First Impressions

Last week I agreed to accept a new patient into my practice at the request of a young resident physician who needed a place for this patient to follow up upon discharge from the hospital for pneumonia. She was billed as your basic train wreck: alcoholism, hepatitis C, depressed, teeth falling out of her mouth, the usual.



She arrived at the office as billed with one exception. I was told that she had Medicaid when she really had no insurance and she freely admitted that she didn't have the money to pay for the visit. Despite some initial grumbling I decided to keep my word and agreed to see her for at least one visit.



When I saw her in the exam room she did not meet the stereotype that I had built up in my mind, however. She had been sober for eleven days (since admission to the hospital) and was gaining confidence in her abstinence. She was tremendously respectful and polite and answered my questions in a straightforward manner with a, "Yes, sir," or "No, sir." She had no sense of entitlement about her that I have come associated with this patient stereotype.



At the end of the visit, I told her to come back and see me in a couple of weeks to see how she's doing.



The Country Doctor