April 1, 2003

• My Attitude Towards Doctors

  And Other Authority Figures

  
  I started early. I began rejecting authority in Kindergarden. The teacher would tell the class to do something and I would be the only one who refused to do it ... at first. They promoted me out of Kindergarden as quickly as possible, before my rebellious spirit contaminated the other students.
  
  Somehow I caused fewer problems in grades 1 through 6. I didn't cooperate but they ignored me. Middle School, then called Jr. High, brought a few clashes with authority but nothing serious. In High School I balanced my high academic skills against my rejection of authority figures and somehow managed to graduate despite a number of pranks I was never quite accused of promoting or committing.
  
  While still in Middle School, I learned of one of my unique physical characteristics that many doctors would refuse to accept for years and years afterwards: I was immune to local anesthesia. At first it was novacaine, totally useless on me. This was in the days, too, when dental drills were mechanical things run by a motor-driven cable, basically a rubberized cord, like a thin fan belt. They ran at low speed, they were awkward to use, they jumped and bounced around inside the tooth being drilled and they were thoroughly unpleasant. In fact they were better than the high speed, air powered drills that replaced them in only two respects: they didn't make quite so shrill a scream and they didn't generate so much heat when being used. I had to face these old low speed monsters, basically, with no protection from the pain ... and the dentists wouldn't believe me.
  
  Well, most of them wouldn't. I found a dentist in Panama who not only believed me but could explain why I had the problem. He asked me if I could drink large quantities of alcohol without getting drunk. When I admitted that this was the case, he told me the two situations were related and were genetically determined. Those who could rapidly metabolize alcohol, so that they rarely got drunk, would also rapidly metabolize anesthesia, showing a virtual immunity to pain killers. But that explanation came much later, when I had already determined that most dentists were terribly ignorant on the subject of anesthesia.
  
  Then there was the dermatologist who had been happily prescribing PABA as a sunscreen for his patients ... until I pointed out to him that PABA was one of the B vitamins. If it was a good thing when he didn't know it was a vitamin, why did it suddenly become a bad thing when he learned that it was a vitamin? But he stopped using it. I thought that was both petty and stupid ... but that's just me. You can't force doctors to accept vitamins.
  
  I've discussed vitamins with doctors many times. Until just a few years ago, some of them became highly irrational on the subject. It was as if they feared I might be an AMA spy, out to see if they would violate the official party line. Others just seemed to worry that their clients might become healthy and disappear from their business ... not that they would express it quite like that. They would talk about vitamin poisoning and other improbable events, as if people were killing themselves with vitamins every day.
  
  Hyprocasy? Stupidity? Business tactics?
  
  I've had more than my share of unique problems, mostly harmless, but greeted with skepticism by the medical profession. I match their profiles for many problems that I seem to have demonstrated, over and over, do not apply to me. They are at a loss what to do with me. I'm not going to be very helpful, less and less helpful as they appear more clueless. I'll do my own research, ask appropriate questions, make sure no real problems exist, then do my own thing.
  
  I don't consider doctors to be generally evil. I think there are far too many doctors, most of them far too specialized and too poorly educated in general medicine. They are far too worried about problems with the legal profession, the bottom line and their social lives. They devote far too little time to each of their patients (or shuttle them off to specialists far too quickly) to be able to guess at any but the most obvious of problems. They've become accustomed to treating symptoms instead of getting down to basic problems and fixing them. And they've become so frustrated with the mess they've created that many of them are doing drugs and making things worse.
  
  You'd never guess, would you, that over the years I've had many doctors as close personal friends?
  
  But I treat all authority figures with equal disdain. I could get away with disrespecting my supervisors while working for federal Civil Service, although I rarely got any rave reviews. I didn't play the game but I was too good at what I did to fire, so I got the dirty and interesting assignments. I guess that if I somehow manage to get myself a new job I'll have to learn how to play by the rules for a while, long enough to put some money away.
  
  I can be friendly and charming, for days and sometimes weeks at a time. But it always wears off. That's what I've got to watch out for.
  
  After all, nobody likes to have themselves proved to be an idiot.
  
  Or do they? Should I go into political commentary?

  • 02:25
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