07/07/2022    Michael M. Rosenblatt, DPM

The Tyranny of Status-But are you a REAL doctor?

I had a good friend, (now deceased) whose father
stopped talking to her for a year because she
became a PhD psychologist instead of an MD. She
loved it, getting on the floor with kids,
counseling and testing them (when this was covered
by local school districts.) Jordan Peterson, PhD,
became a psychologist. He never indicated that his
family ostracized him for not taking the brass
ring. Despite that, he changed the lives of
millions of men over the World, for the better.

Yes, you are a licensed surgeon; and you actually
DO real surgery and treat patients for conditions
that even MDs are not universally trained for.
(Licensed yes, trained no). But because you don’t
possess the letters that strike awe in the hearts
of status, you are somehow “lacking.” Never mind
that political leaders treat MDs like pariahs that
must be tamed. They created blacklisting against
MDs (National Practitioner Data Bank). Us too.
Sure, we have some parity issues remaining. But
much less than there used to be. The “parity” we
got was not always what we wanted, was it?

Status is strong in the heart of man. Would you
still be “embarrassed” at a cocktail party to admit
that you are “only” a master’s level nuclear
engineer and not a real PhD? Is status the only key
to the most attractive mate? More power? More
resources? What if you are a woman? You don’t
think like a man. Is that bad? What if you don’t
believe Darwinian Evolution and instead think we
are MORE than bags of mechanical status seekers?

These are questions everyone who ends up in “lesser
status” no matter how it is defined, needs to
address. If not, you become a prisoner of your
choice. What if you seemed predestined to be a
podiatrist? Was that a cruel hoax? An accident? We
never had the political power to get included in
Medicare. But “somehow” it happened. Could it be
that God loves podiatrists? Could it be that the
“act” of podiatry is the very definition of a
Mitzvah? That was affirmed to me by an Orthodox
Rabbi I was once treating many years ago. Maybe the
mitzvah itself is the key to the real magic.

Michael M. Rosenblatt, DPM, Henderson, NV

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