Saturday
Then: Great Hands
While you need a caregiving doctor you trust inherently, when it comes to a surgeon, you just need great hands.
Dr. Horst Zincke, the German-trained surgeon who operated on me, spent only 15 minutes with me prior to surgery. Obviously world-class and world-renowned, Zincke didn't practice a warm ‘bedside manner’. He was all business. He merely had to look at test results, do his own digital exam, and he knew instantly the course of action he’d follow.
Carla, armed with white binder and printouts from the Web, even a video script where Zincke was the on-camera expert, tried to begin her questions with Zincke. But he was gone in a flash, and we had resident Dr. D’Angelo to field the questions.
I only saw Zincke once more. When he shook my hand over the operating table before I was put out, I said something stupid: “I feel ready.” Zincke probably thought: ”I don’t care how you feel. I’m splitting you open now and going deep to get the bastard out.”
Carla talked to Zincke immediately following surgery, when he was already dressed in a suit and heading for the airport on a business trip. And again, this was a five-minute "just the facts m’amm" encounter.
I'm still amused thinking two scenarios. When we showed Utz the list of 23 nutritional supplements that oncologist Dr. Mitch Gaynor prescribed in February, 2002, a couple of months before surgery, his only comment was: “Don’t show this to Dr. Zincke. He’s been known to simply get up and walk out on patients who talk about alternative therapies.”
Also amusing is the thought of Zincke spotting at my bedside post-surgery a colorful folded cloth filled with little sticks and stones. “What’s that?” Zincke would ask. “Oh that’s my medicine bag from my shaman healer who came down from the mountaintops of South America,” I’d reply. ¶ 1:47 PM
Dr. Horst Zincke, the German-trained surgeon who operated on me, spent only 15 minutes with me prior to surgery. Obviously world-class and world-renowned, Zincke didn't practice a warm ‘bedside manner’. He was all business. He merely had to look at test results, do his own digital exam, and he knew instantly the course of action he’d follow.
Carla, armed with white binder and printouts from the Web, even a video script where Zincke was the on-camera expert, tried to begin her questions with Zincke. But he was gone in a flash, and we had resident Dr. D’Angelo to field the questions.
I only saw Zincke once more. When he shook my hand over the operating table before I was put out, I said something stupid: “I feel ready.” Zincke probably thought: ”I don’t care how you feel. I’m splitting you open now and going deep to get the bastard out.”
Carla talked to Zincke immediately following surgery, when he was already dressed in a suit and heading for the airport on a business trip. And again, this was a five-minute "just the facts m’amm" encounter.
I'm still amused thinking two scenarios. When we showed Utz the list of 23 nutritional supplements that oncologist Dr. Mitch Gaynor prescribed in February, 2002, a couple of months before surgery, his only comment was: “Don’t show this to Dr. Zincke. He’s been known to simply get up and walk out on patients who talk about alternative therapies.”
Also amusing is the thought of Zincke spotting at my bedside post-surgery a colorful folded cloth filled with little sticks and stones. “What’s that?” Zincke would ask. “Oh that’s my medicine bag from my shaman healer who came down from the mountaintops of South America,” I’d reply. ¶ 1:47 PM
