The doctor’s office

Doctor’s offices have a tendency to be bare, cold places.

Which is why, when you go into any health care or training facility, you’re going to find posters on the wall. Anatomy posters and “how the body works” posters; images that belong in high school biology classrooms and undergrad medical seminars – anything to add a bit of color, to “warm the place up,” grabbed haphazardly from the stacks of promotional materials doctors get on a constant basis.

Which is all well and good. Sometimes, the posters are interesting.

It’s always my fear, though, that one of these days, in the midst of an intense check-up, as we’re considering some serious condition, the doctor will stop, think for a minute, and stand up.

“Hold on. I need to check something quick.”

And he’ll walk over to one of these charts, look at it thoughtfully, and say, “Ah ha!”

“Yes. There it is!”

Smiling, he’ll return to our checkup. “No wonder I couldn’t figure it out. I was looking at the wrong muscle!”

That’s probably the point at which I’ll start sweating.