Is There a Doctor in the House?

Yes—but she was not what I expected.

Photo by Gris de Paris on Unsplash

About every ten days or so I volunteer for an organization that maintains some sleeping rooms for parents of new-born babies receiving care in a local hospital’s NICU. There are four sleeping rooms, a small kitchen with a refrigerator and microwave, two bathrooms, a lactation room, and a laundry room with a washer and dryer.

Volunteers do light housekeeping, restock snacks, toiletries, and other supplies, and be available in case any parents have any questions or need help with something. We also put together welcome bags for parents staying in the sleeping rooms and make snack bags for the family room adjacent to the hospital’s NICU.

The welcome bags includes things like knitted baby caps and booties. The snack bags includes things like trail mix, fruit cups, potato chips, cookies, and popcorn. It’s nothing fancy but new parents appreciate having food handy during a time where getting regular meals—not to mention sleep—is often a challenge.

One afternoon I took over to the NICU family room some snack bags. The NICU is located on the fourth floor of a separate building across from the building where the sleeping rooms are located.

I made my way there by first taking the elevator down to the ground floor and then crossing a road over to a sidewalk leading me to the NICU building. Inside that building I passed through a sunlit atrium and then took a left to a hallway that led to an elevator to take to the NICU on the fourth floor.

After the nurse at the NICU welcome desk buzzed me through to the family room, I organized the counter where we leave snack bags and unloaded the ones I had brought. I also made sure everything else was in good order. Then I buzzed for the nurse at the NICU welcome desk to let me out and returned to the elevator to go back to the building with the sleeping rooms.

When the elevator doors opened, I could not believe what I saw—a woman nearly six feet tall wearing a tiara, a black body suit printed with colorful whimsical horses and other figures, a pair of neon pink platform shoes, and a white doctor’s coat. She had wild, long frizzy blond hair barely kept under control by the tiara.

I was so stunned I hesitated before getting on the elevator. But as I stepped forward I glanced at her name badge and saw that she was, in fact, a doctor.

I thought to myself, Is this for real? How can she be taken seriously in an outfit like this? Is today some holiday I have overlooked that would explain this costume? I leaned toward the control panel and pressed the button for the first floor and then stood opposite her, taking everything in as discretely as possible.

Then the elevator doors opened on the second floor and the doctor stepped off. I moved to the middle of the elevator and glanced out of the doors just as they closed to see a sign saying Pediatric Surgery in gold letters.

Everything clicked into place then —the doctor must have been dressing up for children. I could easily imagine their delight on seeing her, a welcome distraction from circumstances that were probably difficult or even dire. I thought how lucky to have a doctor like that, one so in-tune with her patients and their needs, both medical and emotional.

And if she wasn’t dressing up for the children, I could really admire her poise and self-confidence going about looking like a character from a fantasy novel. I could never pull that off.

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