The doctors I have known

My stalwart dermatologist, Dr. Mailman, has retired. It was a terrible blow. After all, I was practically one of the family, in there once a month, regular as clockwork, to have numerous skin cancers removed, thanks to a lifetime in the sun. That was my downfall. Just having me as a patient added value to his practice.

Dr. Mailman isn’t the first doctor I’ve lost to retirement. Years ago, I had the profound good fortune to have a doctor move in next door to us in Shore Cliffs. He’s been gone probably 30 years, and I have forgotten his name, but he had a real flair for the profession. He once diagnosed a fever I had as tularemia. Eventually, my friendly neighbor doctor moved away. My wife said it was to get away from me and those constant house calls.

Anyway, the man who took over my case was Jack Skinner. Jack was in most ways an excellent doctor. The only complaint I would make is that he was a little pedestrian in the diagnosis department. When I went to Jack with a fever, the best diagnosis he could come up with was the flu. Jack is now retired and devoting his energy to water quality.

The first doctor I remember was my Aunt Charlotte. This goes back to the early years of the last century. For a woman to get into medical school in those days, let alone make it through, required great fortitude. Such was the prejudice against women practitioners, she once told me, that in all her years of medical studies, no male student ever spoke to her. She probably never would have had any patients either, but the only other doctor in Green River, Wyo., was her husband, and he preferred hunt- ing and fishing to taking care of a bunch of sick people, so it was Aunt Charlotte or nothing.

It was Aunt Charlotte who took care of me during the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, and she must have been good since I had the flu, the measles and scarlet fever, all at the same time. For years afterward, she would look at me, shake her head and mutter, “I can’t believe you’re not dead.”

Not too long after I moved to Balboa, I came under the care of Dr. Harwood. He was rather controversial, having a large ego, even for a doctor. There was nothing medical he thought he couldn’t do. Call in a specialist? Not Dr. Harwood. Any fool can perform a little brain surgery. His self-confidence was supreme.

For some reason, he always called me George. Finally, when I was practicing law with his son Don, I confronted him.

“Dr. Harwood, you’ve known me since I was 15, and you always call me George, but my parents named me Robert.”

He gave me a look of disdain. “George, I can’t help it if your parents made a mistake.”

As I said, his self-confidence could not be shaken.