Dr. Kate Scannell, Syndicated columnist; First published in print: 05/12/2012
It was a dark and stormy day. I sat in an overlit hallway of a sprawling urban hospital, anxiously waiting to be ushered into a conference room filled with doctors and administrators. Under considerable stress, I looked down at the notes in my hands, reviewing them one final time in preparation for my presentation. That's when three clowns approached me -- and, no, they were not members of the hospital staff.
I looked up and stared into their painted faces. One clown withdrew a squeaky rubber pen from her enormous pocket and, with dramatic flourish, made two giant check marks on a pink card. After her clown colleagues nodded approval, she handed the "ticket" to me and said: "We're citing you on two counts."
To be frank, I hesitated about engaging with these clowns. After all, I was a serious doctor on a serious mission, preparing for a tense interaction, and I didn't have time for, well, clowning around. Still, I was surrounded by three clowns, and the last thing I needed before my meeting was a lapel-flower squirt of water in my face.
So I smiled politely and read aloud the charges on my citation: "Feet are not big enough" and "Gathering too much dust." Read More
It was a dark and stormy day. I sat in an overlit hallway of a sprawling urban hospital, anxiously waiting to be ushered into a conference room filled with doctors and administrators. Under considerable stress, I looked down at the notes in my hands, reviewing them one final time in preparation for my presentation. That's when three clowns approached me -- and, no, they were not members of the hospital staff.
I looked up and stared into their painted faces. One clown withdrew a squeaky rubber pen from her enormous pocket and, with dramatic flourish, made two giant check marks on a pink card. After her clown colleagues nodded approval, she handed the "ticket" to me and said: "We're citing you on two counts."
To be frank, I hesitated about engaging with these clowns. After all, I was a serious doctor on a serious mission, preparing for a tense interaction, and I didn't have time for, well, clowning around. Still, I was surrounded by three clowns, and the last thing I needed before my meeting was a lapel-flower squirt of water in my face.
So I smiled politely and read aloud the charges on my citation: "Feet are not big enough" and "Gathering too much dust." Read More