Terms of Address

At least since the age of forty, I’ve resented doctors and nurses and their receptionists calling me by my first name, as if I were still twelve years old and not, as was often the case, older than they.  It reveals, I’ve always thought, a basic lack of respect for the patient – for me, in other words.  And now that I’m 80, to have twenty-somethings call me by my first name, when they’ve just met me, is doubly annoying. 

But on Friday, when I was being prepared for a minor surgical procedure at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, my nurse asked me how I’d like to be addressed.  Briefly I considered “Mr. Anchises” (“Dr. Anchises” or “Professor Anchises” outside an academic setting and especially in a hospital setting would have been both confusing and absurd), but I rejected “Mr. Anchises” as somewhat pompous and asked to be addressed by my first name.  It’s one thing to be addressed by your first name when you’ve given permission for it.  It’s another when the other person assumes the right without asking if he or she may do so.  The nurse wrote down my first name on the form that asked for my preferred mode of address, but neither she, nor anyone else on the staff addressed me as other than “sir,” or “Mr. Anchises.”

And then I realized that in all my dealings with Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital over the past year, I’ve never been addressed by my first name.  It’s always been “sir” or “Mr. Anchises.”  This is another example of the scrupulous care taken to make visits to the hospital as pleasant as possible.  The carpeting is luxuriously deep.  The waiting rooms would not look out of place in a new boutique hotel.  There you can make yourself a cup of coffee or tea and nibble on graham crackers.  The current editions of popular magazines are scattered about on end tables.  The examining room gowns are substantial – they don’t look as if they’ve been worn by ten thousand patients before you or that they’re being held together by their holes -  and, before a surgical procedure, you’re given in addition a most respectable navy blue bathrobe.  The staff, from surgeon to sweeper, is unfailingly pleasant and polite. 

And no one will call you by your first name, at least not if you’re twice as old as they are. 


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