A Visit to the Doctor

• Physician's role
• Physician-patient relations
• Depression

The door opened without resistance, and I entered. The doctor's waiting room was decorated with the popular industrial plums, blues, and grays, but there was enough mahogany to impart a sense of reverence. The room was tasteful yet warm, and it reassured me. I was surprised to be greeted there by a patient of my own, a doctor himself. It was like looking into a mirror, with doctor doctoring doctor, doctoring doctor, receding into infinity. My patient was an elderly man, a retired army physician, refined and gentle, with a keen if fading intellect. I sat one chair away from him and leaned toward him, close, but not too close.

He immediately began his own story of two episodes that occurred after I saw him in the office just a month before: eating dinner at a restaurant, hearing fading away, then, plop, on the floor. Same thing a few days later. I did a quick neurologic review of systems: no aphasia or dysarthria, no weakness, no numbness or diplopia. Simple syncope. Stokes-Adams. Pacer malfunction. Still he talked, needing me to know the details, more than once, of his experience. He was 85, alone, and falling down. I listened. Then the door opened, “Doctor?”

My heart beat faster as I passed through the inner door. I was there to reveal myself, to tell my tale of suffering, and I was embarrassed. Immediately upon entering, I looked up …