A friend of mine recently found out a few years back that she had an aggressive form of breast cancer. She went to many doctors, but all of them told her she had to have a mastectomy and undergo radiation therapy. That seemed really unappealing to her. She finally was told about a “doctor of last resort” – the doctor people go to when nothing else seems to be working. She had settled on the mastectomy option, but decided first to go see this doctor, just in case.
“I’m here because I have an aggressive form of breast cancer,” she told him when they sat down together in his office. “Everyone else has told me I needed to have a mastectomy and get radiation. That just sounds awful to me but they’ve all said the same thing.”
He nodded gravely. “I’m glad you found me. I am the one true doctor.” He paused for effect. “If you stick to me, I can help you. I’ll even make sure you don’t need a mastectomy.”
She had heard about “false hope” before and found herself a bit skeptical. “The one true doctor? How do you know? Why doesn’t everyone know about you if you can do what you say?”
“Well, for one thing, I have all my patients call me Fred. It’s more personal, that way, see. And that way they can identify me from all the other false doctors out there. Do you know any other doctors who do that?”
“Well, no” she said, “but that doesn’t seem like enough to say you’re the ONE true doctor.”
“Maybe not, but I love my patients very much, and they love me. I even have them come over to my house for dinner – they’re welcome anytime. How many doctors do you know where you see that kind of love shown to complete strangers?”
She frowned. “Well, all of that sounds pretty good, but what about medicine? Where did you go to medical school?”
“That’s another reason I’m the one true doctor. I didn’t need to go to medical school. My textbook was handed down for generations and has the oldest wisdom. I rely on it completely. In fact, that’s where I get the treatment plans.”
“And you’ve been successful with that?” she asked.
“Oh yes. That’s another thing that makes me the only true doctor. Part of my treatment plan is that all of my patients are required to tell all of their coworkers and acquaintances about me. They get a discount if they do, and besides the physical activity helps them. Would you have heard about me from your friends if I wasn’t successful? Wouldn’t they all be dead or go find other doctors?”
She stopped to think for a minute. It seemed like a good argument. She started thinking about all these different reasons Fred showed her to prove that he was the only true doctor. She realized there weren’t any other doctors like him at all. “Is there anything else?” she asked.
“There’s one last thing that you’ll never see another doctor do, one final proof that I’m the one true doctor. All of my patients, you know the ones who have dinner with me every night and call me Fred, they leave their friends and family and they move in with me to get closer supervision over their treatment. And they make friends with the other patients. It’s like a family. You’ve never seen such close relationships. They help each other.”
My friend didn’t have a lot of other friends and she’d never been close with her family, so this all seemed like a good idea to her. And really, it was a lot of evidence – patients got to use his first name and really felt his love and attention. She’d never seen such a unique marketing campaign and his treatment plan, based on the wisdom of the ages and isolated from other kinds of treatment plans seemed like it was worth trying.
At the time I tried to tell her it seemed a little cultish, you know – maybe you should do some research before dedicating too much time and pinning too many hopes on Fred – there are a lot of other doctors out there. She told me I was a doubter and listed off all the reasons why he was the one true doctor.
Three years later, I ran into my friend at the grocery store. I hadn’t seen her in a long time – once she moved to Fred’s none of us saw much of her again. She looked terrible. She was in a wheelchair with an IV drip – one of her friends was pushing her. I asked her how she was doing and she said she was great – Fred said she’d be cured any day now. That was the last time I saw her. At her funeral, I overheard two of her fellow Fred patients talking to each other.
“Apparently she had one last conversation with Fred before she died. She asked Fred why it seemed like the cure was worse than the disease – maybe she should’ve just had that mastectomy. ““Cure” Fred said, “Who said anything about a cure? I told you that I could help you and that you wouldn’t have to have a mastectomy. If you thought I said anything else, you were mistaken.””
