The Real Global Warming

So much time had passed that the mere thought of visiting, Simple Things, generated a sigh just strong enough to extinguish the last candle of hope. The idea of looking at the page, let alone writing, felt useless like checking in on a neglected fishing trap. Why bother pulling it up to the boat? There probably was a fish inside, but only its rotted remains could be there now for retrieval.

Fast forward.

I'm back in the Peds clinic. Time in the clinic means time to think. Everything outside of the clinic is time spent living: lecturers, study, eat, occasional exercise. But being in the clinic is not living. It is the closest I get to working. And it is at work that I find time to think i.e, to live.

Medical school tends to make one oblivious to the real world. If it wasn't for a roommate, and the janitorial staff talking loudly over their morning coffee in the hospital atrium, it could have been days before I knew anything about Haiti. However the clinic, this is where we get to interact with the real world. This is where we can live.

One example. I couldn't tell you anything about this year's American Idol, but I do know the song about, "Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground," because the five yr old boy who's little sister I was seeing sang that line ad nauseum throughout the visit.

Beyond pop culture, clinic presents patients. And what are patients? People: the essence of all culture. (Does that remind anyone of the merman commercial, Zoolander?) Anyway, it is never permissible to judge during a patient encounter, but one cannot ignore the bigger cultural/social picture that all of these experiences produce. One visit in particular is still on my mind. A Turkish family brought their adolescent child in for an evaluation. There was the father, who looked like a mafioso. The wife/mother, who looked like, well, the wife of a mafioso. And there was the translater/friend. Oh, let us not forget the patient. He was there too. A severely autisitic boy of probably eleven years. This little character ran around the entire visit while the parents and I negotiated a meaningful? conversation through the translator. Zoom, the child would pass by. Tug, the child was pulling on one of our sleeves. The thing that has stuck with me from that visit is that this Turkish culture, whatever it is, is going to get washed away sooner or later. The autism will stay, but the language will go, then the cooking, then the clothes. Or maybe it is the clothes first, followed by language. I don't know the exact order, but I'm sure that sooner or later we will all melt together in that great pot.

I remember the video from third grade where I learned that America was a melting pot. The cartoon showed people of all nations jumping into Lady Liberty's sauce pan to be stirred into one wonderful American chowder. I was happy that day. Now, I am sad to think of the outcome of all this stirring and melting. Oh, Christopher Columbus, what have we done?

Maybe forming the Rochester Minutemen facebook group a year ago was more than jest. Maybe.