Beware of the Doctors

A friend told me: today as usual I was on my way to the college. I took the train to south London. The train was nearly empty and I sat near the window and took my favourite book and an Snicker bar out of my bag, continued reading. While waiting for the train to depart, two elegant gentlemen with nice suits and bags, step in the train and put their stuff on the near set of seats with table, in front of each other. One of them was a bit older about forty five or fifty with short gray hair and a pair of nice glasses, and the other one was around thirty five or so, a bit overweighed with long black hair, nicely groomed clean hippy beard and nice thin fashionable glasses ; he quickly ran to the toilet.The older man brought a morning free news paper out of his yellow leather bag and put it in front on the table, from the side of some drink adverts. He looked around and then started staring at the drink advertisements the same as he was reading or investigating something quite serious, gravely.I started reading the book and soon the story absorbed me in itself. However, it did not take long that I could not continue reading, because now the two men were sitting in front of each other and exchanging some words, comfortable loud, very literately and charming.Honestly I was disturbed again and again because of their loud voice and I could not concentrate even for a second. I looked around once. The head of both men were down looking at the newspaper advert in silence. The young man exclaimed: Jesus. And both kept staring down in quite. I started reading again.The mobile of the older man rang and he started a lout conversation. He was truly loud but I could feel that he was not loud because he had problem with hearing or his throat, but probably because of massive confidence, in disregarding the presence of people around him in some ways. He spoke very confidently using a mixture of political and medical terminology and referring to NHS and some other related departments and organisations frequently. I stopped reading again looking at my book blankly. I could not fantasize the book content any more while the medical terminology stitched my mind reminding some unpleasant memories from very past time, when I was studying physiology at the University of Tehran, two decade ago. The telephone conversation of the man took maybe more than five minutes while I was looking at the far distant green landscapes south London. Then his telephone conversation was finished.Then the two men start exchanging some short sentences, chortling in between, regarding the same subject that the older man was earlier talking. I tried to concentrate reading my book again until the two men again started to talk again at full volume chuckling now and then. It appeared to me that both gentlemen were medical doctors, and obviously specialists in something.The younger man referred to an incidence that upset him earlier that morning. Apparently one of his colleagues had upset him because of his or her naivety, in culture or background or something; obviously he was using a posh language, using words, delivering concepts much higher than my verbal skill repertoire, and understanding, obviously.The older man soothingly asked him to say more about the incident. The younger man spoke about a “she”, one of his colleagues, a GP or some thing from somewhere that I could not register were. “A sixty nine years old man had referred to her, last night. Her diagnostic was that he should visit a specialist immediately…then she gave me a ring. She wanted to refer to me. I totally disagreed to the diagnostic. My diagnostic was completely different. I explained that her diagnostic is completely wrong. That was it.”“And what happened then?”“She called me today. She said that the man died earlier this morning.”“Because of the same diagnostic?”“Yes. She was very upset. Very upset.” While he was stressing on the word “upset” each time, a bit louder, as he finished his sentence.The older friend, soothing his upset young friend, chortling asked: “where is she from?”“umm, she studied in America; she was born here. Manchester I think. Then she moved to America with her family many years ago; studied in America; American system; worked over there for a while; then came back to the UK.”“American system”“Yeah; cultural difference; there, they think differently; different culture. American system.”They both laughed at it.“Different culture, yeah!”They changed the subject soon. Then the mobile of the older man rang again and he started another long conversation again. He was so loud, disturbing everyone in the carriage, confident enough to look at every ones face and ignore them.Luckily I had to get off the train before he was finished.