A word of thanks
As if someone is waiting around the hallway for me to leave, a survey arrives by e-mail after most medical appointments. Please, the hospital or clinic wants to know, on a scale from 1 to 5 (and in complete confidentiality), was your doctor/nurse practitioner/physician assistant friendly? Did they spend enough time? Did they communicate well? Did they show sufficient concern?
I hear a great deal about these surveys from the objects of their questions. Overextended and only human, caregivers practice at their mercy; taken to task by administrators for unfriendliness, poor communication, or insufficient show of concern (which sometimes means not ordering unnecessary tests a patient insists are necessary). When cumulative scores are low, implications are made about salary. All this is based on the opinions of patients once seen but now invisible. A caregiver rarely knows who has passed judgment on them.
This has caused in me a small rebellion. I recommend it. Though unrequested advice is rarely useful, here is what I recommend: you start with a nice notecard; maybe it has cherry blossoms, or a photo of the sky. A fine-point gel pen provides an instrument of respect. Then, you write a thank-you note to a caregiver and sign your name. Be sure you have a stamp.
My first thank-you notes were to medical professionals. One went to a neurologist who showed me how to sit by the bed of a woman with terminal dementia; it was as if they were in chapel together. Another went to a nurse who took psychotic patients to the Topsfield Fair year after year (a job no one volunteered for). An autumn landscape went to the first primary care physician who listened to everything about me, and not only with her stethoscope. A postcard of the Grand Canyon went to the sports medicine specialist who noticed I was weeping during an appointment and put his hand to his heart.
Eventually, encouraged (though without response), I broadened the field. We all need thanks. Hang in there, Mr. President, I wrote to Barack Obama during a low ratings period. Thank you for your fortitude, Elizabeth Cheney. A note card — from the World Wildlife Fund assortment pack — went to each member of the impeachment and January 6 committees. The most heroic members got more than one.
Momentum is a force of nature. A while ago, a Vincent van Gogh sunflower sailed off to a retiring NPR anchor; I heard his level-headed greeting for decades at dawn when I was grumpy and he was not. A mountain vista flew to an old friend of my mother’s who managed to sustain cheer in the midst of terrible decline. Another was mailed to the local bridal shop; during the first year of COVID-19 pandemic terror, though no one was marrying, they changed their mannequins’ gowns every week to cheer passersby.
These very paragraphs are a thank-you note, to the editor who has published them for years, and to you, for reading small observations that do not meet traditional journalistic standards of relevance.
It began as a tiny arrow thrown against a mighty force and might seem like the activity of someone with too much time, who should take up crochet. It might be. But these are days when rancor is often mistaken for helpfulness. Thanks are preferable, and we should know who they’re from.