‘‘Magic White Coats’’ 33
There came a point when I was managing all of his medica-
tions, because it was so complicated. More and more, he just ab-
dicated responsibility to me. That was as close as he got to
acknowledging he was sick.
Yet even when Eleanor’s husband admitted his illness, it was only in a
dissociated and cursory manner.
In the end, he was informed of having metastatic bone disease by
having his bone scan put up on an X-ray box. He took one look,
turned to me, and said, ‘‘Yup, I’m a dead man.’’
Even after that point, he could allude to dying only indirectly.
When he finally decided to retire on disability, I bought him a pair
of dogs to keep him company. One of his big concerns was whether
I was going to keep the dogs after he died. That was the only ac-
knowledgment of dying he could make.
Doctors as Invulnerable
Through their professional training and socialization, these doctors fre-
quently had come to see physicianhood as protective against illness—
as immunity and defense. They believed that doctors were magically
invulnerable to disease. Their professional roles shaped their thinking.
Charles, an internist with HIV who later became an ‘‘underground’’
researcher, experimenting with new treatments, had earlier felt that
because of their white coats, doctors simply did not get sick.
As medical students, we were once wearing white coats, walking
through the medical center, and a sign said ‘‘No One Permitted—
Sanitary Area.’’ I remember a mother telling her son not to go
in there. He pointed to the group of us, and he said, ‘‘But they’re
going in.’’ She said, ‘‘Yes, but they’re doctors.’’ People think you
can’t be diseased because you’re the one who cures disease. I used
to wonder how doctors could die, except by accident. I had so
much confidence in medicine. Surely anything that might go wrong
with a doctor physically, he would pick up early, and prevent.
This belief in invulnerability can easily border on magical thinking.
Indeed, many doctors felt they donned a ‘‘magic white cloak’’ giving them