I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV

I went to the doctor this week for my annual prescription update and blood work. Or as I like to call it fun with chemistry. I current consume three prescription pills a day along with a 81mg aspirin and multi vitamin. I had a message from my doctor on my answering machine Wednesday night telling me to call her on Monday when she will be back in the office to discuss my blood work results. I'll take that as a sign that there isn't any to serious with the results, but I'm sure she will want me to go for more blood tests because something is just not right.

Maybe it is me but with all the advancement in medical science I still think I had better care back when I was a kid. Today I go to a office that has several doctors although I never see any of them except my own. There is a toll collector as you enter the office that greets you and takes your co-payment that allows you to sit in the waiting room. There are a few other folks there working at computers that I'm sure their main task is to communicate with the insurance companies. I tend to make early appointments, just as they open and before the sick people get there, so I can get in and out quickly. A nurse with a lap top in hand calls my name and she pleasantly asks why I'm there as she checks my pulse, blood pressure, and weight. She then brings me into a examination room where I wait for the doctor to arrive with her lap top in hand.
The doctor again pleasantly, says "It has been a while since I have seen you." My reply "I have been pretty health this year", but I am thinking to myself hmmm she must be looking for another boat payment. We exchange a few words, she listens to my heart and lungs and keys in my prescriptions into her lap top. She peers over the top of her screen as says "We do not have a cardiograph on file for you, do you mind if we do one?" I reply sure. She leaves the room and the nurse reappears with my prescriptions and the cardiograph machine. The nurse hooks me up to the machine and says "You are perfectly normal." My reply " There is nothing normal about me." She unplugs me and tells me to get dressed and do I know the way out. I tell her I'll find my way out.

Now lets go back say 35 to 40 years or more. We had a family doctor back then who lived in the same town as we did. He was the old fashion general practitioner. He ran his practice by himself. He was the doctor my mother went to when my sister and I was born. I remember my mother telling the story of the Sunday afternoon when I was born and the doctor running into the hospital with a dirt covered sweatshirt because he was working in his garden that fall day. When you went to his office you would show up in his waiting room and take a seat. Some people had appointments some did not. He keep everyone moving and slipped the no appointment folks in. My Dad would often be one of the no appointment folk that he slipped in, but that is a story for another day. Once you were called from the waiting room into the back you had top billing. One examination room, no waiting, do not take a number, you are the center of attention. After your visit you sat at a desk while the doctor filled out some paper work and proclaimed OK we will see you next time and I'll send a bill for today. Which I remember to be the sum of $8.00 for a office visit.

I know I am dating myself here but I remember being sick and home from school, both Mom and Dad working, and having the doctor stop by the house to check on me. That was when we didn't lock the side door to the house, we didn't start locking the door until I was about 15 years old.

Today's doctors may have more skill and training but I still have not found one I trust more than the first doctor I had back in Valley Stream. I may be a little prejudice but old Doc Hennighan's quick hands saved me from being a blue baby on the day I entered this world with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck twice. Maybe that's why I like a dramatic entrance.