Most interesting doctor
So, one of the hazards of being new to an area is finding a doctor. Our new medical insurance requires a family practitioner and referrals to specialists, so I literally took a page from the book of primary care physicians and picked one at random that is nearby and I thought I could find. I mean, we don't need one that speaks Uarati or Hindi, Arabic, or Malyalam, or even Urdu. Go figure. H0w about someone with privileges at the local hospital in Princeton and is accepting new patients ... narrowed it down to Dr. John Seed. OK, so we made an appointment with him so Paul can get a school physical. We innocently head to downtown Princeton. We discover a doctor who has to be in his 80s. It is really an interesting encounter. Poor fellow has osteoporosis to the point, he cannot raise his head and he struggled a little. But, he gave a thorough physical.

What was interesting, is we had seen a photo, clearly taken in the 1960s as we could tell by the clerical garb and the other clothing, of a much younger Dr. Seed receiving an award from someone I guessed was a Cardinal. So, I asked him about it, and he relayed that that was Cardinal Spelman of NY and he received the pro ecclesia dei award - the highest award a layman can receive from the Holy Father, in this case, Pope John XXIII, which places it some time in the early 60s. So, Dr. Seed proceeded to tell us about how he had won the award for founding a hospital in the Bronx and how he'd worked there for 16 years in a health clinic. He told us a couple of stories about the clinic, which I found interesting - including how he helped a woman escape from her paranoid-schizophrenic homicidal husband, and how the word went out from the heroin dealers that no one was to bother the tall white guy who was the doctor at the clinic. He said after that, any time doctors in training came to see the clinic, they were safe in the neighborhood as long as they were near him. He said the blacks in the neighborhood lectured the medical students on dressing appropriately if they were going to be respected doctors, which is funny by today's standards, but he said the students showed up the next time in suits and ties. I finally had to remind him that my husband was waiting and could we continue with the exam, but I'm wondering if we ought to do some sort of a profile on him in The Monitor. Maybe for the next senior section. He seemed most pleased that we had noticed the photo.

At the very least, I hope Paul learned about being patient with the elderly.