June 24, 2014 Monday "Shabazz"

First Words

      …thoughts of an anachronistic, solo pediatrician

                            by Glenn Feole, M.D.

"Be careful too that the reading of your story makes the melancholy 

        laugh and the merry laugh louder," Cervantes, Prologue to Don Quixote

Contact: ishmaelish36@gmail.com

Blog site: ishmaelish36.blogspot.com

June 24, 2014  Monday

Chief Complaint: (written on the chart before I go in the room)

“Child has the normal daycare cooties.” (ENT consultation)

Interesting Name:

Shabazz

Anecdote:

     Today I am going to start an Twenty Part Series of journal entries from the time I started working at a Migrant Health Clinic in North Carolina in 2002.

PART I: Migrant Health Center Journal

     I worked at Tri County Community Health Center (a Migrant Health Clinic) in the metropolis of Newton Grove, North Carolina from August to December, 2002.   It was my first medical job since sadly leaving my solo practice of eleven years in Westport, Connecticut in 1998.  

     I searched for underserved clinics on the Public Health Service web site and found this one - a Latino migrant clinic in Newton Grove, North Carolina.  I was only there for five months, having left when the director decided to expand the clinic to include private practices in the area.

     After leaving Connecticut, in need of respite, I took some time off and…read.    From Don Quixote to Jane Eyre, Harold Bloom, reams of poetry, hundreds of mysteries and Edgar Award winners, which led me to all 56 works of Lawrence Block, all of Robert Parker and Michael Connelly (my favorite), and then Patricia Cornwell due to my work as a Medical Examiner.  I wrote perhaps five books and worked as a Medical Examiner (I wanted to stimulate my intellect by listening to those most intelligent of doctors, the pathologists) for the warm, fiery and Sherlockian Dr. Fierro in Richmond for one year, writing the Lawrence Block book during that time and working with the free clinic in downtown Richmond sporadically.  At long last, I applied to work at Tri County in 2002.  

      (I lost most of my notes from my time at Tri County except for the first month, and have separate journals from my time in Columbia and then in Greenwood.)

Some names of the Latino patients I had at the clinic:

Jennifer Lopez

Carlos Santana

Nimcy

Innocente

My nurses: Angel and Angela

Azucena

8/26/02:  

     My first day on the job at Tri County Community Health Center in Newton Grove, North Carolina. I’m actually in a satellite office on Mondays and Fridays in Salemburg, called Carolina Pines Community Health Center.  It’s eighteen miles and only four turns from Tri County, and two thousand light years from Westport, Connecticut.  Although its only four turns away from the Mothership, the trick is to find those turns among the unlabeled winding roads.  When I do get lost, there are plenty of opportunities to ask directions.  From cows and horses.  The cars that zip past me at seventy miles an hour don’t seem interested.

     I actually spent last Tuesday at an interview at the North Carolina medical board, and talked with a very warm, sensitive retired woman dermatologist.  We had a wonderful talk and she gave me a temporary license on the spot.  I stayed over night in a run down hotel and started my orientation on Wednesday and Thursday.  I was given a list with about forty names on it and encouraged to go around and meet these people.  They would each give me their take on the situation and protocols, etc.  More on that later.

      Dr. P---, of Indian descent, the medical director, and I were talking near the end of the day when the nurse came in and grimaced. “Mr. Jones is in room two and his toe looks awful.  A pig stepped on it.”

Poetry:

I Swim

late at night

alone 

my guitar rests on the chair

by the pool

thirty years of scratches

         like wrinkles

on my Grandfather’s face

my guitar watches

listens silently and waits

for me

under the dark covering sky

the air warm as a lover’s breath

the moon glows above

a soothing nightlight

in my children’s bedroom 

so long ago

the water a rhythmic caress

the underwater lights as yellow

as the floating moon above

the pool gently sways 

a fluorescent green

that suffuses my soul

        Glenn Feole, 2010

Coup d'essai:   On Writing

"Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me," Thoreau, Walden.

Introducing "George Joiner," an artist; a character from a book
I wrote and illustrated. 

    Why do I write?  I feel like Oliver Sacks in many ways - my experiences seem to be deeper and more profound with pen in hand.  I don't go many places without a pencil and an empty journal clutched by my side in anticipation, as my family and friends know so well.  My thoughts and feelings need the sense of the approaching night, craving the passage of time to mellow and age.  Only then the deeper thoughts and feelings, almost imperceptibly, distill to the surface. 

Favorite Musician/song:

The Allman Brothers, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"

    The band I was in while I lived in New Jersey in the 1970's was called "Synergy." We played this song and it was one of my favorites.  It would transport me during its long duration, changes and improvisations.  A creative journey for all of us that transported me.  I remember certain fans talking with me about the song; they were like myself - grateful, and silently mesmerized by the lyrical improvisations of the other musicians at this beautiful journey that changed night after night.
    Some background: the keyboardist, Dave, was  pursuing a Masters in classical music at Princeton and could play (and write) anything…from Bach, Mozart to jazz, rock.  A true creative genius and he had the look too - long straggly hair, narrow face, prominent nose, huge teeth clamped on a cigar smack dab in the middle  of his mouth, always crunched down with his constant, incredible smile and sense of humor.  A happy person with his musical passion; a compassionate soul.  To top it off, he had an ancient Rhodes keyboard with it's magical tone that I love.
     The guitarist, Greg, was a gentle, laconic soul, an undergraduate at Princeton who was extremely intelligent.  He was a look-alike for Spock on Star Trek, thin as a rail and unrattle-able at some of the more dicey dives we played at first.  He would practice mixolidian scales for hours every day and had an insatiable interest in music theory.  I awaited his solos with great anticipation, never knowing what eclectic element he would throw in with his great technical skill.  We all got along like brothers as we piled into an old VW van going to gigs around NJ.
     The drummer, Sandy, was an editor at the Princeton University Press and had studied philosophy a few years ahead of me at Princeton.  He once dressed in a large American Flag cape and uniform for an outdoor concert we played…also imperturbable, with a Bob Newhart demeanor.  He was key to the group because…he owned the van.  

Favorite Book/author:

Billy Collins, poet.  All of is books.  I will include some of these poems later.

Favorite Movie/DVD:

The Day of the Jackal, the original

     This was the 1973 version in black and white, starring Edward Fox as the suave, handsome, in control would-be assassin of Charles de Gaulle (the prequel to our current Matt Damon and prior Clint Eastwood).  Suspenseful and beautiful in the simplicity of 1973 film making.