Hanging Up the Stethoscope

(In Memoriam, JCB 1932-2019)

My senior colleague and former personal physician, Dr. Wilford Brown III, whom I have mentioned often in my blog, appeared at the nurses station during my Saturday clinic.

He wanted to talk, and started walking toward my office, where I had just hung photographs of Sir William Osler, Uppsala University’s original anatomy building, Marcus Welby, the St Elsewhere crew, the lead actors from the British TV series “Doctor in the House”, and the M*A*S*H crew.

Sitting there against the backdrop of my other medical heroes and my alma mater, he told me he had been doing a lot of thinking. “My family has been bugging me to get done and, you know, during that staff meeting we had a couple of weeks ago about the quality indicators for the ACO and the EMR optimization, I thought to myself this is not medicine.”

He sat quiet for a few moments. Our eyes met and I frowned a little.

“I’d like to stop before my abilities fail me, I wouldn’t want to see my name on the front page of the newspaper for something I missed or didn’t do right.”

“How do I do this, I mean how much time…” his voice trailed.

“Well, we don’t have contracts, but the personnel policies say providers need to give three months notice”, I said. “But nobody has been held to that. How soon do you want to get done?”

“As soon as you think it’s all right.”

“You mean, the sooner the better?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to write something, like a letter of resignation to the CEO?”

“Can you tell him?”

“I’ll tell him Monday morning.”

“Remember when I came here to be your patient and you asked me if I wanted to fill in a little? That was almost fifteen years ago…”

“I remember. It’s been a real pleasure to work with you.”

“Thanks”, he said, unceremoniously. “I’ll let you get back to seeing patients.”

He stood up. I was still sitting down, in my own thoughts about our years together. For a brief moment his face was right next to Sir Willam Osler’s face, and it was as if both men were looking down at me where I was sitting, feeling just a little bit lost.