The Devil?

Another one down, a whole bunch more to go! I had my last day of ortho today (I've decided I can go with the abbreviation now), and went out with a bang by spending the entire day in clinic, without setting foot in the OR once (lame...). And apparently, I just so happened to be the guy that got to see all of the people that were sent to this particular surgeon's clinic by an office mistake or by someone who didn't know what they were doing, or best of all: a prison infirmary. And I found out that these people are mad when the attending doctor doesn't see them. Well, except the prisoners, who are just happy to not be in prison for a little while. So, it was a wonderful day... I came home just absolutely thrilled to be in medicine, and wishing I could go back and do today all over again. Like in the movie Groundhog Day, except, I wouldn't change anything!

Well, enough sarcasm. I think communication would have saved quite a bit of anger and frustration for all involved. But it didn't happen. Oh well. With all these referrals to different doctors for different treatments, it's no wonder that everyone's frustrated. Some even wish for a simpler time when you could go to one doctor and get treated for just about anything that you had wrong with you, sans referrals to specialists. Including the Devil:

"And then what a way they have of sending people to specialists! 'We only diagnose,' they say, 'but go to such-and-such a specialist, he'll cure you.' The old doctor who used to cure all sorts of disease has completely disappeared, I assure you, now there are only specialists and they all advertise in the newspapers. If anything is wrong with your nose, they send you to Paris: there, they say, is a European specialist who cures noses. If you go to Paris, he'll look at your nose; I can only cure your right nostril, he'll tell you, for I don't cure the left nostril, that's not my speciality, but go to Vienna, there there's a specialist who will cure your left nostril. What are you to do?"

Of course that's from centuries ago, and the medicine we do now is more effective. But the frustration's still there at times, and I guess I found out today that it's pretty unpleasant to be on the "other" side of the equation as the one that says, "I don't cure the left nostril".