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When did my colleagues grow so old? When did the women and men I’ve known for thirty years start to stoop and tremble? When did all the old Chiefs die?
When did my colleagues grow so old?
When did the women and men I’ve known
for thirty years start to stoop and tremble?
When did all the old Chiefs die?
Who are the young ones who have replaced them?
Why are there more administrators here
than doctors? And why is the new Chief
buttering the hospital CEO’s bun?
Maybe I should turn off my bad attitude
with a gin and tonic, lighten up and grin
at the gray-bearded man talking to me
from inside the cracked ballroom mirror:
Grow up. Medicine is business.
Only patients’ appreciation matters.
And don’t you look funny in the role
of rebel, wearing your silk sport coat
and French shoes, an old stethoscope
in one pocket, a pad with scraps
of half-written poems in the other.