Chapter One: The Rich Fantasy Life of Doctor “Sahib”
So, I am sitting in an executive committee meeting when I get a text message from my wife (we’ll use the pseudonym Whendy to protect her real identity) that she is calling 911. She was having another gall bladder attack and this was the worst one yet. It led to an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital where she was put in the emergency room and diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. When the doctor came to see her (we’ll use the pseudonym Sahib to protect his real idiocracy) I was on the phone listening to the conversation. Whendy told him that she was probably pre-diebetic based on what she had read. The Great Sahib asked whether she had heard this from an actual physician. She said no but….
“Ah,” replied the Great Sahib, “then you are merely talking about a fantasy. Let us dwell only in the realm of facts.”
Whendy also explained that she had a history of gall bladder attacks.
“And how,” asked the Great Sahib, “do you know these were gall bladder attacks.”
“Well, I have read about it and compared notes with people who have had their gall bladders out. And, when I had an ultrasound, the lab technician told me I had many gallstones.”
“This was a lab technician or an M.D.?”
“That was the lab technician, but…”
“Then, once again, if you didn’t hear it from a real doctor, it is a mere fantasy, not a fact.”
Okay. So, let’s review the bidding. According to the Great Doctor Sahib, if you hear something from a medical doctor, it is a FACT. But if you discover anything in any other way, it is a fantasy. Interesting. I wonder whether the Great Doctor Sahib is aware that, at the time I was born, according to the medical profession, babies less than six weeks old could not see because their eyes were too immature. And, according to the medical profession, the nervous systems of babies were too immature to feel pain, so surgery at that time required no anesthetic. Of course, this was all “fact” because it was stated by “real” doctors. My wife Whendy does have a great imagination. But I am afraid that it is the Great Doctor Sahib who dwells in a complete fantasy land of his own creation wherein there is no valid source of knowledge except by dicta from an M.D. and that whatever an M.D. states becomes fact instantaneously. Gee. According to a literal interpretation of the Bible, it even took God six days to create the world. Did I mention that when I fell off a swing as a child that the “real doctor” told me my arm was not broken and I should use it as much as possible? Did I mention that I got called out of class three days later because — ooops — my arm actually was broken after all? Now, this is not meant as a slam on all doctors. Of course, most of them are doing the best that they can under far more pressure and far less time than ideal. But it does give one pause if even one of them is so cut off from everyday reality as to imagine that the class of things that doctors say and the class of what is fact is completely identical.
