Doctor of What? Shock!

I was starting to wonder where this ‘doctor’ had got his stethoscope. Was this like one of those movies where someone has snuck into a hospital to do something or to see someone secretly, or kidnap someone (yes even all those years ago it had already been thought of, even if today it seems it’s always to ‘assassinate’ someone)? They quickly get into the dressing room of the doctors or nurses area and grabbing a uniform coat and a stethoscope, they ‘pretend to be a doctor’ so they can move through the hospital without being noticed. Not really the best role if you think about it? Given that doctors are important, maybe this guy couldn’t avoid being stopped and asked to help? It’s only a kid with a broken arm after all. What would it matter if he messed it up? If he really wanted to pass through un-noticed he should put on a porters uniform and push an empty wheelchair through the hospital at a slow pace (and a bored expression on his face to look the part). No one would have bothered him.
With my upbringing, I had to show some respect to this apparently casual treatment by the doctor. As I commented (earlier blog) I had only gone in to the hospital alone (on the bus, remember, we never owned a car) for a simple check up of the cast and not expecting to have to undergo any further treatment. So to have this doctor not only think the arm wasn’t going to well, but that he had to change the cast, and, that he felt he had to re-break the arm as well. I wasn’t expecting that. One small but significant point. You may have thought I had forgotten to mention that the doctor, seeing a twelve year old in front of him, requiring additional medical treatment, should have consulted with my parents before undergoing this unexpected treatment. I didn’t mention it, because it didn’t happen (can you imagine that happening today?).
Yes, generally they spoke to parents to discuss options for anything medical, but, it looks like this doctor was pretty confident in his decision. And after all he was the expert (or at least he must have been in training to be one). After all he had that white coat on (and don’t forget that shiny stethoscope). It’s a good thing my parents weren’t there. I think I may have witnessed a slightly different general reaction (from my mother at least). I could imagine her reaction to this doctor, which would probably have included such phrases as “Butcher” and “Incompetent fool” in that very English of English voices she always had to berate anyone she considered was an idiot (or not English at the very least). And trust me, my mother found a lot of people she thought were idiots, so we got very used to hearing her accent (actually even after –cough cough – fifty plus years in New Zealand, she still has that very English accent). 
(Continued tomorrow)