His favorite freebie? Stitches
Ten minutes into one of my favorite parts of church -- coffee hour -- I was sipping from my Styrofoam cup and enjoying the sugar buzz of a day-old doughnut when Paul snapped me out of my reverie. (Names have been changed.) “Hey, Steve, I’ve got this lump on my leg. Do you think it’s serious?”
Yep, I was being hit up for free medical advice again.
“Gee, I don’t know, Paul. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“Well, it just showed up on my thigh. Do you think you could have a look at it?”
“Sure, Paul! Drop your pants. While we’re at it, we’ll check the ol’ prostate too!”
“Not here, fer cryin’ out loud! In the bathroom!”
As we trundled off, I thought of how many times I have been hit up for free advice. Often, I am torn by these requests. I love being a doctor. And I like to help out when I can.
I also understand that it can be a nuisance to take time off work to go plunk down your co-payment then wait for an hour to be seen -- all to be told that it’s nothing, or a virus that will go away on its own. And I’m not above asking for freebies myself, like for computer help. Beats paying the Geek Squad.
But part of me sees these requests as an intrusion, like I’m an easy mark. Doctoring is my living, and running an office is expensive. Each freebie means lost revenue, and even doctors can use help with the bottom line.
Then there’s the fact that away from the office, the interaction can be just plain awkward-feeling. At the doctor’s, you expect to drop your pants and show your all. As a doctor, I expect to see it all. But at church, with a friend clutching a cruller in his paw?
The bathroom was a cozy unit not much bigger than a broom closet. Paul was timid about dropping his pants. Instead of my usual exam with the body part in view, I was to slip my hand into his pocket to palpate his thigh.
As I probed the depths of his pocket, I was readying myself with excuses should someone join the party: “I’m a doctor! Now, cough.” Or, “I knew I could find a buck or two for the deacon fund.”
He had a lump all right, most likely a bruise from bumping against something in his job as a carpenter. I muttered that it felt OK but he should show it to his doctor if it was still there in a week. Paul looked puzzled. His doctor? Why not just check with me next Sunday?
Over the years, I’ve been hit up for free sports physicals, splinter extraction at parties and, once, for my opinions on constipation to a stranger in the steam room, both of us stark naked. But there is one freebie I love to give: suturing lacerations.
There’s something so satisfying about seeing a gaping wound, often spurting blood, and mending it. It is the thing in all my doctoring with the most visual effect. And people are so grateful to have their skin put back together.
So I didn’t mind when my friend Erik called to ask if I could help his friend Freddy. Freddy had been at Erik’s working on a computer and had torn up his finger on the machine’s metal housing.
I was laying out instruments, gauze and sterile gloves on the kitchen counter when the pair showed up. Freddy seemed like a nice fellow. He had a bloody dish towel around his right hand. He looked a little worried.
The laceration was a good two inches long, and deep enough to get into the meat of the finger. This was going to be fun!
Freddy must have sensed my enthusiasm. He asked me if I had done this before, to which I responded, “Yeah, a time or two.”
I made small talk as I worked on his finger, scrubbing it up and rinsing it out, then numbing the area with several injections of lidocaine.
“There. You should be good and numb now. Do you feel this? And this?”
“Nope. No, not a thing.”
I grabbed a set of forceps and began placing stitches. Freddy still had that deer-in-the-headlights look. I tried to distract him with more banal chat, about the weather and our mediocre sports teams.
“Well, Freddy, what kind of work do you do?”
“I’m in computers.”
“Well that’s one thing I know nothing about. What exactly do you do?”
“I work with small businesses to help them with their data and computer needs. Uh, how about you? What kind of work do you do?”
So here was why Freddy was nervous as all get-out. He had no clue I was a doctor. I guess that Erik, in his haste to stop Freddy from bleeding all over his cream-colored carpet, had forgotten to mention this. He probably just said he had a pal who could save him a trip to the ER.
I later wished I had said I was a used car salesman but had learned a lot from watching all those doctor shows. Or that I had a cousin over in Pocatello who was a large animal vet and kept me supplied with used suture material. Instead, I fessed up, and his sigh of relief was palpable.
A few years later, it was Erik’s mother-in-law’s turn. She had fallen in the garden and torn up her ankle.
I ran to the garage, wrote “Emergency Room” on a plank and propped it in the driveway. Then I replaced my leather yardwork gloves with sterile latex ones.
As the lawn mower sat idle outside, I worked my magic. This was way more fun than mowing and edging. Twenty stitches later, she was all patched up and on her way.
As the car receded down the street, I looked over at the lawn mower and the half-cut lawn, then reluctantly resumed my gardening.
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Dudley is a Seattle physician.