A friend of mine, one of the ship’s doctors, once told me a story that he assured me was true, which had unfolded in a hospital in Australia where he was working. A patient, a sheep farmer, was having his bottom examined by a specialist who, after a long look, stood up and said, “You really need to see a vet.” The farmer was outraged by this apparent attempt to introduce levity into what, for him, was an episode of some discomfort and huge embarrassment, and grabbed my friend by the neck and was about to beat the crap out of him…….when the doctor stated that the specialist had, in fact, been referring him to the bottom specialist doctor………..Yvette.
There’s no doctor story as funny as a really funny vet story, a truth that James Herriot mined so successfully. I loved his books as a kid and I am sure many of you may have seen the All Creatures Great and Small TV series on PBS. In fact, at one point I considered becoming a vet right up to the point when I failed biology, chemistry and physics and I realized I was as thick as a piece of 2 by 4…………bugger.
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