When I was a child, the doctor was God. Like God, in exchange for respect and obedience—”doctor’s orders”—he guided us through the valley of the shadow, held out the hope of life eternal, and came when we summoned him, yea, even through snowstorms, to sit on the edge of our bed with his empowered doctors bag and lay his hand on our fevered brow. Often we treat doctors with a higher awe. Our parents were wise by definition but he was infallible by definition; “The doctor knows best” was an incantation you could lean on.
We trusted him utterly. Like God, he was the safety net forever spread under our precarious lives. Like God, he was the powerful super parent standing backup behind our mortal parents, appearing as if by magic when our mother’s remedies failed, black bag in hand: “Well, well, what seems to be the trouble? Let’s have a look.” In the days before the all-purpose antibiotic,…
