However, this week did have a couple of highlights. First, after four months of unpaid, noneducational drudgery at my summer internship, they finally published one of the articles I wrote. Of course they didn't tell me. Good thing I was about to send a hateful e-mail or else I never would have logged onto the site.
The other highlight came when I was fact-checking oodles of contact information for physicians featured in an upcoming issue. Among other things, we asked them to provide a quote pertaining to another article, and as I sifted through some of their e-mails, I was rather surprised by some of what I found. First, while many did not respond to a request for a quote at all, some went so far as to exercise their literary muscles and write up a whole little paragraph, complete with accurate attribution. Such as:
Dr. Freezie McSpeculum of Boston Hospital for the Infertile says nothing is more important than a patient's sense of humor. "I tell every patient I see that they have to sit through at least five minutes of my knock knock jokes before we even start medical histories," says the doctor, who's recent book "Blonde Jokes and Emergency Medicine: An Unlikely Pairing" recently made several national best seller lists.
Granted, only a couple of docs did this, but don't they have more important things to do than to try and do a journalists's work for them?
Also, in hearing he'd be featured in our magazine, one doctor enthused that his mother would be so delighted,but his wife is harder to please (?). a) That is what we call an overshare. b) How is being published in a city magazine the pinnacle of your career? You are a renowned doctor in your field, in one of the medical Meccas of the world.
Finally, the number of doctors who answered "yes" to a multiple choice question was truly astounding. You folks made it through medical school. You can do better than that.
