On Genius and Love

So, let's suppose that you're a urologist, and that one day a really, really smart person walks into your office. We're talking about MacArthur Fellowship level, someone at the pinnacle of their field, one of those rare intellectuals who's actually famous.

Now, let's say his child has a little problem of the urological sort, and he presents with child in tow, anxious as heck that the family jewels aren't right. You examine the child, and he has a minor, minor defect that you name with its urological name. But though the patient's father's a genius, he's not a doctor. So you've got to explain things to him at the same second grade level that you use with all your non-medical patients.

After all, medicine doesn't discriminate against Nobel laureates...

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I don't know how single residents do it. I think they probably eat out a lot and get into more car accidents. They probably smell more, too. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have someone to bake me sweet potato fries when I'm too exhausted to eat, or who offers to drive me into the hospital when I get a page at 1:30 in the morning. I understand the temptation to wear scrubs all the time, or invest in a laundry service. I haven't had the time to do laundry in three months, even though our machine is one flight downstairs in our garage.

Which all goes to say that it ain't easy living with a resident. My man puts up with 6am wake up calls, interrupted meals, and the presence of urology textbooks in his living room as coffee-table books. When I say "we" ought to do something, he no longer assumes that I'm talking in the plural, and thus he has done a lion's share of laundry, dishwashing, toilet scrubbing and garden watering.

I guess it's a good thing that I'm marrying a saint.