MONDRIAN AND MERTHIOLATE

I've written several other times about my doctor.  He trains medical students from THE Ohio State University where he also matriculated.  One of the trainees usually performs the intake ("what are you being seen for today?", etc.) information.

Today, I was the last patient of the day.  A female student came in to the examination room and proceeded with her questioning.  After she completed her intake, I interviewed HER, as I am wont to do.  I complimented her dress and said that it reminded me of a Piet Mondrian painting.  She said she'd never heard of  the artist.  I told her that Mondrian was very prominent in modern art in the 1920s and that the great fashion designer Yves St. Laurent presented an entire collection in the 1960s inspired by  Mondrian's art.  I said that I had recently seen a "red carpet moment" with someone wearing a "vintage St. Laurent" and it looked as classy as it had in 1965.  She had heard of St. Laurent.

The student jotted Mondrian in her notebook and said she would look it up. 

When she returned with the doctor, it was

decided that I would receive a cortisone shot.  Shortly, two other students joined to observe the medical student administer the injection.  The doctor said, "I see you have her swabbed;  did you ask if she were allergic to iodine?"  Sheepishly, the student answered that she hadn't.  I piped up and said that I wasn't, but I was allergic to merthiolate.  The doctor, of course knowing that I was joking, asked, "Have any of you heard of that?"  All answered that they hadn't.  One asked what it was and I said it was like mercurochrome.  None knew that either.  The doctor told them that it was used on every scraped knee for generations.  I said, "It was a beautiful color--pinkish-orange--and it glistened!"  The student was jotting it down and asked how to spell it.  After the injection the observers left the room.

He asked the student, "What did you learn today?" and she listed several medical items and then said that she'd also learned about Mondrian and merthiolate.  He told her she should take some time off and visit the Topiary Garden because it has a brass rendering of the trees from A Sunday On La Grand Jatte.   She said she didn't know about that.  The doctor said, "Tell her about Seurat."  I told her that the painting hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago and gave her a brief account of Seurat and pointillism.  The doctor said, "Well, knowing Sue will be your liberal education."  I said, "Oh, thank you for quoting George Bernard Shaw!"  

Don't you feel sorry for that befuddled young woman?