Everyone needs a Denny. Some character, perhaps a little rough around the edges that introduces you to the idea that, sometimes, Typhoid only disappears with the disappearance of the sewer. Some character that helps you see the reality of small towns laden with bureaucratic, red tape. Some character that tells the truth—raw and painful though it may be to hear that your new employer isn’t actually going to be able to teach you much from his deathbed. Some character that tells you how things are actually done in the real world.
Especially in medicine, everyone needs a Denny.
Sometimes that Denny role turns out to be played by a different actor than the one you thought you cast. You know—the mentor who seems polar opposite? It turns out that therein lies the balance for your stage play where other characters foil you and end up teaching you something, precisely, because they aren't like you at all.
Everyone needs a Citadel. A shelter or stronghold to which one goes during battle. A place from whence you retrieve your soul stored under a big rock.
Sometimes that Citadel is an old novel from the 1930’s, written about some green doc establishing a medical practice in a coal mining town across the sea. A far away tale of medicine travelling your own soul back to you. An old tale curiously parallel and strangely relevant to your own little world.
