Parking diagonally in a parallel universe*

A long time ago in a parallel universe I lived in a small town with one of those charming weekly newspapers that had articles in it like this:

Mrs. Elma Tutweiller from Mt. Washington paid a visit this weekend to her first cousin-once removed, Doris Tutweiller of 231 E. Liberty Street. "I like the Shoneys here lots" Elma said. "The brownies in the chocolate-lovers delight are soft and chewy, not them little brown bricks they got back home."

Not all of the articles dealt with the social scene. Some very thoughtful comments hid amongst the high school sports scores and the crimes reports.

"A doctor's wife copes with the malpractice crisis", the tiny heading read, right underneath the article announcing that Joe Jimmerson's dog had given birth to a litter of beautiful lab puppies. The wife of one of the family doctors in town shared her thoughts of the shame and uncertainty that a lawsuit brought to her medical family. It was well-written and deeply moving.

I knew her husband and had heard about the circumstances of the lawsuit. My considered opinion was that the doctor should have been stripped of his license, tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. How the others doctors felt about him I was never sure, other than the fact that shortly after the occurence the doc was elected as president of the county medical society.

Few of us like taking care of the woman who shows up at the ER at all hours of the day and night, complaining of horrible headaches or backpain, severe pain that would get a lot better if the doc on duty would only write her a prescription for Percocet. The family doctor certainly let his feelings be known when he admitted the 35 year old "frequent flier" lady to the hospital for observation of belly pain.

"This lady is a loser, a blight on the town, happy only when we give her a Demerol fix" he wrote in the chart. Off he went deer hunting.

This was in the 80's and few had cellphones then. The doc didn't have one, or at least he wasn't answering it. He ignored the nurses' call letting him know that the patient's belly pain was worsening, even with high doses of pain-killers. He ignored the call letting him know that the patient's abdomen had become board-rigid and that the patient could barely breath because of the severity of the pain. He ignored the call letting him know that she was going into shock. When he returned from his hunting trip, he answered the call informing him that the patient had died from a perforated ulcer and peritonitis.

In my sinless perfection I had nothing but contempt for the man. I resented that he never showed any public remorse over this blunder, chosing as best I could tell to portray himself as the victim of some cruel joke the patient had pulled. I resented that the local medical community rewarded him with the presidency of the medical society. I resented listening to him at cocktail parties mutter to his colleagues about the number of young specialists that were moving into the community and what a threat to his income potential they represented.

And I resent him now. Try as I might, I'll never believe that what I write will ever strike anyone as being anything other than excuse-making for my own blunders.

*The title is courtesy of the tagline of someone at Free Republic. Where she stole it from I don't know.