His wife owned a black 1953 Ford convertible in pristine condition that she rarely drove. I bought it for the princely sum of $600. I was 16 years old. I proceeded to sully its condition in various ways popular back in the days of little deuce coupes and candy red paint. In fact, I painted it bright red, which I neglected to ever polish. Regrettably, I didn’t take very good care of it, and I sold it before it wore out. But that is another story for another time.
To get to my point: Mrs. York was a lovely lady who kept a fine home and assisted her husband, old Dr. York, Mattapoisett’s town doctor who kept better care of me than I did of his wife’s Ford. His practice was in their house. The examining room was just off the front hall by the front door opposite their living room. If we needed a doctor, he’s the first one we’d call, and he’d say come right on over.
Come to think of it, getting an instant appointment may be because he spent his nonworking hours hanging out in Dad’s barber shop. Anyway, if he was too busy, Mom would call Dr. Tilden from Marion. He made house calls, bringing along his little black bag filled with assorted remedies.
As an adult, I had an Indian gentleman with a thick accent. I could never understand him, but I liked him. He was very professional, always wore a white coat and was always right with his diagnosis, never equivocating, just like Dr. York and Doctor Tilden.
All three knew exactly what pill to prescribe without the use of a reference book or Google and could predict, nearly to the day, when I’d be well. Things have changed. Now I have multiple doctors. They are all nice and I can understand them, but they rely on computers for many things which presumably eliminate mistakes and make the patient’s life … mine … easier.
Recently I have been plagued by a nasty, pinched nerve in my back, necessitating a trip to our Primary Care Practitioner who is very professional, and I like her. She does not practice in her home nor makes house calls. So, raging in pain, I drove the 17 miles to the medical center, in the rain, walked the length of a football field to the building, in the rain, and another long distance to a waiting area before I was led to an examining room, my pain increasing evermore acute since I left home.
After explaining why my blood pressure was so high, I showed her where my back hurt. She knew right away what to do … consult the computer for a remedy. “I’ll send a prescription right over to the pharmacy.” No paper prescriptions here. No chance for a mistake. I made sure to remind her to send it to my local pharmacy not my mail-order one. And “I’m sending you for some x-rays,” she said, walking out the door as my allotted 15 minutes expired.
After the x-rays, it was now late Friday. I settled in for a long night of pain, knowing the prescription would not be ready until the next day. In the morning, I drove to the pharmacy to be told, “Our computer had no record of a request.” Experience told me it was sent to the wrong pharmacy. I was right. Just about then, the computer in my pocket rang with an email message saying that the mail-order pharmacy had received my order and it would be ready in eight days. Suddenly my pain got a lot worse.
A call to the doctor’s office was met by … wait for it … a computer voice saying the office was closed. Finally, the local drug store’s computer talked to the mail-order pharmacy’s computer, who must have talked to the on-call doctor’s computer, and my pills arrived for my retrieval many painful hours later.
By the way, the x-rays that were taken on Friday were not read until Monday. The pills that would have taken eight days would have cost 79 cents with free delivery. At the local pharmacy, they cost $8.50, and I had to pick them up.
Life is so much easier these days. Don’t you agree?
Editor’s note: Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and retired newspaper columnist whose musings are, after some years, back in The Wanderer under the subtitle “Thoughts on ….” Morgado’s opinions have also appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.
Thoughts on…
By Dick Morgado