…who practiced in a small town in Louisiana. As doctors go, she wasn’t likely to be the one named by most medics as “the only doctor I’d want taking care of me if I’m brought to the ER.”
In fact, she was just the opposite. Advances in medicine had passed her by a good fifteen years before she retired, and emergency medicine was never her strong suit. She was out of her depth in an ER. Colds and sniffles, earaches, and the typical fast-track kind of cases she could handle, maybe suture the odd laceration here and there…
…but don’t ask her to put in a chest tube, or sink a central line, or intubate someone. God forbid she’d have to run a code. She just wasn’t up to the task.
But she had a healthy practice, and her patients liked her, and she treated them well. And she kept a small, rural hospital going, almost single-handedly, with her patient admissions.
She was Romanian by birth, married to an ethnic Greek, and she reinforced every negative stereotype of foreign medical graduates.
And she also was the embodiment of every positive stereotype of immigrants. She came to America to make a better life for herself, and with hard work and perseverance, she achieved it. Along the way, she enriched the community in which she practiced medicine immeasurably.
In that regard, she was more uniquely American than many of us native-born. She understood what America stood for – a land of glorious possibilities, where opportunity is limited only by your willingness to pursue it.
Around fifteen years ago, she graced me with more trust and respect than any EMT can hope for from a doctor, and almost certainly more trust and respect than I was worthy of at the time. She’d let me perform any medical procedure short of opening the cranial cavity, no questions asked.
But still, I appreciated the trust. Other medics looked upon her with derision, as the doctor who knew less than any good medic.
I knew better. I ran her codes, and I did things with her permission that no doctor in his right mind would entrust to a medic these days, but I never kidded myself that I was her equal. She was simply wise enough to realize that some things she was not good at, and was perfectly content to let others handle those tasks.
And as a result, I became a far more knowledgeable and skilled paramedic than I would have become otherwise. Even today, many of the doctors I work with who trust me implicitly, do so because fifteen years ago, it was me interacting with them in her stead. More than once she handed me the phone to give report to the accepting ER physician for whatever patient we were transferring.
I’ve been told by many doctors that I should go to medical school, but she was the first. When I got into a pissing contest with the charge nurse at that rural hospital, and my employers moved me to another city to defuse the situation, this doctor went to bat for me. She wanted me back there, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
She told the hospital administrator that she would refuse to admit patients or take ER call until I was moved back.
It was soon made clear to my employers that if they wanted to keep their transport contract with that hospital, they’d move her favorite paramedic back to his old shift.
They gave her what she wanted.
Ten years later, on the other end of the state, I was having problems with another ER doctor, the kind who denied every medic’s request for orders, no matter how trivial. To her, we were simply ambulance drivers, not medical professionals.
Seething with frustration after being denied orders for the umpteenth time, I tried making friends with her. No easy task, that. She was very class conscious, and paramedics were the lowest tier on the medical pecking order.
I recognized her accent, though, and in an attempt to establish some kind of rapport with her, I casually mentioned, “I know another doctor from Romania, who works down in Quaint Little Hamlet. You’re the only two doctors I’ve met from Romania.”
She cocked a skeptical eyebrow at me, and asked the name of my Romanian doctor friend. When I told her, her expression grew even more dubious. She knew this doctor too, and couldn’t imagine her consorting with a lowly paramedic.
But the next time I brought a patient to her ER, not four hours later, she treated me with something akin to outright deference. She was friendly, and listened to my report with interest, and after that day, never denied me orders again. Heck, I didn’t even have to call and ask.
There was no question in my mind that she had called QLH Community Hospital and checked me out. And neither was there a question in my mind that my doctor friend there had spoken of me glowingly. The fraternity of Romanian doctors practicing in Louisiana is undoubtedly a small one, and she was no doubt one of its elder members. Her word carried weight.
She retired from medicine over ten years ago, a full fifteen years too late if you go by current medical standards, and far too early if you take the word of her patients. She was old and tired when we first met, but she still worked grueling hours. Her health deteriorated pretty quickly after she retired. I think practicing medicine was what kept her going. It was her purpose in life.
So when I got a call from Effeminate Partner the other day, telling me she had died, I’ll confess I shed a small tear or two.
Rest well, Dr. Polly. You will be missed.
