Guest editorial by World – famous psychiatrist to physicians, Dr. Pannikatakus
I hear from physicians what, to no one else, they tell. Their secrets. Their fantasies. Their failures. Their sick little ideas.
Case # 286
I tell you now about the case of Dr. R. He comes to me, Dr. R., lies down on my leather couch and I put a box of Kleenex on his chest.
“I’m conflicted,” he says to me. “I always do what’s best for my patients, but sometimes they don’t appreciate my efforts. Like Mrs. La Barge.”
“Tell me,” I say in comforting voice. “Tell me about this patient, La Barge.”
“She asked her husband to take her, for their anniversary, to the French restaurant in town. Nice place. They serve the old style haute cuisine. She wore a new dress. It was loose fitting in the style of – what do they call them? ‘Mumu’s,’ I believe. Like a colorful tent.
“The waiter seated them, but Mrs. La Barge complained about the chair. It was uncomfortable, she said. One glance at the seat, completely swallowed up beneath Mrs. La Barge, was all the waiter needed, to know what to do. He brought her a wider chair with heavier legs.
“She ordered the Boeuf Wellington with extra Bordelaise sauce and foie gras. Her husband requested a bottle of Pinot Noir. She arranged her pills in front of her, next to her glass of water, like soldiers defending a fortress.
“The waiter returned. ‘I’m sorry, Ma’am,’ he told her, ‘but you’ll have to change your order. Your doctor called and you can’t have the pastry wrapped beef. May I suggest the Chef salad?’ ”
“And this,” I ask Dr. R., “she did not like?”
“She just doesn’t understand Full Service Medicine. What should I do? Let her kill herself?”
“That would be against the Oath of that other great Greek physician,” I warn him. “Come back next week. We talk again.”
Sex, Drugs, and Public Health 