Our beloved pediatrician is retiring this month. I just mailed what's probably my last check to him. It covered our co-payment for a visit a few weeks ago. At the time I had no cash on me, and Dr. Gately doesn't accept credit cards.
Dr. Gately has been practicing out of the ground floor of his brownstone for decades. It's not a modern office. There are dust balls under the chairs. There's a weird pink bathtub in the bathroom filled with filing cabinets, and the door sticks. The eye charts are worn; the patched glasses are themselves patched. And there's no nurse, only a wonderfully charismatic office manager/receptionist/accountant - you name it, she does it - named Bernadine, who knows my voice when I call. She laughs heartily over just about everything. But don't cross her: she'll tell it like it is.
Dr. Gately accepts nannies bringing your kids to sick visits, though you better be there to pick them up. If it's a well visit, mom or dad must come or he'll refuse to see you.
Dr. Gately is not for everyone, but he was for me.
I've never been shoed out of the office prematurely. In fact, on multiple occasions, I've had to tell him we really need to go! Even more important, unless really, really sick, my kids would jump for joy when I said we had to go to the doctor. They associate Dr. Gately, and therefore all doctors, with all things good. Such a healthy perspective for little ones to have.
The check I just mailed was for a visit Maggie and I made straight from the airport, coming back from a trip to Portland to meet our newest niece/cousin. Maggie had been playing the night before with her older cousins and something happened to her hand - we're not sure what. They all went to sleep crying. Our flight was the next morning. Maggie was favoring her hand big time, so I knew it wasn't a game. I got off the plane at 4pm and called Dr. Gately. They close at 5pm. We didn't get there until after 6pm. He stayed open for us. Both he and Bernadine were there to greet Maggie. Because that's just who they are.
Doctors get you at your most vulnerable. They should be the most comforting people and provide the most comforting environments in the world. Yet doctors' offices can feel like factories - you wait, then you wait somewhere else, then you have your eight minutes and often forget the questions you meant to ask, and then you're out. That's not health care. That's checking a box.
Thank you, Dr. Gately, for never just checking a box. You took the time to know my kids, and everything you prescribed (medicine, advice or otherwise) was based on that knowledge. You made my kids feel invulnerable. And even though they aren't, for them to feel that way at three and five is just fine with me.
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