. But, because he is portrayed as a brilliant diagnostician, he is allowed to keep his job.
Who would you rather be treated by, should you, may God forbid, come down with a mysterious, debilitating, or life-threatening condition? A kindly country doctor type who really, really cares about you as a patient, or someone who will be able to diagnose and treat what's actually killing you? If that's the real-world choice, give me Dr. Curmudgeon any day of the week.
In a typical vignette from last week's show, House greets an EMT tech who is trying to give the best medical information he can to House as a patient is wheeled in on a gurney. House growls at the well-meaning EMT, and says something like, "If you had knuckled down harder in high school, you might have become a doctor. Let me diagnose this patient."
To which the offended tech says, "Bite me." Which I can respect. But how many of us wish we could go through life saying exactly what we think, 24/7? And not caring what people may think of us? And, best of all, being good enough, or indispensible enough, at our jobs to get away with it?
The eponymous (love that word, don't you?) show's lead character is a curmudgeon's curmudgeon. He is nasty. He is cruel to patients. He has the bedside manner of a bull in a china shop. But, because he is portrayed as a brilliant diagnostician, he is allowed to keep his job.
Who would you rather be treated by, should you, may God forbid, come down with a mysterious, debilitating, or life-threatening condition? A kindly country doctor type who really, really cares about you as a patient, or someone who will be able to diagnose and treat what's actually killing you? If that's the real-world choice, give me Dr. Curmudgeon any day of the week.
In a typical vignette from last week's show, House greets an EMT tech who is trying to give the best medical information he can to House as a patient is wheeled in on a gurney. House growls at the well-meaning EMT, and says something like, "If you had knuckled down harder in high school, you might have become a doctor. Let me diagnose this patient."
To which the offended tech says, "Bite me." Which I can respect. But how many of us wish we could go through life saying exactly what we think, 24/7? And not caring what people may think of us? And, best of all, being good enough, or indispensible enough, at our jobs to get away with it?
posted by Jack Rich at 8:32 PM
I was born, grew up, and went to school in the Bronx, New York -- on the wrong side of the
tracks. Got the chance to go to college, so instead of joining the NYPD (the obvious career choice at
that time and place), I became an engineer. Spent
some years designing things that go boom (or things that take things that go boom to their destinations...), principally for our military.
Also took an interesting career turn and for some years was in charge of counter-terrorism for my agency...so I learned something about guns. And when to use them.
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