The Interview
A new faux movie poster and a new short story about a doctor and a patient.
“Mr. Hammond, I see there are a number of questions on your intake form that you did not answer. I assume this was just an oversight?” Doctor Crenshaw was fifty-six years old and sat on a small, wheeled stool in one of the six examination rooms his office housed. His belly protruded slightly under his white coat as he leaned forward, clipboard in hand, while he flipped through a number of pages in the intake form. He questioned his new patient as a teacher might a student who had not turned in a homework assignment.
“It was not an oversight,” Jared Hammond said without emotion. The forty-one year-old, tall, thin man had waited in the examination room for over thirty minutes after the nurse walked him in, took his vitals and told him the doctor would be with him shortly. Mr. Hammond sat quietly reading a book he had brought until the doctor arrived.
“Is there some reason you didn’t answer all the questions?” the doctor asked.
“I didn’t want to,” Hammond said calmly. He stated it like one might order steak and eggs from a waiter in a quiet, nearly empty restaurant.
“Well, Mr. Hammond,” the doctor replied with a touch of condescension, “I understand not wanting to answer some of these questions, but maybe after I explain the reasons why it’s necessary, you’ll see it a little differently. These are new forms and the information we gather here will all become part of an extensive health database that will help us track diseases and health trends, use of vitamins and prescriptions, vaccinations and many other things. Now I know a lot of these questions may not appear to have a bearing on the collective health of the country, but the AI that will process all this information will be able to find correlations and make conclusions that a human mind would be incapable of. So you see,” he continued, impressed with his own reasoning, “it’s really important that everyone answer every question to the best of their ability. Do you mind if I ask you some of the questions that you missed?”
“Sure, you can ask, Doc.”
The Doctor’s face showed just a hint of irritation. He did not like the familiar, almost degrading use of ‘Doc’ and much preferred being addressed as Dr. Crenshaw, but he let it go and proceeded to the first question.
“This should be an easy one, Mr. Hammond. ‘What is your sexuality?’”1
“I’d prefer not to answer that.”
Exasperated, the doctor said, “Come on, Mr. Hammond, this is a simple, straightforward question.”
“How many answers are there?”
“That hardly seems relevant.”
Mr. Hammond paused long enough before he spoke next that the doctor thought maybe he wasn’t going to say anything, but then he began slowly, in a friendly manner, “There were quite a few answers, so maybe it’s not as straightforward as you seem to think it is. What do you think my sexuality is, Doc?”
“Well, Mr. Hammond,” the doctor said a bit flustered, “I really couldn’t say. I wouldn’t want to mis-label you.”
“I won’t be offended if you do. Give it your best shot.”
The Doctor didn’t respond right away. He looked at his new patient as a man looks at his blind date at a first meeting, attempting not to reveal what he’s really thinking, but desperately afraid she already knows. “As I said, Mr. Hammond, that’s not something I want to do.”
“That’s fine. Why don’t we go on to the next question.”
“There are a lot of questions in this section that you didn’t answer. Does talking about sex embarrass you, Mr. Hammond?”
“Not at all,” Hammond answered without hesitation.
“But you didn’t answer any of these questions, for example, ‘When was the last time you had sex or came in contact with another person’s bodily fluids?’2 or ‘How do you practice “safer sex”?’3 Why didn’t you answer them?”
“I didn’t want to,” Mr. Hammond said matter-of-factly.
“We really need all of these questions answered,” the doctor said, almost pleading. “It’s required by our medical boards and without every question answered the data is not as pure and thorough as it could be. We’re all in this together, Mr. Hammond. It really is important, even if you don’t think it is.”
“You think it is?”
“Of course, of course I do.” The doctor sighed. “Okay, let’s try this one,” he said with resignation. “What is your gender identity?”4
Mr. Hammond laughed loudly, the first sign of emotion that the doctor had seen. “Look at how many answers there are to chose from,” he said, smiling and chuckling.
“I know there are a lot,” he said defensively, “but you only have to choose one.”
“I don’t have to choose any.” There was no anger or rudeness in Hammond’s voice. He said it so calmly and evenly it almost sounded as if he agreed with the doctor. “What gender do you think I am?”
The Doctor exhaled heavily. “As I told you before I wouldn’t want to assume something like that. You can’t know a person’s gender by just looking at them.”
“I can.”
The doctor sighed again. Mr. Hammond was uniquely different from any other of his dislikable patients. He had dealt with angry patients and patients who disagreed with him and elderly, cranky patients, but no patients that maintained such an evenly maintained demeanor, while defying what the doctor wanted from him. “Okay, let’s just skip all these. There’s one last one and it’s an important one and I hope you’ll be okay answering it. ‘Are you vaccinated against Covid-19?’
“Are you?”
“I’m asking you, Mr. Hammond,” the doctor replied with irritation.
“And I’m asking you. Are you?” he asked deliberately.
“Mr. Hammond, I’m the Doctor and you’re the patient. I’m just gathering information in order to make the best medical decisions I can when dealing with you as my patient. The more information you give me, the better I can help you and, if necessary, know what medicines to prescribe for your issues. I’m trying to help you. Knowing your vaccination status is important. Last year they set up several new codes for vaccinations. I suspect, since you won’t answer the question, that I should mark the box ‘Unvaccinated against Covid-19 (Z28.310)’5. Is that the case?”
“Do you have codes for injuries caused by the vaccines?”
“Mr. Hammond, why does that matter? Why would you need to know that?”
“I noticed that throughout the entire form there are no questions that ask about vaccine injuries.”
“Mr. Hammond, this is a standard form given to us by our governing medical institution. I don’t have any control over it.”
“Are you treating any patients for Covid vaccine injuries?”
“Mr. Hammond, this is about you, not my other patients.” The Doctor paused, then said, attempting to change the direction of the conversation, “Wouldn’t it be an important thing for me as your doctor to know? To know whether or not you are vaccinated?”
“It could be. It would depend on what kind of doctor you are. So Doc, are the vaccines safe and effective?”
The doctor sat up straighter on the stool. “Listen, Mr. Hammond, these things are never a one size fits all kind of thing.”
“I didn’t say they were. I’m just asking you, a doctor, a question, from me a patient,” Hammond replied with an unemotional, detached tone, and looked no different now than he did at the beginning of the appointment. He sat relaxed in his chair, leaning back, with no sign of frustration or disappointment. Only his eyes betrayed a certain kind of intensity, like a basketball player at the free throw line who has calmed his body before taking the shot. Then he asked, “Are the vaccines safe and effective?”
The doctor stared at his patient. He knew the vaccines were safe and effective, but for some reason he didn’t want to confirm that belief with this patient. Why did he care? Other patients had expressed their distrust of the vaccines, he even had some patients who were not vaccinated, but for some reason with Mr. Hammond he thought a “Yes” answer would make him feel as if he had lost, as if he was wrong, as if Mr. Hammond had forced a confession from the doctor that he did not want to bring out into the light.
“Look, why don’t we continue this at your next appointment,” the doctor said pleasantly. “I’d like to spend time discussing why you’ve come to see me today. Let’s see if I can help you.”
Mr. Hammond grabbed his book off the floor and slowly stood up. “Doc, I thank you for your time, but I think I’ve got all the information I need.”
The Doctor looked a little confused. “All the information you need?”
“Yes, this was an interview. I was interviewing you. I have several others to do today. As I said, I’ve got all the information I need.” Mr. Hammond opened the door to the examination room and before exiting turned and politely said, “You have a nice day, Doc.”
NOTES
This is a question from a real "New Patient Medical Intake Form" used by Lyon-Martin Health Services & Women’s Community Clinic in San Francisco. The possible answers for this question are: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Pansexual, Heterosexual (Straight), Dyke, Faggot, Same Gender Loving, Asexual (Ace), Aromantic (Aro), DemisexualBDSM/Kink, Skoliosexual, T4T (trans for trans), Questioning, Don’t use labels, Not Listed
A real question on the same form. Underneath it says, "(ejaculate, discharge, blood, or mucous membranes of the mouth, anus, genitals)"
Yup, you guessed it, another actual question from the same form.
And here are all the possible answers: Woman, Man, MTF, FTM, Trans Feminine, Trans Masculine, Transguy, Feminine-of-Center, Masculine-of-Center, T-Girl, T-Boy, Trans, Transgender, Transsexual, Femme, Butch, Stud, Aggressive (AG), Boi, Androgynous, Demigirl, Demiboy, Tomboy, Two-Spirit, Hijra, Kathoey, Muxe, Khanith, Gender Non-Conforming, Genderqueer, Gender Variant, Gender Fluid, Non-Binary, Genderfuck, Bi-Gender, Multi-Gender, Pangender, Gender Creative, Gender Expansive, Third Gender, Agender/Neutroi, Questioning, Don’t use labels
Z28.310 is a real code (they call them ICD-10 codes) that can be used to designate that you are unvaccinated against Covid-19. ICD stands for International Classification of Diseases. These are not used on patient intake forms (poetic license on my part). Here's what the CDC says about the codes: “World Health Organization (WHO) authorized the publication of the International Classification of Diseases External 10th Revision (ICD-10), which was implemented for mortality coding and classification from death certificates in the U.S. in 1999. The U.S. developed a Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) for medical diagnoses based on WHO’s ICD-10 and CMS developed a new Procedure Coding System (ICD-10-PCS) for inpatient procedures.” Jessica Rose notes in her Substack that with all the new codes there don't seem to be ANY codes to describe Covid vaccination injuries. I know, astounding right? Who would have thought? The CDC lists these reasons for the change from ICD-9: "Tracking public health conditions (complications, anatomical location), Improved data for epidemiological research (severity of illness, co-morbidities), Measuring outcomes and care provided to patients, Making clinical decisions, Identifying fraud and abuse, Designing payment systems/processing claims." In other words, they need to figure out which batches of Covid vaccines are killing the population most effectively. Did I actually write that? What a difference 3 years makes.
This short story also appears on my website, The Asylum. The website also has several things that are not possible to do on Substack: The World Economic Forum Members Reference (thanks to Dr. Malone), Red State/Blue State reference showing Senate and House percentages by party affiliation, quotes, a large resources section, a robust search feature and some other things unique to the site: quizzes, word games and leaked communications. These latter three are satirical and funny, at least in my mind, but you'll have to be the ultimate judge on that.
BUY THE BOOK! (only if you want to)
I’m Nobody. Who Are You? Can We Save the World?
What a creative, potent, and instructive story! It needs to be read far and wide. Mr. Hammond's countenance and demeanor remind me a bit of the main character in tbe short story Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville.