3rd June ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity’. Ecclesiastes 1:2 or ‘The Cowl maketh not the monk.’

 

3^rd June ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity’. Ecclesiastes 1:2 or ‘The Cowl maketh not the monk.’

After over two weeks of singing ‘Please release me let me go’, the doctors could no longer find an excuse to keep me in, “for my own benefit”…hmmm…and my release papers were signed. 

After three days of bliss, basking in the proverbial boson of the family, and in the shadow of my beloved church, I have fired up the computer once more.

Yesterday I received a 33 minute Dr Finley-esque telephone consultation with my GP containing all the care and compassion one could dream of at this time, when my own appearance is beginning to change. Thus, in a fit of sentimental nostalgia, I began to reflect on both doctors and their appearance.

At the moment my stomach is slightly distended and my legs thinner. So, although lighter, I am mutating into a potato. Added to this alternative vegetative state, my hair is falling out. Although this last, classically perceived physical humiliation, has met an indifferent victim: I have resembled a gurkin since I was 24. Also, so far, I have avoided a foot wrapped in bandages and the complexion of an over-fed Georgian parson thanks to the anti-gout tablets (another random present from the Chemo Santa!).

This last side-effect reminded me of an incident in the early 1980s.

For a period of a few days my grandpa (himself a doctor) was laid-up in bed with gout. When I said cockily, “too much port-wine?” (I’d  heard that from somewhere), I was met with the gruff response, “Too much uric acid, ya cheeky bugger”. The situation prompted a visit from our actual GP. This was a rare treat, as normally grandpa would administer counsel to himself, and cough-syrup. 

This treat was also magnified a hundredfold as our GP was known locally as ‘Boss Hogg’, due to his uncanny physical resemblance to the Mayor of Hazzard County from The Dukes of Hazzard coupled with his enormous car (unfortunately sans cow-horns).

We watched as his little legs carry his spherical load and doctor’s bag. We followed as he ascended the stairs to my grandpa’s bedroom with the determined endeavour of Hillary and Tenzing on the East face of Everest.

Metaphorical flag in hand, and in triumph, he opened the door, but was met with a wind as frosty as that of the South Col in 1953, “Good God man are you going fishing or visiting a patient?!”

As grandchildren to an almost Roald Dahl-like grandfather we were taken aback. Had our grandpa not appreciated the huge physical feet that had been performed walking from the car and climbing the stairs? It appeared not, as he warmed to his theme: “I would never have turned up to a patient’s house without a tie and jacket. Have you no respect for your patients?” 

Poor Boss Hogg, he was already perspiring, and his face was as red as a mate-seeking chimp’s backside. Now he looked on the verge of tears. We decided that now was a very, very good time…. to tidy our bedrooms.     

The incident clearly occupied my grandpa as he returned to that visit a few days later. “Imagine turning up in a polo-neck Aran sweater to visit a patient?” I have to say that the horror of this sartorial betrayal was lost on me, but my grandpa then went on to describe the demands that were made of him after he qualified. The medical graduates were told in no uncertain terms to go to a tailors and buy morning dress (tails and short coat) for the hospital, and black tie and white tie for evening ‘does’.  It seems that the only nod to individuality came later when paediatricians could wear a bow tie to protect them from peeing and garrotting infants. Even then there remained an air of suspicion, as he alleged practicality might actually be hinting at radical or louche exhibitionism.

I had forgotten this until a friend asked on Facebook if, during the monotony of my confinement, I had played “‘Consultant’s Tie’ yet? Extra points for a gaudy bow”.

Sadly, such fashionable distractions had not really come my way. In fact I saw no ties, bowed or otherwise, at all. The nurses and other clinicians were offered no chance to display their personalities bar the occasional Winnie the Pooh watch. The doctors also seemed positively boring. In fact they reminded me of the non-uniform days at the High School next to us. On such days a thousand students would walk by our house in hoodies, jeans and trainers. This oxymoronic act of uniformity, on a ‘non-uniform’ day, transforms the vicarage drive into the main square in Pyongyang, and I stand in the Vicarage Kitchen waving like Kim Jong-un.

However, after 17 days of confinement plus earlier custodial sentences, I noticed subtle differences.

First, the surgeons, a different breed it seems, are conspicuous by their surgical scrubs. The subsets of their subordinates are differentiated by the carrying of clipboards and the darting of eyes (much like meerkats). The registrars adopt a world-wary expression, but the consultants exude confidence, topped off with a garish bandana

Then, there are the other doctors: 

The Junior doctors wear what passes for ‘University smart’, which is not smart at all, but “at least I’m not wearing jeans and a tee shirt”. Post-qualification penury means they have to where the shirt bought at Christmas and the smart trousers bought for a cousin’s child’s christening

Registrars clearly have more money, but are now burdened by a mortgage and children so only really manage to substitute their old university trainers for some natty black Nikes, as they edge towards ’30-something smart’.

Finally, the Consultant. They have now nailed the look. For women and men: nice shirt, chinos, shoes (they no longer have to run it seems!) and the ubiquitous Littmann Stethoscope rakishly flung around the neck. The presence of the shoes meant Ben was even mistaken for one, as he and Sarah tried to facilitate my bid for freedom.

There is a subgroup of consultants who, although in receipt of the dress code on the professional invite, seem to be unmoved by its intention or the passage of time. They appear in ill-fitting clothes spanning time-periods, like three year olds who have decided to raid the dressing-up box and proclaim: “Look I look smart like mummy/daddy”.  

As for me, within this clothing milieu I am reduced to the level of a baseball cap, and my family to guffawing: 

‘they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake their head...’ Ps 22.7