Hairdressers and Surgeons

People look at other people all day long. We observe fellow humans with eyes, noses and mouths—arms and legs. And while we all understand that each person has the same body parts, we also note that there are variations in size and proximate location. Some people have wide set eyes. Some people have upturned noses. Some people are full or thin lipped. Some people are very tall or very short.

Yet I think most humans do not realize that the same variations observed in external organs, vary internally as well. Livers and hearts and lungs and spines are common to all but are as individual as our faces. It’s what makes medicine so tricky---particularly surgery. Medicine is not absolute. Engaging the service of a physician is not as easy as hiring a plumber or an electrician when a pipe leaks or a switch blows out. Good medicine is an artform as much as it is a science.

Finding the right surgeon is like finding the right hairdresser. Good hairdressers understand the texture and curl (or lack thereof) and volume of an individuals’ hair. Good hairdressers recognize variations. A good hairdresser would know that coifing a “bob” on me will not produce the same results as coifing a “bob” on an Asian woman. Our hair is the same—made of keratin—but how the protein chains of the individual molecules fold back on themselves is different. Adjustments must be made reflective of molecular nuances.

And all this thought is inspired by every person (myself included) who underwent a medical procedure that did not produce the result (either good or bad) predicted by the medical handbook---and inspired by the slip of paper inside my fortune cookie I received the other day which read: Health cannot be bought with doctors.