Understanding

I'm not particularly good at getting people. I get -- well, nervous overstates it; I don't shiver or shake at the prospect of meeting someone new, but neither am I particularly delighted by the prospect. I know that there are people who are, but I'm not one of them. I wish people came with a checklist- Here's what's important to me, here's how I feel about the following major issues. Come to think of it, I could use that checklist for myself, sometimes.

I was thinking about that a little bit ago while eating dinner. I made home made mac and cheese, and it was very good. We also had some bread that I had baked; I had found a recipe for pizza dough, and though I have two or three, I thought I'd try it. I am usually not happy with the dough that I make. It's not that it's bad, or that the taste isn't good, but it's not what I think pizza dough should be -- which is to say, the dough that I grew up with. Pizza slices should be firm, but not so firm that they will stand out if held by the crust; you have to fold them to give that longitudinal strength. My dough is usually thicker, so the strength is there. When you bite into it, you hear a crunch. I wanted it softer than that. So I made the dough, and then took one quarter of it, dividing that into three little ovals; one was rolling-pinned out, and was pretty flat; one was finger-pressed out to about 3/4's the size of the first, and one was just slightly flattened, not really stretched at all. I baked them all at 500 degrees for about five minutes, on a baking sheet. I didn't get what I wanted, but I did end up with a soft bread that's pretty good for dipping -- so we did, with the Boyjian Italian dipping oil, along with the mac and cheese. Not bad.

While I ate, I was leafing through This Side Of Doctoring, which is all articles written by women about the experience of being a doctor. I got the book because I like bright women, and I figured these people would qualify. I didn't have expectations of great insights from it -- mostly, I figured, it would be stories -- what my first on-call was like, how I felt about being called Doctor when I sure didn't feel like one; getting past the petty harassment of the hospital. And that's mostly what was there. But along the way I got some pretty honest -- they sound honest, anyway -- commentary about the state of medicine; what it's like to deliver the service in the current economic and legal climate. These people really do care about how they do that. See, I've heard a number of doctors complain about the environment, and they all say the same thing: I just want to practice medicine the way that I think best. To me, it comes across as I just want to do whatever I want to do, no rules or prohibitions, no auditors or constraints. Oh, and I want to make a decent living, too. Decent by MY standards. Hearing that, I always think Well, everyone else has rules and prohibitions; everyone else has to accommodate bosses and auditors, why shouldn't you? You want it all? So do I. I weep for you. Greedheads.

But reading this book, I found that not all of them do. When they give that classic phrase, they're saying I just want to help people get better; maintain their dignity when I can't, and I don't want to go broke doing it. They really care. They don't want to kill themselves or have to take a second job, just to manifest that caring. Not all of them, I'm sure, but some? Maybe even, more than a few? Apparently so.

Some people do come with a checklist.