Caring Doctors We Have Known

   I've been thinking about Dr. Hugh Foley, and the care he extended to his patients.He was as busy as any doctor could have been. Yet he would call, unsolicited, at intervals, to check on your progress, especially if he suspected an issue of some sort. Of course he never charged any fee for his caring. He was not alone in that type of care, either.
    Pediatricians William Grattan and Martin Symansky would do the same. I remember calling Dr. Grattan's office for a sick baby. He was not in the office but on duty at the hospital, St. Mary's. He said to bring the baby into the hospital and he would meet us there. He did, we entered an examining room, and Dr. Grattan examined the baby ( I think it was David) and diagnosed and prescribed for him. He charged nothing for that visit. Dr. Grattan went above and beyond ordinary care when David was bitten by a dog and hospitalized. He took extra measures to insure that the dog was seized and immediately examined for rabies, saying that even though the dog had received its rabies shots, it had acted in an aggressive way against an infant on public property and needed its brain to undergo pathology asap. He took the necessary legal steps to insure the process was carried out.
    Danny once was knocked unconscious by a pitched baseball at practice. I drove him to the emergency room, and who showed up but Dr. Symansky, who had heard what had happened on his then car phone. He was as usual cheerful, thorough, and so reassuring. He charged no fee for that appearance.
   I read several years ago that he had remarried and had young children. I just looked him up and found he is still practicing pediatric medicine, even accepting  new patients. Dr. Symansky is one year older than I am.