On Being a Doctor 2

Get your mind around this one: a salmonellosis outbreak over Fourth of July weekend. The state's only public health doctor swoops in like Eliot Ness after bootleggers, enters a branch of a national fast-food chain, and confiscates the burgers for laboratory testing. She stashes the evidence in her van and goes back into the restaurant to grill the food handlers under the bright light. While she's gone, her kids, left in the van, consume the evidence; she later berates them for “eating Mommy's work.” Neither kid gets sick; they are enrolled as controls in the subsequent study (1).

Or this one: the physician, a vice dean from academia, is on a transatlantic flight. You can picture him, graying at the temples, buttoned-up and precise, practicing his address for the impending international congress. Comes the intercom page: “Is there a doctor  … ?” No one else answers. He sees other doctor-types on board diving into their newspapers, pretending ignorance. The woman in first class is unconscious, stuporous, comatose, whatever—he hasn't been there in 20 years. Hypoglycemia is diagnosed …