"Living with Ingratitude"

When office staff or others point out to me the fact that many of my patients are not grateful for what we have done, I remind them of what I've been saying to myself for at least 30 years, to wit: If I got into this profession to get people to be thankful to me, I'm in the wrong profession.

People, as Flannery O observed, take all grace for granted and thereby resist it with all their might; most tellingly when they refuse to grant it to others, and take it for granted that they have earned it for themselves.
Rather like the parable of the guy who owed millions, was forgiven all of it, and immediately went out and beat up anothert guy who owed him a few bucks!

People who "go there" by their own wits, like unto Lot, often have to be rescued from their folies--I do that (the rescue thing, that is) all day long.  But it is also true that most people want the benefits of change without have to change even their habits, much less their manners of thought or sentience.

As I said earlier, Truth has few friends in high places.  Those who lord it over others are especially resistant to change. This was Hagar's problem: even tho Sarai chose her to bed down with Abraham, as soon as Hagar's son was born, she began to despise Sarai herself. This demonstrates another aspect of the Murphian Corollary: "When all things seem to be going well for you, obviously you have overlooked something."

"After all, human nature is corrupt--when life seems to be going well for us, it's difficult to resist the temptation to be rude and disrespectful to others."

I would say that medicine is a very humbling profession; at least to me when I am in a frame of mind liable to receive it--I get constant and quick feedback almost daily in regards to my presumptiveness.  Today we are moving to our new hospital--so things feel like they are going well for us. But this is a dangerous illusion, and mistakes are much more likely to be made in transition, and while we are enjoying the newness; and for some indefinite time afterwards.

Many among us look to the new, to save ourselves. Yet we take the same old "us" into the "new" settings and our "tech" will come to reflect our defects more and more as their reach is extended electronically.
This is a process of amplification that we, like rock 'n rollers, insist upon--but our voices and our vices still remain small-time and we will come to regret some of our "loud insistences." 

And though actual-factual truth is despised, it has a tendency to surface, as Murph said, "at the worst possible time."

--further news as "facts" warrant...

PS, extra thought of Bill E, the Diminutive/Dhimmi: I thought of a new adjective to describe the internet: "Cloying."   U like?