The Good Doctor by Thomas H Lee

Author:Thomas H Lee [Lee, Thomas H]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781260459210
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

7 Delivering Care to Those in the Greatest Need

THE GOOD DOCTOR

IN JANUARY 2016 Lara Johnson, took the stage in a school auditorium in East Dallas, Texas, not far from where she had graduated as valedictorian at Woodrow Wilson High School 23 years before. It was an event to thank high school teachers from around the region, and the crowd in the auditorium was probably expecting a pep talk of sorts—a tribute to Lara’s favorite teacher explaining how she had helped launch her on a path to becoming a primary care physician at nearby Parkland Health and Hospital System.

During her nine-minute talk (captured on video and posted at https://vimeo.com/253774401), the audience laughed as Lara admitted that she was nervous. It was her first time speaking to a large group since that valedictory speech. But then the audience fell silent as Lara said, “I am thrilled that I am here sharing my story with you, and not at a 12 Step Program, because things could have gone really differently.

“Growing up the child of a drug-addicted mother and an alcoholic father presents some unique challenges,” Lara continued. “You learn to read the emotional temperature of a room, and you learn how to defuse things. You learn how to try to put out fires rather than adding fuel to them. Passivity becomes a survival skill, and you spend a lot of your life as a quiet spectator rather than an active participant.

“When the adults around you can barely take care of themselves, you learn early on that you have to take care of yourself. You set your own alarm clock in the morning, you make your own breakfast, you pack your lunch, you do your own laundry, and a lot of days, you have to wake up an adult to take you to school.

“The one thing you learn to rely on is that you can’t rely on anything. The TV that you watched last night might be in the pawnshop today. The toilet might not flush because the water bill went unpaid—again. Your aunt might be sleeping on the sofa, sometimes alone, other times with a boyfriend. Your mom might not come home at night, and you find yourself actually hoping that she is in jail, where at least you know she is safe and not on the street.

“You begin to notice the cycles of the addict. There is the short-lived cycle—the longing, the planning, the doing whatever needs to be done to obtain the money, obtain the drugs or alcohol. Sometimes this meant popping hubcaps off cars at stoplights and other times shoplifting tools from Home Depot. Then there is the release, the relief from the pain, which is always too brief, which is followed quickly by the return of the misery and the ugliness that is left behind when the high fades.

“There is a bigger cycle that you begin to notice, too. Sobriety, followed by employment sometimes, and the blossoming of hope. Occasionally, we would move into our own place. Saving money,

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