The Director Of Nursing Tells DrHGuy How It Used To Be

In 1975, while waiting for a meeting to begin, the Director of Nursing at the medical center where DrHGuy was serving his residency remarked to him that during her own training at that same institution, her nursing class was taught to stand respectfully when a doctor entered the room and to serve properly chilled orange juice to physicians.

The Director of Nursing did not, it should be noted, relate this anecdote in the spirit of those were the good old days and, in fact, appeared to regard those experiences with more than a modicum of distaste. After a brief pause following her comments, DrHGuy, who, as a result of attending a minimum of three fundamentalist church services a week throughout childhood and adolescence, could recognize and interpret even an implicit parable from the back of a sanctuary, asked the Director of Nursing if she would care for an Orange Crush (no juice then being available).

Fortune and, more to the point, the Director of Nursing smiled upon DrHGuy and, surely, goodness and mercy did follow him all of his days on staff at that hospital.

Note: Originally posted Sep 10, 2007at 1HeckOfAGuy.com, a predecessor of AllanShowalter.com