Off the record

It used to be that two cereal-box tops and a quarter would get you a Flash Gordon secret decoder ring. Nowadays, the same will get you the word “Doctor” in front of your name. It reminds me of a scene from an old sitcom called Fernwood Tonight in which a man is having a heart attack and everyone yells for a doctor. When the “Doctor” comes running out from the audience, he has no idea what to do. It’s because, he says, he is a botanist.

I have always said that if somebody puts the word “Doctor” before his or her name on a sign or business card, it indicates that this person is not a medical doctor (or as one of my partners puts it, not an R.D. or Real Doctor). Conversely, when I first came to town, my medical colleagues (more…)

Every so often there is an article in a newspaper written by someone complaining about “rich doctors” giving professional courtesy (not charging each other or their families for medical care), and blaming that in part for the escalating costs of medicine in this country. Don’t you just hate when the misinformed have a platform from which to blather incessantly?

And then recently I had a discussion with a non-physician “professional” who complained about this practice. So I felt compelled to explain to him

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