A credit to profession

My childhood physician, Doctor Harvey, if alive today would put most modern medical practitioners to shame. This fine, caring and compassionate man, entirely faithful to the Hippocratic Oath he swore to honor and obey, was expected to respond at once, day or night, come rain or shine and every day of the year, to any patient in distress. All doctors in those days were expected to do the same, but Doctor Harvey was exceptional in that he was always kind and caring and never once complained about the obvious physical and psychological stresses his profession demanded of him and which, indeed, would finally result in his death.

One Christmas Day, he rose from the dining table and his unfinished Christmas meal in order to attend to my injured, blood-soaked face, and all without a single word, gesture or expression of irritation or complaint for what must have been a most unwelcome visit from me. Yet, true to form, after stemming the flowing blood and gently dressing the wound, he sent me on my way with a kindly smile.

What did anger Doctor Harvey were delays in calling him by people whose relatives or friends were in urgent need of medical or surgical attention.

At some point during the time I knew him, he lost his only son to a mountaineering accident and, although this tragedy must have broken his heart, he bravely soldiered on until a massive heart attack ended his exemplary life. An hour or two before he died he experienced symptoms of the onset of cardiac failure, yet he drove himself to a London hospital, 12 miles distant from his home, for the treatment that would sadly elude him.

Doctor Harvey was not merely a credit to the medical profession but, indeed, to humanity itself. WILLIAM G. CARLYLE

North Little Rock