To Make a Living

An ophthalmologist died last week. I saw his obituary in the New York Times: 50 years as a devoted hospital employee, director, chairman, and trustee. And 140 peer-reviewed publications to remember his name. I think this is what it means to make a living: to worship the body for its productivity and pray at the altar of work. So he must have been dead on the morning he called in sick, lying in bed with his half-dreaming lover, preparing for the sloth of seacoast and sun damage. And dead again after pocketing an extra jelly donut to bring home for his daughter when the breakroom note said, please take just one. Which makes the final deaths the sin of wasting time with patients, like the day he sat still in the exam room with a crying woman who could not see her only grandson ’s wedding photos. The first death in silence. The second in narration: A lovely beachfront altar. Guests dancing and beaming by the body of water. Quivering waves. Not a cloud.
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research