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Dr. Smith is getting close to retirement. I can tell this without ever having met him. I don't remember seeing him when I worked in this clinic before; maybe he was away then, too, and had some other locum filling in. One of the patients mentions that Dr. Smith will be retiring soon, but I would have guessed it from the fact that so many of his patients are old. All of those in hospital are over 70, and one is over 80. They've probably been coming to him for 30 years. People that age seldom change doctors.
The other clue is the office. It's a mess. The drawers are jammed full of papers, most of them years old. There are no new books on the shelves, no colour atlases of dermatology, no zippy paperbacks on geriatric assessment or family counselling or new management strategies for high cholesterol. In short, there is none of the sort of thing you find in the offices of youngish doctors who still want to learn. There's an obstetrics text, but it's 20 years old. The only other book about having babies is the 1944 edition of Childbirth Without Fear. There's nothing on pediatrics. But there are a lot of drug-company throwaways.
I stare glumly at the shelves. Perhaps it's all a sign of an incredibly experienced, talented doctor who committed everything to memory years ago. He must be caring for his patients so much better than I could, judging from the way I always have to go and look things up. Yet somehow I don't think so. It bothers me that he doesn't have any framed diplomas on his wall. He doesn't have anything on the walls, other than faded posters here and there. The big fat binder mailed out 2 years ago from the Cancer Control Agency is still in its plastic wrapper along with the treatment manual.
Then there's the tell-tale sign of the doctor who has given up: lots of drug addicts. His notes are very poor, but there are occasional pitiful comments about how the patient is "trying to...