The Old Neighborhood Medical Network

I go in for my quasi-annual physical today. Started going to a young internal medicine doctor several years ago because my other doctors kept retiring. Mel Brooks once said that Zero Mostel would rather eat a broom than go to a doctor. I'm with Zero on that one but you get to a point where prevention trumps fear of white coats.

My parents were of the generation where you did not go to a doctor unless you couldn't lift your head off the pillow. A former medical corpsman lived across the street and I can recall him arriving with his canvas bag and sprinkling white powder over my head to stop the bleeding from a large cut. My older brother once fell from the top of a bunk bed and bashed his head on a concrete floor. He swears that his legs were numb but my mother gave him an aspirin and told him to go back to bed.

We were into basics in those days. We also had the luxury of neighbors with practical skills; the sort of folks who knew how to dress a wound, wire a house or skin a deer.  My current neighbors include lawyers, insurance execs, consultants, and real estate wizards. 

There is no one for the informal medical care system which my parents used although - I just remembered - there is a retired dentist a few doors down.

Hmm.