Each year, thousands of people immigrate to the United States. Regardless of what country they come from, they all carry the same luggage: a unique culture, a religion, and a way of thinking. Some people safely store these three things as their carry on items, but others lets their bags be placed with the rest of the heavy luggage in the storage compartment of the plane. Sure, JKF tends to loose bags every now and then, but the majority of these bags slowly disappear once the immigrants settle in. Some traditional values fade away, but the fact that they aren’t innately American stays with them forever. It is this social identity that unites all immigrants, regardless of what country they come from.
Photograph provided by http://www.seiu.org
My mother, an immigrant from Belarus, recently had a very heart warming encounter with a patient from India. The woman came into the office utterly distressed. She had given birth and her entire mouth mysteriously ached. She didn’t have any dental problems, yet multiple doctors told her to have all fillings replaced. Two things were for certain. First, the procedure would be costly. Second, it was an obvious scheme for dentists to profit from a naïve but otherwise healthy patient. As my mom discerned, there was no need for the dental work.
The woman, at a loss for what to do, told my mother about her difficult pregnancy. She admitted that life after the delivery wasn’t any easier. She had a body that hurt and a baby that she didn’t love.
Carefully contemplating the information, my mother told her that all those symptoms derived from stress. The magic remedy to fix her problems? No, not an operation, but instead, more rest.
The woman returned to my mother’s office a few months later, smiling and fully recovered. She thanked my mother for her non-traditional advice. Encountering a dentist, one who had a foreign culture and mindset, treated the woman in the most unexpected of ways. Perhaps, the woman was even more willing to listen because my mother was an immigrant like herself.
Whether it was the common distrust of capitalistic American dentists, or a need to be heard, the two immigrant women created a bond.
Nastassia, you have a gift to capture the details in life because you frequently notice cultural conflicts that take place at insignificant places. Even in a small dental office in Forest Hills, you can detect the magical bond created between an immigrant dentist from Belarus and a distressed foreign woman. From the mutual bonding, you advance to explore the cultural conflicts between immigrant dentists and capitalistic American dentists. You have very keen observations.
It’s amazing at how much waste and useless operations there are every year. The only reason doctors do them is to get more money from insurance companies or Medicaid.
As you would know, back in the USSR, there were no “superfluous operations”. My great-grandfather and grandparents were doctors and the one thing they always believed in is that you should never do anything that is not needed. That’s the problem with doctors nowadays. Doctors only care about money.
Think about. Anytime you walk into a doctor’s office, the first question isn’t “what’s the matter with you?”. It is “what kind of insurance do you have?” People became doctors for the primary reason of helping out in the community. Now, it looks like doctors care about making profits.
That is why I don’t like most doctors. The only doctors that I truly respect are VA and military doctors. They don’t make as much as their peers who work in hospitals or in private practices, BUT they do good to the nation.
I really enjoyed your piece. It really showed the problem of medical waste and the profit seeking motives of doctors.