Doctor has a patient, a little old black lady, 88 years old.
The old lady has a medical complaint, and the doctor outlines the treatments for her—call them options A or B.
"Well, doctor," she says, I don't really have any basis for choosing. Which would you recommend?"
Doctor says, "If it were my mother, I'd choose option B."
The old lady thinks for a moment. "I see," she says. "And do you like your mother?"
• • •
(Sounds like a joke, but this really happened—to my brother Charlie, who's a doctor in Chicago. The woman has been a patient of his for more than 20 years, and her mother, who was once a major celebrity, was a patient of his as well. He knows the family well and he's extremely fond of her. You can see why, can't you? It's not the first story about her I've heard.)
Mike
(Thanks to Charlie)
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Same thing was said to me by an elderly Italian lady....
Posted by: Steve Rosenblum | Friday, 11 October 2013 at 10:48 PM
I don't want to be a spoilsport, but unless this woman has given permission to be identified he really shouldn't be telling anyone stories about her, however benign.
Posted by: Harry | Saturday, 12 October 2013 at 07:48 AM
I hear that shtick all the time here in NYC, but the point is valid. Just because something is right for one person or their mother doesn't mean it's right for anyone else, so a recommendation based on "what would be good for my mother" doesn't mean a lot until you know something about said mother.
A couple years ago when I was in a gift store waiting for my wife there was another couple discussing what would be an appropriate gift for her mother and the man asked me what MY mother would like. My answer was that she wanted me to get her a plasma cutting torch ( she's a very young 80), but that might not be the thing for his mother in law.
Sort of like asking a photographer for a camera recommendation based on what they would most like if they had only camera. According to the hypothetical question posed yesterday, we would be advising either a Nikon d800, a large format film camera, or maybe a Leica S2.
BTW, my mother longs for a digital camera as easy to use as her old Argus C3, or Canon rangefinder but is delighted with the camera in the iPad mini we got for her to use as a radio substitute since she can't get NPR where she lives.
Posted by: hugh crawford | Saturday, 12 October 2013 at 04:43 PM