At the doctor's

And so Wednesday arrived and it was time to take myself to see the GP in Glossa for a change of dressing. University is free in Greece as long as you pass the entrance exams, which I understand are tough. I think that parents are expected to pay living expenses but I don't really know about that. Most university courses are three years but medicine is six and so it is that freshly qualified medical graduates must spend one year as agroiatro (village doctor) in some far-flung outpost such as Glossa. It has been known for a young doctor to throw the towel in here before their year is up because they simply cannot take any more craziness from the villagers, but that is another story.

I had actually been to see the current GP before but his father was visiting and so the young doctor got his father to examine me instead. His father told me he is an orthopaedic surgeon so I didn't really understand why I had been passed to him to be examined for a sore throat and I thought he was a bit of a bully. Today I discovered that the son is much the same.

He wanted to know how I had gashed myself and when I told him about the barrowful of logs he exclaimed “That is not women's work!”
He asked me which member of staff at the medical centre had applied the current dressing. I said that I didn't know their names but of the two young doctors there, one was skinny and one was built a little more like you
“Nobody is built like me!” he snorted, flexing muscles that have names.
“Sure, but the skinny one is less like you than the other one”
“Yes, OK, I understand who you mean”

I had noticed on both visits an emblem I had never seen there before of a red boat with a golden sail and the words ΘΑΡΣΕΙΝ ΧΡΗ and I suspected that this might have something to do with it all. So I asked him what Tharsein Chry meant
“It takes Courage!” he told me “It is the emblem of the marines. I am a marine”
And then I was told that when you do your National Service you can either join the infantry or the navy or the special forces, which are the parachute regiment and the marines. The special forces do not forgive mistakes he told me. He obviously had a very low opinion of the infantry and the navy so I changed the subject.

“The navy comes here every September . . .”
“That is to . . .”
“I know about the submarine, I want to know what Nikos Kapadoukas did in Cyprus in 1964”
“He heroically saved a platoon of men and died in the process”
“Ah! Thank you! I did not know that”

Spousie wants to know more details but I am not sure I want another consultation with this chap.

This is the view out through the door from the public waiting area to the GP's office. A couple are enjoying coffee at 'Frank Lampard's' and a very poorly ginger cat sits in the middle of the road hoping for death. The bench outside the surgery will be the subject of another blip one day I am sure.