I was back at the local hospital today to drop off my CT Scans, those confusing films of my anatomy splattered in gray scale. My task accomplished in under a minute, I was headed back to the elevator just in time to see the door slowly closing on the smiling faces of a doctor & two other people engaged in, what I assume, was a fun coversation. Just then I also happened to notice a nurse standing outside the door, behind a wheelchair carrying an extremely old (& angelic looking) woman yelling, “Patients first, Patients first”. Too late though. The elevator was already on its way down. She then turned to me with a hapless look and repeated, “Patients first…they know that”. I shook my head and said, “Maybe you ought to put up a notice by the elevator which said that”. And she replied, “No, I mean, we all had to take a training course called Patients First, and I know that doctor took it too”.

I’m not sure what is more sad. That doctors had to take a course to know that patients came first, or that the doctor in question decided to ignore what he had learnt only recently. Either way, I hope to God I’m not stuck with that asshole outside an elevator with my life hanging by a thread. That would be a sad way to go.