Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Doctors; a quickie

Los Angeles architecture at its best. Detail of the Watts Towers


I have had great doctors. Last week I got a carefully handwritten card from my former psychiatrist. She was really great.

Monday I went to see my psychiatrist, for my biweely update. At this point in my life, I am a firm believer in genetics and biochemistry. I don't pay to talk. I hope to get paid to talk. He knows a lot and even does Homework about me, reading this blog. He observed very seriously, he's always circumspect, "There are two expressions in Portuguese that lost me."

"Uh?"

"Well, this soy-zan..." I correct his pronunciation and he realizes it's 69 in French.
"and this other one, "billandmonica." He realizes its meaning. It's American language. He chuckles.

Key word: Neurotransmitters.

Key place: M.I.T.

Key scientist: Nora Volsk, Lev Bronstein's brilliant great-grandaughter.

Best medical specialization: pathology. My sister is one. Her rationale was simple: patients can wait, no emergency calls. Patients never complain.

The worst: neurosurgeon. So few patients have a 100% rate of success, it's pretty close to Vegas statistics over the slots. They announce: 98.9% winners. Nobody really stops to think that in one thousand people there are a little over twenty winners.

The best: This real story at a Medical School in Rio de Janeiro, 1970s

The professor is serious as he addresses his students:

"Which organ in the human body grows up to ten times its size?"

A blonde chick lifts her hand, eager to display her intellectual prowess. ( A silent "me! me! me!" )

"Yes, Marcela?"

She's triumphant. She stands up and shrieks. Young women in need of comprehensible input (s-e-x) tend to giggle easily and shriek.

"The penis, professor!"

Waves of shock and silence cross the ampitheater. An uncomfortable pause. The professor bellows,

"Don't be so optimistic! It's the uterus, Marcela. I want to talk to you after school."

Marcela hits the books late at night.Can't someone help her?


Curtain, please.







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