My Medical History

Dear Doctors Sharp and Young,

Can I just say thank you?

Like everyone else I've been hearing a lot about health care lately, death panels, socialism vs. private options and all that jazz. And it's brought me back to a time ten years ago, when you helped me.

I was nineteen, I was broke, and I was a mother. I was also on Medicaid. You could have looked at me walk into your office and jumped to all sorts of tidy conclusions, that I was unmarried (I was married), that this child was unplanned (she was planned), that we were irresponsible for getting pregnant with no thought to our financial situation (that part was probably true), and perhaps you would have felt entitled to pass judgement, since your practice would be footing much of the cost for my care. I was a kid, a pregnant kid, and my health and my child's health was now your job.

But you never did pass judgement, you were never condescending. You, who had worked hard through medical school and residencies, who had earned with hard work your right to feel superior, treated an uneducated nineteen year old as your partner in providing a healthy environment for a new child. I can't tell you how much that continues to be appreciated.

Perhaps you had to take on a certain number of Medicaid cases. Perhaps if you had been given the choice you would have only treated patients based on their ability to pay. You were, I found out later, two of the best doctors in the state. People would certainly pay. I got world class medical care, which makes you wonderful doctors.

But as importantly, I was able to walk into your offices without feeling shamefaced, with hat in hand, which I think makes you wonderful people.

My husband and I are poster children I suppose, for the Medicaid program, he was a college student when we had our oldest child. After student loans and tuition and books medical bills would have financially buried us. We needed temporary help. I can't comment on other situations in which dependence is a way of life, but I can tell you I was grateful that we could have gotten help when we needed it, and that help was given with such an attitude of caring, and pleasantness, and service.

I have to go walk my kids to school now, and I'll stay and volunteer in the classroom and I'll make copies and cut and staple and quiz children on spelling and I'll try to help because I've been helped.

And I'll do it with a smile on my face and a caring disposition because that's how I've seen it done by the best doctors.

So thank you.