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WALKING MED
THE WALKING MED
By Robert G. Johnson, MD
Okay, it’s not a scientific study—neither double blinded nor highly contagious, not controlled by hand washing or foaming
statistically blessed. But it was prospective and randomized in its in/out and infected fomites are found in every room of every
own way. I chose ten colleagues—just ten other docs who hap- building everywhere.
pened to be walking toward me in a hospital corridor. I looked
them in the eye and said ‘Hi’, or ‘Hello’ or, ‘How ya doin’’. Seven Signs and symptoms: Mesmerizing stobe-like eyes, flat facial
out of ten responded, some with enthusiasm, others with a grunt. features, droning key-click voice—you guessed it—a forme fruste
A full three out of ten (thirty percent) ignored my salutation— of folie a deux—you remember from first year psychology: a pre-
strolled on by like I was a case of smallpox. viously sane person living with an insane partner becomes like
them. What do we live with, breathe with, have nooners with and
A pretty significant number, thirty percent. I found no corre- caress more passionately than our spouses?
lation of the response or lack thereof with gender, specialty, or
time of the day (although a couple had just eaten in the doctors’ COMPUTERS! Is there a cure (besides the wooden spike
lounge). The one factor that tended toward significance was age. through the heart—or is that vampires)? Sadly no. But there’s
The zombies were younger. I guestimate that the virus probably treatment: chill out, get some fresh air, purchase a fountain pen
mutated some ten or fifteen years ago. Older farts (myself at the (they’re endangered), write your mother a letter…
forefront) have built up an immunity of sorts. We still remember
the old days, when doctors learned language skills and cursive. Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), was a professor of English
and communication theory long before laptops and cell phones.
What are the symptoms of this ‘walking med’ virus (I suppose it His electronic gremlin was television. He coined phrase “the
could be a fungus)? Flat-ish affect, blank-ish staring, paucity of ex- medium is the message”. He taught that the medium is always
pressive movement (facial or extremities), monotone voice. Don’t embedded in its message, forming a symbiotic relationship. The
get me wrong—these are well trained and smart zombies; it’s just medium introduces changes subtly and over a long period of time.
that—you know—they only seem to show overt signs of an emo- For example, television regularly reports on the commission of
tional life when seated in front of a computer. Then it’s—wow— heinous crimes. After a while, we focus less on the details of the
flashing pupils, flying spit and whirring fingertips. I’m pretty sure I crime and more on the fact that we watch such events over dinner
witnessed one of them even kissing their computer bye-bye. and in our living rooms. Television desensitizes and changes public
attitudes to crime.
Epidemiologists have looked into the etiology. It has some sim-
ilarities to sleeping sickness—could be a trypanosome. Others I’m not paranoid. But my computer is.
suggest a ‘lack-of-sleeping’ sickness. Hmmm. That’s hard to ex- Does this DELL make my butt look like a flat screen?
plain when it’s the old guys like me who went through the 120
hours-a-week residencies. I’m no medical sleuth, but I have a Robert G. Johnson, MD, is an orthopaedic surgeon,
humble opinion on the etiology of the walking med disease. It’s a BCMS member and a frequent contributor to San
Antonio Medicine.
visit us at www.bcms.org 27
