When the TV drama ‘House’ was at the peak of its popularity, at least 2-3 patients a week would ask me if I knew this guy – the character, Dr James Wilson from the show.
Now, it’s only a couple of patients a month that ask, but he clearly made an impact on the audience as they still remember him despite the show finishing in 2012.
Curiosity still hasn’t got the better of me. I’ve not watched a single episode of House. But when a patient told me that I shared a lot in common with the character, I thought it at least warranted a Google.
From what I read, for the most part, I am incredibly flattered. House is a modern take on the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. They’ve been updated and relocated to a hospital setting. Wilson is the Watson to House’s Holmes. Reading the Sherlock Holmes stories as a child, I always preferred the loyal, sensitive, considered Watson to Holmes – who I always considered to be a bit flashy!
Google tells me that the fictional Dr James Wilson is compassionate and empathetic. He acts as the moral compass for the maverick, but ethically questionable House. Which are, of course, characteristics that I’m grateful to be associated with, but part of me also worries that he might be the sort of person I’d not be rushing to meet at a party.
A quick trip to YouTube put my mind at ease. Dr James Wilson also seems to be quite humorous and light-hearted, something that I hope I can be too. I’ve seen how maintaining a sense of fun has helped many of my patients – particularly when their treatment and the choices they sometimes have to make can feel difficult and heavy. I always think a person’s ability to laugh is a good indicator of how they are doing. I’ll always aim to maintain your quality of life – which must include play and fun.
I did, of course, recognise the actor who plays my namesake – Robert Sean Leonard. Though I only really know him from the late 80s classic ‘The Dead Poets Society’. I watched this again recently and enjoyed it as much as I did then. It’s become a little hackneyed, but ‘Carpe Diem’ really isn’t a bad philosophy for life. Though for whatever reason, the quote from that film that still rings in my ears is the warning that ‘Sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone’ which probably gives you too much of an insight into how I differ from the Dr James Wilson from the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.
I’m writing this post in a sticky, overcrowded King’s Cross train station on a wet summer Friday evening. Coming from the North East, but living and working in London means that I have spent a lot of my life either on the East Coast main line or excitedly waiting at King’s Cross to meet people when they come to visit.
For the last hour, I have been refreshing the arrivals information on my phone every couple of minutes, hoping that the train that my sister is on somehow miraculously speeds up. I know this is pointless because every time I refresh it there’s an extra few minutes added to the already delayed arrival time.
It’s really easy to bash the trains and just complain about how they always let us down, but when I look behind my annoyance I see there’s a lovely reason for me getting cross or annoyed. The reason I’m here is because I’m excited about seeing people that I love, miss, and care about. I’m always genuinely touched that they’ve made the effort to come down to see me and spend their weekends with me. It’s these things that make life fun and make us feel connected and valued.
Alternatively, I’ve got a more serious reason for travelling. It might be that a member of my family is unwell, and I need to get up to see them quickly both to put my mind at rest and to offer any help that I can. So, when I’m delayed in those situations I feel my heartrate go up and I spend the whole journey sitting on the edge of my seat, willing the train to speed up, tapping my watch and turning down the offer of drinks from the refreshment trolley.
This same anxiety and frustration is something that I see in patients sitting in a waiting room. There must be nothing worse than waiting to see your oncologist to get the results of your most recent scan and constantly being told that they’re running late.
The joy of my private clinic is that this just doesn’t happen. I’m able to schedule the appointments to give the amount of time that each patient needs. There’s no double booking. There’s no rushing to finish up other tasks when I should be in clinic. The time is set aside for us to have a proper conversation. It also means that when we meet, we know how long we have, we’re as relaxed as we can be, and I can get to you at the time that I say I get to you. It’s very rare for me to have to change these times and when that does happen, I will be having personal communication with you long before the event to reduce any anxieties or confusion. I won’t be telling you that I haven’t got your recent results because they’ve not been reported – I’ve had plenty of time to prepare for our meeting so we can make the best use of your time. I can also give you written copies of your results and a record of our consultation on the same day, so there’s no waiting around for that.
The maxim that the best things in life comes to those who wait may by true – but not when it comes to train journeys or seeing your oncologist.