Monday, October 12, 2020

May I Use Your Given Name, Doctor?

 

The doctor will see you now, an assistant

announces as though conferring a favour

from the royal house of the healing arts.

Well, of course the doctor will see you

she is after all your link to good health when it

begins to fail and you have contracted with

her for her professional services. In an era

when children casually inform their long

suffering parents that they erred when at 

birth assigning gender, when LGBTQ2

rights trump most others as they redirect

language to channel their preferences and

when anyone in any service industry has the

socially-approved entitlement to address the

infirm elderly by their given names, doctors

invoke the privilege of restraining patients

from the use of theirs. Consider this: medical

school enrolls students who have a proven

record of academic and social prowess much

superior to that of their peers, where rigorous

study of anatomy and biology and illness 

fatigues the mind and the body's elusive rest

quotient to produce a medical degree, an

obvious distinction not undertaken nor lightly

rewarded. Yes, patient-physician social distance

is recommended and for good reason, and no

you may not resort to a first-name basis, patient.

 

 


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