The Endgame

Newsletter #121 - A visit to the doctor

Toronto, November 16, 2025

A visit to the doctor

It’s an iron law. The older you are, the more you visit the doctor. Most of us go to the doctor because our body tells us we need medical help. For some people, going to the doctor may be a hobby, a way of being social and filling up empty hours. Chat GPT, summarizing extensive studies and statistics, says that an 85-year-old Canadian male can be expected to make 10 to 15 visits to the doctor every year. That’s once a month or more. I checked my calendar. So far this calendar year I’ve made 13 visits to a variety of doctors. Bang on target!

I appreciate and admire my doctors. They look after me. They seem to be highly competent. They are kind. I think they are a splendid lot. But, like most people, I feel at a basic disadvantage in my dealings with them. Why is that?

A patient’s relationship with his doctor is fraught. You are in her office because you don’t feel well. You’re needy, apprehensive, nervous, maybe a bit scared. You wonder, what’s wrong with me? Why am I dizzy? What’s that pain in my gut? Why am I tired all the time? Could I have some horrible disease? Will the doctor be able to help me? Am I doomed? As an old person, you’re more neurotic and anxious than you ever were. You are on the back foot from the beginning.

I feel stupid when I’m with the doctor. Normally articulate, I fumble for words. What questions should I ask? If I don’t understand what the doctor says, should I press for an explanation? How far can I push back without annoying her and losing her sympathy and attention? Do I detect some impatience in her voice? Should I take notes? I wish I’d prepared better for my visit. How can I get the most out of the 15 minutes allotted to me?

The doctor has power. She knows things that you don’t (that’s why you’re in her office). She has skills that you don’t possess. She has the power to prescribe drugs. She can order X-rays and blood tests. She can arrange for your hospitalization. She is healthy and you are sick. She has the high social and cultural status still accorded the medical profession.

Then there is the matter of clothing. The doctor is usually in scrubs or a white coat (see “white coat syndrome”), although this practice is not as common as it once was. You are in ordinary street clothes. You may have to take those clothes off, depending. This will put you at even more of a disadvantage, as you sit shivering on the examination table. (By contrast, when you visit your lawyer or accountant, you seldom have to take your clothes off.)

Whenever there is an imbalance of power in a professional relationship, there is the possibility of abuse, abuse in big ways and in small ways. The law, including formal regulation of all the professions, seeks to control the big ways. Social convention seeks to control the small ways, e.g., rudeness and indifference. Generally, these methods of regulation are effective. But not always. Twenty years ago, I got into trouble when I published a book, called Lawyers Gone Bad, about how things could go wrong in the legal profession. It made a lot of lawyers very angry.

I’ve got two or three doctor visits left this year before I reach the annual average for an 85-year-old Canadian male (Cynnie says, knock it off, you’re only 81). I expect I’ll use up my allotment. I’m even looking forward to see one or two of my doctors. I like them.

*****

Some reader comments on Endgame #120 (“Me and my passport”), published the morning after the Blue Jays lost the World Series to the LA Dodgers

From Howard Norman in Vermont: “I hate the LA Dodgers, let’s get that out of the way... But to other matters...Passports as objects of anxiety (let alone as visual documentation of our physical changes) is a fine subject for Slayton and I was grateful for this entry in The Endgame... Some years ago, in Holland, I had to show my passport to some police official at the train station, because apparently I resembled a ‘person of interest.’ It was quite an unpleasant experience and took place in a small room. I suppose I so seldom think of myself as a person of interest, so there was that...”

Faye Jones writes: “Woke so crushed by last night’s defeat and in minutes I was laughing my head off. And then immediately checked the expiry date on my passport.”

From a friend who wants to be anonymous: “Did I ever tell you about losing BOTH passports, my wallet and phone, at once, in Rome? Disaster/panic/nervous breakdown does not describe how I felt. Especially as it was totally my fault. Moment of distraction while changing a jacket, etc. The police women who returned it to me (someone picked up my “security bag” which I left on the sidewalk, in front of the forum, so much for Rome and its pickpockets) were deeply amused when I went down on my knees in gratitude... Just reading that piece gives me the shivers.”

*****

Notes on my new book, All Remaining Passengers: Essays From the Edge of Eighty

(1) Someone pointed out a horrible typo. I’m not going to tell you what it is. It’s been fixed for subsequent printings. Earlier printings with the typo will become collector items.

(2) This generous comment from David Wolinsky in his morning memo made me feel better about the typo: “If you haven’t yet grabbed our friend Philip Slayton’s new book All Remaining Passengers, do it right now. It’s an anthology of his Endgame columns, and although the first thing I do Sunday is read Endgame, and am never disappointed, reading the book was like encountering old friends and there were even a number of columns I hadn’t read before. Unlike my morning memo drivel, his columns are always fascinating about things that actually concern us, but approached with a unique and remarkably innovative point of view. Trust me, the book is terrific, a great read, and you’ll thank me for telling you about it. And if you have any doubts about what I’m telling you, his wife, my old and dear friend Cynthia Wine, a brilliant author in her own right, couldn’t tolerate being in the same room with him if he wasn’t as brilliant a writer as I say he is. So buy the book.”

(3) Talking about brilliant writers, David Wolinsky himself is no slouch. Buy his new book, Road Boss: Untold Stories from Entertainment’s Ultimate Tour Manager.

(4) And listen to this podcast if you want to hear more of my ramblings about old age.

(5) Finally, buy the book, now free of typos, I hope. It’s available online from Amazon and other online retailers, and from some independent bookstores in Canada (coast-to-coast) including Ben McNally Books and Book City (Yonge & St. Clair branch) in Toronto, Munro’s Books and Russell Books in Victoria, B.C. (where it’s been selling like warm cakes), and Salt-Water Ballad Books in Port Medway, Nova Scotia.