Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
How often do you get to perform a notable good deed? Not just putting back a shopping cart, but something worthy of being a least a story about your day? Examples for scale:
A few months ago, I was hiking and happened upon a damsel in distress. A woman had fallen over and couldn't get up. She didn't seem seriously injured, more ungraceful and bruised, but she was struggling to get back up. I helped her to her feet and then escorted her back to the entrance to the park.
A few weeks ago, I was in a Walmart when I was stopped by a very short Hispanic man. He pointed up towards the top shelf and said, in an oddly Italian-sounding accent, "Can you please reach for me? I am too eh-small." I helped him, exchanged a quick pleasantry, and went on my day.
A few days ago, coming home from the same Walmart on an unlit back road, I nearly ruined my month. A tree had fallen across my half of the road. It was long dead and trimmed, leaving it like a telephone-pole sized spiked club. It was partially hidden by poor lighting, a curve, and a hill, and I came within a few feet of doing thousands of dollars of damage to my car. I managed to spot it in time, went around, and then I parked just past it, got out of the car, and hauled the tree out of the road.
With that act, it feels quite possible that I saved some nameless stranger from large expenses and hours of stress. I'll never know who, or if. But doing that felt good. Prosocial. Made me feel strong and competent.
But the real reward was getting to tell the story to my dad. I wound him up with expectations before revealing that I did not fuck up my car. And I got to see, when I mentioned picking up a tree and moving it, a flash of pride on his face at his son's casual might.
A flash of pride that I am reliving by telling the story now. And it occurs to me that this perk is probably a critical mechanism for inspiring people to do random, notable good deeds. And as a man who usually prefers his social invisibility, having one of these stories to tell is one of the rare times I'm happy to draw attention to myself. So.
What was your most recent good deed? Your greatest? And how does your willingness to preform them vary with how much social accolades you expect from people around you?
I suppose a perk of medicine is that I get in my good deed quota on a daily basis, while getting paid for it. I tried offering first aid to a lady lying in the middle of the street (and somehow also holding on to a wooden chair of unknown origin), but the local security shooed me away after confirming paramedics were enroute. I think she was drunk, concussed or both. I also hold open doors, and I gave a hot woman her expensive looking scarf back when it fell out of her bag.
(Her being hot had nothing to do with it, I'd have done it for anyone without an obvious, contagious dermatological illness)
Now that I note that you also asked about "greatest" good deeds, well, I did talk at least 3 people out of commiting suicide, outside of my capacity as a psychiatrist.
Yeah, as a doctor your day job is often going to qualify as "helping someone", at least by the prompt. Out of work examples would fit the bill, or times you went above and beyond for a patient, enough that you would want to brag about it to coworkers.
When I was a teenager, I suffered a bizarre injury to my eye. I had to take some kind of medicine to keep the pressure down, but I got the flu at the same time, and couldn't keep the medicine down. And the optomitrist who was taking care of me made freaking house calls. In his Porche, in the snow to come check on me, every day for a week, until he decided I needed surgery, and then he did the surgery.
It's been 25 years and my family still talks about the lengths that man went to to save my eye.
An optometrist helped diagnose me with an autoimmune disease. I had been having eye pain for a week or so, went to see a generalist who half-assedly assumed it was a bacterial conjunctivitis, prescribed me antibiotics which only made my eye feel worse. I looked for an emergency optometrist, the one that had appointments on shorter notice was in a small but fancy glasses store downtown. Went there, the optometrist checked my eye and she diagnosed it as a uveitis instead. Started me on steroid drops that helped, but then she asked me questions about stuff that seemed unrelated, like do I often get back pain. Is it at rest or from exercise that I get back pain. Indeed, I had been having back pain for years, that physiotherapist have been trying unsuccessfully to help me with.
Turns out having a uveitis was atypical at my age and in my condition, so she suspected there must have been more. She had me check with an ophtalmologist that specialises in uveitis, who then referred me to a rheumatologist and ayuup, I have ankylosing spondilitis.
Sure, the optometrist helped me by "merely" doing her job well, but to be honest she could have just treated the uveitis and I would never have thought that she had been negligent.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link