I am a 46-year-old physician, and today I almost missed lunch. It was a scheduling mishap. I kept it cool — I’m not like one of those instrument-throwing surgeons. However, I was frustrated.
It was just such a long day. I practiced the best of medicine on this crazy/busy day. I took care of a lot of sick kids. I went out of my way to help some poor families. But damn! I was hungry. If I could just make it to lunch time, then I could get some of that gourmet ramen at the new shop downtown. Thinking about my Friday ramen kept me going. When things got crazy at 11:00am, and it looked like I might have to do my afternoon clinic lunchless — well, that’s just not cool.
I would have done anything to get lunch. I would have eaten ramen in a box, with a fox… on a train, in the rain… Heck, if they didn’t have chopsticks for me, I would have improvised!
The people in my clinic respect me, and I want to keep their respect. They want to keep the clinic moving just as much as I do, because they’re a great team. If I asked them to, they would probably helped me get lunch — maybe even as carryout. If we were out of utensils, then I could guess which nurse would recommend that I eat ramen with suturing instruments (albeit very carefully).
So now I’m reading reports about Amy Klobuchar and staff treatment. I don’t know what to say, other than: forgivable?
Maybe this won’t destroy her candidacy. I could see a few funny SNL sketches coming out of this “scandal,” but I think people could look past this.
However, there’s something that bothers me: how would an equivalent male candidate be discussed and received about something like this? I’ve got a feeling it might not have been so controversial. Heck, Amy Klobuchar will be running against a man who America knew as the guy who yelled out “You’re Fired!” on national TV regularly. Now that’s staff abuse.
Here’s my poll:
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