My Gift to Medicine

Undress," she says. "hop up on the table."

Hop? I'm long past the hopping age. But that is why I sit here in my jockey shorts staring at my thighs, waiting for a second-year medical student

I'm here at the urging of my family physician, Dr. J. "So far, she's seen only young patients," he had told me. "We need volunteers who. . . ." He did not need to finish. Are old, he was saying, are old and have scars and sun-scorched skin and cancer surgery and fibrillation. Those were not his words, but that's what he meant. She should see someone not so young. Someone more used up. Me.

For the last hour she has probed my past. Family illnesses? Operations? High blood pressure? Medications? Which ones? I hand her a card from my wallet. She copies the information into her notes. "That chest pain you mentioned," she asks, "did you sweat?"

I don't remember. I glance at Dr. J., sitting expressionless in the corner, scribbling on his clipboard. I frown at him, silently urging him to remember had I sweated. "I'm not here," he says. 

And now I'm a little clearer on why I'm here. She has been granted a sort of medical learner's permit to explore live human beings. Dr. J. is examining her as she examines me.

She smiles. Nice smile. Stethoscope draped inconspicuously in a conspicuous fashion around her neck--as much a symbol of Hippocrates as his oath.

Take a deep breath, she says. I adjust my hearing aid. Exhale, she says. I wonder how old she is. Are her parents doctors? Look at that spot on the wall, she says. She shines a light there, then stands in the way of my seeing the spot and shines the light into my eyes. Looking for what?

Her forehead is only inches from mine. It's a nice forehead, and she is an attractive woman, but she is looking up my nose. What is she seeing? I don't want to know.

Suddenly I blurt, "Cataracts, both eyes." She nods. Lie down, she says. She has strong hands, probes below my ribs. Does it hurt, she asks. It doesn't. On to my abdomen, pressing, feeling, nodding. She palpates me--a great phrase, so infrequently used at cocktail parties. 'Been palpated lately?' I could ask. She tells me to sit up now and smile. To test my smile muscles, I suppose. I realize I have not told her about last year's repair of my cancerous lower lip, 41 stitches after the skin had been peeled away.

I'm beginning to comprehend how much of me has been removed, how much replaced. Not much left of the original carcass. I wonder if I am too young to be this old.

"Now," she says, "be honest. Tell me if you object." Dr. J. has left his corner. He seems to hover near us.

"Do you object to having me examine your rectum and genital area?" she asks. Genital area? I've never thought of that part of me as a genital area. But what phrase should you use when you talk about an area you never talk about. And surely for a doctor who must do a scrotum scrutiny, it's better than asking, "OK to look at your crotch?"

I agree, and she tells me to lie on my left side.

That's called the Sims' position--on left side, right leg bent--devised for such examination, but I do not tell her that I know. I wonder, however, how well Sims is remembered for his contribution to rectal knowledge. As well as Van Allen for his belt? Or Pullman for his car?

Suddenly she tells me that she is through, something I had known as quickly as she, and surely with the same degree of relief.

With such intimacy behind us, we could be less formal, I suppose, but instead we seem more so. We part, thanking each other, nearly bowing. I medical school for educational purposes. Today, I have made a small down payment.

But I do not linger as I leave.