Query

Think of the following cast of characters as superantiheroes.

Dr. Plustar is neurotic about paperwork: he can't get any of it done. His desk is a swamp of tardiness. Complaints have been lodged with the College regarding late workers' compensation claims, late referral letters, late insurance forms. Dr. P's kryptonite is paper: it paralyzes him. This weakness affects the rest of us in the practice because we take pity on him. He leaves sheaves of paper behind wherever he goes, which we obligingly restore to him.

I resent picking up after Dr. P.

Dr. Longstem cannot arrive on time. This is not lateness of the fashionable variety. Dr. L has on several occasions been more than an hour late for handover in Emergency: très gauche. (Luckily, Dr. Angry has never been kept waiting.) I've never known Dr. L to be prompt for M & M rounds or medical staff meetings, either. His nefarious superpower lies in forcing his colleagues to adjust to his lateness. I'm frustrated when he arrives late but not late enough, in the middle of whatever task I'd started in anticipation of his tardiness.

I resent waiting for Dr. L.

Dr. Angry is fearsome. He's not scary-looking or physically imposing (actually, he's a little guy) but Dr. A can switch from an easygoing, laissez-faire manner to vein-popping indignation the very instant he feels slighted. Dr. A has been angry with everyone in the practice; his anger cycles among us. His superpower comes not in his anger, which admittedly is super-sized, but in making everyone walk on eggshells.

I resent pussyfooting around Dr. Anger.

Dr. Comeuppance is engaged in an Armageddon with the adjacent clinic. He accuses that outfit of malpractice daily, and his favourite patients are those who defect from that practice to ours. I can only imagine what he says to these patients behind the examining room door. Whenever I see him he's got a new tale of medical misadventure to report. Dr. C's superpower lies not in his aptitude for medical sabotage but in getting me to concur that the clinic across the street is staffed by “charlatans and buffoons.”

I resent being made to agree with Dr. C.

Dr. Never is a notorious shirker. When on night call he avoids seeing patients, advising them to come to the clinic the next morning, when someone else is on duty. His vacations are always padded with a few days at the beginning and end, which we are meant to interpret as sick time. Dr. N's superpower lies not in his irresponsibility but in his ability to escape being assigned duties that the group knows he won't do anyway.

I resent doing Dr. N's work.

And who am I? To say I'm Dr. Resent would not suffice, for I am also Dr. Complicit. I don't have to be Dr. P's janitor or Dr. L's daytimer, but instead I allow their behaviours to continue and my resentment to build.

Maybe that's how Dr. Angry got started.

— Dr. Ursus