Images of Doctors

My mother and I just love the Anne books (Anne of Green Gables, Avonlea, the Island, Windy Poplars, House of Dreams, and Ingleside). This is something that we don’t share with my sister Chip. She can’t abide books with too much narration, lol. She likes them with plenty of dialogue. Anyway, as of the moment, I’m rereading (at the same time I’m reading a Waldorf book, a parenting book, and “Jacob Have I Loved”, lol) “Anne’s House of Dreams”, which is about the beginning of her married life with Gilbert Blythe. Gilbert is about to start his practice as a doctor in a place called Four Winds.

Sometimes I wish I still live in a time when doctors make house calls, are conscious of their bedside manner, and wear top hats and tail coats, etc. Of course, now doctors wear medical uniforms lab coats, which are more “clinical”, I suppose. Maybe it’s also more practical? For instance, it’s quite common for doctors, especially the young ones, to be wearing jeans under discount scrub tops. Naturally, as what is usual when it comes to clothes, there are regular kinds and special kinds. To those in the know, they probably aspire to wear high fashion scrubs. I suppose they’re as high fashion as medical wear can get, something to do with color, material, cut, etc.

Of course, it’s not only the uniforms that have evolved. When I think of Dr. Watson or doctors in Agatha Christie novels, they’re definitely different from doctors in Sue Grafton novels. It’s just the hazard of time, I guess. I tried imagining Gilbert Blythe and Anne Shirley as characters in today’s TV shows and immediately stopped. Their values wouldn’t allow them to fit.