European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 06, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 18 the stars and stripes monday june 6, 1977 modern Medicine if you Are sick Cal the doctor yourself by Michael j. Halberstam  feel sick says the husband. If you feel Side Why Don t you Call the doctor says the wife. I Don t feel that sick says the , then Stop complaining says the wife. Well i still feel sick and i Don t think should go to work says the husband. Weh. I la Call the doctor for you if you won t do it yourself says the wife. And so the wife Calls me and i get angry. 1get angry because even though i m a phys Dan i m human and like every human have particular likes and dislikes among people and about my Job. As a doctor one of my pet peeves is receiving phone Calls from one member of the family about the illness of another member of the family. I do not enjoy it when a husband or wife Calls me today his or her spouse is ill and then goes on to recite a whole list of symptoms. The phone Call often ends with the caller asking me either to prescribe something or to Sec if can t persuade the patient to come into the office. I Don t like this kind of phone Call because As an internist i be chosen to practice adult Medicine rather than paediatric or Veteri nary Medicine. I find that making a diagnosis is one of the crucial things in my Field and i also find that the most common Way to arrive at a diagnosis is by obtaining the his tory directly from the  Don t like intermediaries in the process except of course when the patient is so terribly ill that he or she cannot even get to the phone to describe the  suspect one reason i and Many other doctors do not like the kind of phone Call described above is that it gives a glimpse of an unsettled or somewhat unhealthy family relationship. U suggests a family in which one member or another no matter How Oldie or he May be plays the part of a child while another plays the part of the  makes me a Little uneasy when one member of the family has to use another member As a go Between before acknowledging that he or she is sick. I Don t like to encourage this kind of dependency among my patients or among any others for that matter. There Are other reasons Why i think patients ought to be responsible for making their own appointments and for describing their own symptoms. For one thing a patient who has his appointment made by his wife for example is often a resentful patient when he finally arrives in my office. He feels Dragoone into seeking medical care he did t really want. No doctor likes to take care of reluctant adults children Are another matter it s also Clear that in obtaining a medical history or even a Brief list of symptoms a great Deal can go wrong when the history i transmitted second hand. I be had husbands All up to ten me that their wives were terribly sick and could t get out of bed Only to find when 1 talked to the patient directly that the problem was quite specifically localized to the Throat or the ear. The key to obtaining some kind of idea of what is the matter with the patient Over the phone and Telephone screening is a crucial part of Modem medical practice is finding out what single thing bothers the patient the most and then proceeding from there. Obviously if this information is received second hand it can be quite misleading. Again. I realize that there Are some situations where one family member feels he or she must Contact the doctor on behalf of an other but these occasions Are comparatively rare. I personally feel so strongly about on adult calling needlessly on behalf of another that in a Booklet i give to All new patients specificity request them whenever possible to can on their own behalf. Not All doctor feel the same Way i do nor need they feel the same Way. Yet most i think agree that to the greatest extent possible an individual should be responsible for his or her own medical care certainly to the extent of making initial Contact with the physician. On a York Tim Art Buchwald Washington there is a lot of talk about Reform in education. Haven t Given this problem much thought until recently when i went on the commencement talk  dawned on me that everywhere i went there was something wrong with the graduating class. I could t put my Finger on it until the students started to receive their diplomas. Then it hit me the most prevailing discrimination in our schools has to do with people names. In every graduating class the students whose names started witha b. C and up to l had the Best seats up front. The graduates whose last names started with m to z were tuck in the Back. They could not even see the platform because the a to l people were wearing mortar boards and blocking their  a to l group was always the first in the graduation procession marching smartly Down the aisles As parents kept snapping photos of them. The m to z group straggled behind listlessly failing to keep in step knowing that by the time they walked by their parents Wouldhave run out of film. After the hymns and speeches the president started to award the diplomas. The audience would be up for the a s and the b s and these students would get the loudest applause. But i noticed As time went on the crowd would become More and More bored and the applause godless and less. By the time the president got to Mindlin the Only applause you could hear was from the graduate s relatives. When Wyzinski received his diploma it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. If it was just graduation exercises we would t have to worry about the problem. But alphabetical discrimination begins the Day a child enters grammar school for the first  the kids move on to High school the alphabetical discrimination continues. If they apply for College the a to l group s applications Are always on the top of the pile. It takes weeks sometimes months for the College admissions director to get Down to  state universities have been aware of the problem and to solve it they give students numbers instead of names. The Only thin wrong with this system is that the numbers Are issued alphabetically and the a to l group get the lower numbers and the m to z group Are stuck with ones so Long that they Are impossible to remember. The final indignity comes when the student graduates from Colle geor University Ana can t find a Job. He or she then has to go to the unemployment office to pick up a Check. Ackerman gets his by 9 30 in the morning and can spend the rest of the Day at the movies. Zuckerman is still there until 5 and has blown the whole  is obviously needed is an equal alphabetical rights Amend ment to guarantee against discrimination in last names. I be Only talked to two people about it. Gloria Steinem said she would fight for it. But Bella Abzug said i was out of my mind. Across beginning for Ester or Antic 4 pronoun7 likeness 12 some13 pub drink ii appraised 15 layer16 unequal 18 the Middle Hiram 19 Roma official 20 kind of pear22 Spanish queen23 Large Lake 27 alamos29 essence 31 durable wood34 badge like animal35 frequents 37 storage receptacle 38 son of aphrodite 39 win chalice 41 armadillo 45 dens17 Uncle dial 48 discredit 52 sesame.53 Arab ruler Var 54 one of the Little women"55 turkish officer56 exhaust 57 equal comb form 58 actress Myrna Down 1 master in India 2 january in Spain 3 tropical Birds 4 Angle of a fault plane 5 ignores 6 varnish. Ingredient 7 Dies 8 disfigure 9 one time 10 ending for tar or for u Netherlands commune 17 builder s need21 social today s crossword avg. Solution time 27 min. Answer to saturday s Puzzle. 23 babylonian hero24 Dull routine 25 wrath26 Moray 28 table scrap30 greek nickname31 Guevara 32 sense organ33 couple 36 River to the Moselle 37 canal boats40 Florida City 42 Flower part43 Juan s friend44 kind of race 45 grease46 edible bulb 4s moines49 mischievous child50 Bishopric 51 Small enclosure 3b 22 25 6-6 Ann Landers dear Ann our government is Busy preserving our natural re  we have to programs to promote the Protection of wild life Trees and Waterways. Campaigns Are waged to fight pollution. But our children Are this country s most valuable Nat ural resource and they need pro  heard or. Judianne Densen Gerber of new York speak at Achurch in Iny Neil boyhood recently. Her subject was child abuse. I am not talking about battered children although there Are thousands of those. I am talk ing about another kind of  snowed pornographic Litera Ture which contained pictures of children in lewd positions an told How to discipline your child physically. It was apparent that the discipline was designed to give sexual stimulation to the Parent. These children some As Young As six years of age must be protected against parents who sell them As models for sex  need Laws to protect our children. They will be written Only if there is pressure from the Public. Will you please print this letter and make some com ments something must be done. Jennifer g.  mrs. A i visited with or. Judianne Densen Gerber privately and was shown the same tote Rattre and pictures Yon  made me sick. I immediately contacted Nan Diamond Kovner the chief of Public Protection at the . At Torney s office in Chicago. She told me that due to the recent publicity there has been height ened interest not Only by sickle who want to boy the stuff but pressure groups eager to prose cute the dealers and pot an end to the whole Rotten business. Consequently kid Pom has gone underground. But eventually the dealers who be caught. Mrs. Rovner said the Illinois state legislature in now working on Laws which would classify this horror not As pornography but child abuse which h most certainly is. Another reassuring note .customs, in conjunction with the . Attorneys and the Federal courts 1s now destroying Tou of idd Pom As it arrives from for eign countries. Anyone who knows of shop where idd Pom is being Sou should Contact the local police Orthe . Attorney s office in their District at once. Dear Ann please say some thing about dinner guests who bring along a Friend or relative at the very last minute. They show up at the door and say i know you won t mind. One More does t make any  u can make a lot of difference when you have eight dining room chairs eight desserts made up. Service for eight in your goo China Silver and glassware. This happened to me last night and i am boiling. The one extra that did t make any differ ence ruined the looks of my table and threw off the seating pan i had slaved Over for a hour. Burned in Westchester dear burned Yon took the words right out of my  is a letter i can identify with and i thank Yon on behalf of every hostess everywhere. Clip find . Inc