Urologist

The exam room door creaked open as Dr. Luddins entered, his greeting booming like a clap of thunder. Instantly, the room was charged with the sound of authority mixed with humor. Patients often found themselves jarred by his voice, supposedly powerful enough to compete with the elements. Newcomers would leap from their seats, startled, while veterans of Luddins's practice merely jumped, occasionally spilling the sample they were meant to collect. With a wry smile, he'd often jest, 'You're supposed to give a sample. They give you a small cup to piss into. Now, I'll have to get my tech to come in and wring it from your pants.' Talks with Dr. Luddins always

“If I could pee into a cup, I wouldn’t be here would ?”

This guy wasn’t fooled by the papers tacked to the wall. They looked important but meaningless to him. He knew what was his problem was and only wanted a prescription of Viagra., as strong as it’s made. He didn’t want just to be able, he wanted to impress his wife and his girlfriend. He didn’t know that women didn’t care, or really felt any difference, although they acted as if they did.

Bill was a big man, a construction worker, who was prone to going from arguing to fighting very quickly, without warning.. The doc didn’t cause him to jump except for one time. He did the time he started to doze off. He jumped, pissed himself, and whacked Luddins, knocking him back to the sink. Luddins got up, rinsed his mouth and, opening a cabinet, took out a set of new dentures. He, like a Boy Scout, was always prepared. He didn’t say anything to Bill. No sense in rousing him up again. He was getting low on dentures. The cabinet would soon be empty.

On the way to work one day, he spotted several cars blocking her lane. Stopping to see what happened, to gawk like everyone else, hoping to see a head lying there, He saw a motor cycle bound for a junk yard. He saw a biker bound to a hospital. She told the crowd,“Let me through, I’m a doctor!”

He knelt down and checked the biker. The biker didn’t scream any louder when Luddins pushed on his kidney or bladder. He did piss a little. Luddins thought the biker would have really pissed himself, flying off the bike. He saw the shinbone sticking out, which shouldn’t have been, and asked if anyone had called 911. When told someone said they were on the way Luddins,“I’ve done all I can do. I’m a urologist. I don’t see that he needs one,but be sure to tell EMTs about the leg.”

“Hey! What about his leg? You’re a doctor, you should be able to fix this,” one of the bystanders yelled out.

“Well, it’s not my field, but alright, get me something to hold this leg until 911 gets here. A board or a thick tree branch.

The victim asked if this was going to hurt. Dr. Luddins told him it wasn’t going to hurt anyone but him. “I’ll tell you what. I won’t charge you my regular fee. Oh, Hell, I won’t charge you at all. How’s that?”

When he got to the office, he followed his usual, unbreakable routine. He got coffee and read what letters he felt like reading. He chucked most of them away. He checked his mail and voicemail. He then looked through the latest copy of the Urology Journal. He learned a lot from there. He also ignored them. They weren’t the best Urology Journal around by a long shot. He let his partners to decide what to do and what they didn’t want to do. They were doctors, too, at least said they were. He didn’t check their credentials, such as what medical School they attended in what country it was in or anything. He was both trusting and unconcerned.

His father had money, a lot of it. He believed that money was power and he loved having a lot of power. He told Henry he’d pay for all his education and give him a sizable stipend if he went to school to be a doctor or an attorney. He didn’t want his son to be an engineer or ,God forbid, a minister. He told Henry, “Take it or leave it. It’s your life. I can’t tell you what to do. I can finance your education, or you can borrow for it. Your choice.” That was a lie. The old man knew his son too well. Henry needed the old man’s money. He wasn’t going to borrow his way through college. Giving up his social life and standing was unacceptable. He wasn’t going to clean up after his classmates finished eating. He thought this was for poor people.

He had a meeting of the medical board. All that happened was discussed there. He hated hearing his room mate find a way to say “I don’t give a shit about this.” Luddins himself didn’t give a rat’s ass about 98% of what was discussed. Nothing came from it. One doctor didn’t say anything about another doctor. If they did, payback was a bitch.

Sometimes Buddins remembered his college days, and he hated it. Those years were awful. Nobody liked him, and he figured they had good reason. He acted like he deserved his family’s money, and everyone assumed he had bribed his way into college. Beneath his facade, he should have felt a gnawing sense of shame, imagining the whispers behind his back. He didn’t.

He had to take some classes, though he had no idea why. All he knew was that they were required for med school. The pressure was mounting as he stood in the registrar's office, the musty smell of old textbooks floating in the air. He chose physics, almost at random. It felt like reaching blindly into a bag of poorly chosen options, hoping for a decent outcome.

Physics was all about Einstein, Fermi, Oppenheimer, the giants in their field, and Buddins thought they all probably were. They seemed like know-it-alls, distant figures who, for instance, could grasp the mysteries of the universe. Take Einstein, for example. He knew what the speed of light was, yet couldn’t balance his bank account. Fermi and Oppenheimer knew how to build an atomic bomb. But what did any of that mean to Buddins? He had no need to know that. Sure, it amused him to imagine a neighbor disappearing in a cloud of smoke, but those were just idle fantasies he could never act on. The disconnect between what he was being taught and what he valued in life grew wider. He soon realized that navigating the academic system was a game he didn’t want to play by the traditional rules. To escape this he hired someone to take his tests, securing himself solid B’s. It was good enough, he thought.

Luddin’s partners owned a very small piece of the Luddin Urology Associates. They did almost all of the work, and Luddin got half the money. His partners made his office the place to go for your urology need. He’d give you something to cure whatever needed cured. If it didn’t work, he kept trying until lucked onto the right one or the patient died. Luddin only saw a few patients, just enough to have something to talk about at conventions. It was a sweet deal for the whole practice. His lack of seeing patients met the definition of “First, do no harm.” When Luddins faced a person with something actually wrong, he’d set up a ‘consultation’ with one of his partners. He didn’t like being an urologist. He didn’t like being a doctor. When the old man died, he was going to retire. That is, if the old man left the estate to him. The old man thought Henry was stupid but didn’t care as long as he didn’t make an ass of himself. To Henry, that wasn’t a sure thing. His father wouldn’t want him to have it but he’d never leave it to charity. Henry knew that.He dreamed of golf every day instead of twice week. He’d keep the practice going, of course. Why pass up the money?

He had a patient with erectile disfunction. This he really hated. Despite knowing it wasn’t contagions, he still had a bad feeling about it. He wondered what the guy’s wife looked like. That could be the problem. Telling a man that was out of the question.

“Tell me, Sid, do you want have sex with Doris?”

“Well, sure. Who else would I want,” thinking who else would want her. He wasn’t about to say that, even if it was true. Sid was no catch himself. Even hookers turned him down. Money was money but Sid was Sid.

Ludddins woke up one morning feeling bad and unable to pee. he called his colleague and got in immediately. That was standard for doctors. Another perk was not paying any fee. No waiting. The doctor, George Smuthe, first asked Luddins why he didn’t go ton of his partners, knowing full well why not.

“Would you go to one of them?”

“Of course I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t go to you for that matter.”

What’s the difference between God and a surgeon? God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon.

Patients ask me for advice, but honestly, I'm just Googling one step ahead of them.

You want honesty? You’re allergic to common sense.

“The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.” – Voltaire.

“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” – Hippocrates. “

“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.” – William Osler.

The best doctor in the world is the veterinarian. He can't ask his patients what is the matter - he's got to just know. - Will Rogers