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How To Be a Doctor

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This is intended to be humorous, not cynical.

I actually have a high opinion of most doctors

and think they are entitled to high incomes

after years of preparation with no earnings.

* * * * *

As retiring physician, allow me to give
Some suggestions on how to both doctor and live.

You have finally finished the studies required.
You're a doctor at last, but in debt deeply mired.
With degree on display, your career can begin.
After years of no income, it's time to cash in.

You will millions more make if you're not an MD,
Even if you must then a proctologist be.
Special privileges, perks, and attention demand.
And invest every cent of your savings in land.

Keep your patients in waiting rooms cooling their heels
Then insist you're so busy you're skipping your meals.
Its decor should be drab and its magazines old,
And consulting rooms bare and depressing and cold.

Give complainants placebos to run up the bill,
And then schedule more visits although they're not ill.
Tell them exercise, diet, don't smoke, and no booze.
Then ignore that yourself; do whatever you choose.

Order unneeded tests to help pay off your loan,
And when golfing or sailing, don't answer your phone.
Always scribble prescriptions to druggists confuse.
Soak the rich and the medicare system abuse.

At the hospital, patient discharges delay
So insurers must pay for additional day.
Stick your head in the doors to consulting fees earn,
And treat nurses like dummies who never will learn.

Drive a Rolls or a Bentley to yokels impress.
And to ward off malpractice suits, never confess
That your sure diagnosis or treatment was wrong.
And you must to Republican party belong.

Be a country club member to join the elite.
Have disdain for inferior people you meet.
Don't give in to temptation to patients caress.
Keep a mistress instead at a secret address.

As a doctor endeavor to give all you've got,
Then retire at age fifty and live on your yacht.

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