I was sitting on an examining table, waiting to meet the new doctor my insurance company had assigned me to, when she blew in the door, offered her hand and shook mine energetically.
Then the new doc sat down on a chair in the corner of the room, put her feet up on the seat of another chair and clasped her hands behind her head like somebody who planned to be there for a while.
"Tell me about your life," she said, and suddenly a routine physical became a cross between a job interview and a high school reunion.
"Um. Aren't you kind of busy?" I asked.
No, she said, because whatever illness or physical complaint brought me into her office in the future would be a direct result of whatever kind of life I was living. She wanted to know what she was dealing with.
I started with the husband who traveled for work, the two small children, the full-time job, the hour commute and, oh, the fact that I worked until 1, 2 or 3 in the morning on a newspaper copy desk. Then I added the Step aerobics classes and the bad ankle.
And we were off.
That was some years ago, but I had found the kind of general practitioner they are saying we all need now.
One who listens. One who knows enough about us to understand the potential lifestyle origins of what ails us. One who is into preventing trouble. A physician for whom a shrinking compensation formula does not mean she has to see a patient every 15 minutes.
I bundled up my toddler daughter and rushed her to the pediatrician's office, the panic rising like bile in my throat. Her high chair had collapsed and, as she flew forward, she struck the bridge of her nose on the edge of the kitchen table.
There was blood everywhere. Stitches, I knew.
But that didn't scare me as much as the fact that this was the third time I had bundled her up with an injury. The first time, she'd scooted her walker down the basement steps and banged her head. The second time, she'd crawled up on the kitchen table for some crackers, fell off and broken her collarbone.
It was an alarming pattern, and one that might have brought me to the attention of social services.
"Why didn't you report me?" I asked my pediatrician weeks later when all the injuries had healed. "I mean, didn't you wonder about me?"
No, he said. "Your explanations were perfectly plausible. And besides, I know you."
