Monday, April 6, 2020

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 17


In December of 1978, I was doing a rotation in a hospital in Winfield Kansas. I lived and ate in the hospital. On December 30 I was watching the Gator Bowl where Clemson beat Ohio State. The hospital was quiet, they tried to get as many people home for the holidays. At the end of the game, Woody Hayes punched a student player from Clemson. The TV channel immediately went to the news and did not mention the punch. I was screaming, but there was no one around. I got on the phone and called San Francisco where my wife was to see if anyone there had seen what happened. Finally part way through the news, they mentioned the punch because of all the calls that they got from the viewers. Woody Hayes lost his job because of this. 
One of the hospitals that I applied to do my residency was in Flint Michigan. It was my worst interview. First I had to drive there from Oak Park, Michigan through a big snow storm. It only went downhill from there. There was a whole group of us that was there to be interviewed. During the interview, they asked questions that were rude and crude. I now understand that these questions were to see how you handled stress. The one question that bothered me was… have you cheated on your wife? (The correct answer is, why is your wife available?) It got worse after that. After the interview, we all got to sit in one room and wait until all of the interviews were done to see who was going to be called back for a second interview. They then had a Steve Harvey moment and read a list of who was to be coming back for the second interview; they read the list of who was to go home instead of reading the ones that were going to stay. I can now look back at this as a blessing. Why? If I had got the residency there, I may have stayed and could being living in Flint. 
Is it just me? I still keep people’s phone numbers on my cell phone that have passed away. I know that I can’t call them. Removing them would be like I would be forgetting them. 



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