The Difficult and Phenomenal Work of Doctors

I have been fascinated with medicine since I was a boy. Somewhere along the path of middle school, I thought I might be a doctor. As a kid, I got a toy doctor’s kit one Christmas and everyone in the family was targets of my doctoring. Though, as I remember it, I think my brother Terry was the only one who actually tolerated being one of my patients.

Later, in high school, I figured I wasn’t smart enough to be a doctor after all. I wasn’t any good at math or science. But as long as I can remember I wanted to help people. My grandparents were a big part of our family life. And they were a huge influence on how I saw the world. Loving, gentle, caring, I learned from them a deep compassion for others. And as they got older, I felt such tenderness for them and the increasing limits of their bodies and minds.

I eventually decided to go into the ministry. And there is certainly an aspect of healing in that if one takes it seriously and is dedicated to it. I enjoyed the compassionate part of a minister’s life. Hospital visits. Waiting with families during surgeries. Being allowed into ICU units when others were not. Holding a patient’s hand. Saying a prayer. Wishing them well. And being with them at the end. Hugging families in grief. Sharing my own tears at the loss of life.

I say all of that because I have been deeply moved by the Netflix series, Lenox Hill. It is a real-life look into the lives and patients of four physicians working at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. These doctors are fully human, and yet amazing individuals.

Dr. David Langer, Chair of Neurosurgery, is a tightly wound man with brilliant skills and profound compassion for his patients. Dr. John Boockvar, Vice-Chair of Neurosurgery, is equally smart, a brisk energetic surgeon with a remarkable bedside manner. Dr. Amanda Richardson is the Chief OB-GYN resident in her last year of training. Pregnant with her own first child, she has developed a remarkable connection with the mothers-to-be in her care. And Dr. Mirtha Macri, an ER doctor who deals, considerately and humanely, with the sometimes forgotten and troubled people of the City who wander in or are brought into the Emergency Room.

Each episode takes you into the lives of critically ill patients, new moms, complicated surgeries, drug overdose emergencies, and how these physicians work with these people trying desperately to bring them through to good health.

The doctors reveal how real all of this is. We see the stress in their lives, dealing with life and death issues as we view actual surgeries in progress. We discover their humanity, their humor, their own grief when things go terribly wrong and the diagnosis is deadly, or the surgery ends up causing permanent damage in the effort to remove a brain tumor.

The patients, too, are incredible people. We witness the strong ties of family. Deep hugs and endless tears. Rejoicing over a successful birth, and suffering overwhelming sorrow when a daughter, a wife, a husband, a child loses their battle with a disease.

We often forget the humanity of physicians. We see their egos. We admire their competence. We are impressed with their finesse and expertise. But at the end of the day, they go home to their own families. They are very much like the rest of us. They carry their own pain and disappointments and celebrate the small yet immeasurable gifts that life can bring.

We see this when Dr. Boockvar, in jeans and a t-shirt, is having a glass of wine with his wife at home. Or when Dr. Langer enters the room of a lovely woman who lost some of her speech and cognitive capacity after surgery and then regained most of it back, and he wept with her and her family at the struggle they’d all been through. Or when Dr. Richardson delivers healthy baby after healthy baby only to learn that her own unborn daughter has a serious medical problem that will cause heart issues and other deficits as the child grows.

Hippocrates, the renown Greek physician, wrote of doctors, “The life so short, the craft so long to learn.”

The series Lenox Hill, a remarkable medical and human journey of inspiration and wonder, reminds us how mortal and unpredictable our lives are, and how valuable are those who devote themselves to the care and healing of all of us.

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