Dontavia Zeno English 1157-002
Past the Scalpel
Nora Steiger 05/01/2014

Dr. Joshua Landes is a board certified general surgeon, who received his premedical and medical education at Brown University. He completed his residency at Tulane University School of Medicine, and is a member of the American College of Surgeons. He now works as one of two general surgeons for the Hamilton Medical Group in Lafayette, Louisiana; which is where our first interview took place.
I remember sitting in his office waiting for him to come in, and staring at a coat rack located in the corner. It held only two white lap coats, which looked as if they hadn’t been worn for some time; there were no rumples or creases out of place, and as crisp and wrinkle–free as they were, you could assume they came straight from the dry cleaners. It also held a green scrub cap that was obviously worn quite often, which actually looked slightly yellow due to it being washed so many times. Directly across from the coat rack stood a bookshelf filled with books that all contained the word “surgery” in its titles. The books were triple the size of a holy bible, and weighed so much that the shelves bent downward, like a meniscus in a graduated cylinder. When he walked in I noticed he wasn’t wearing a white lab coat, so I asked him about it. “I don’t need a lab coat to remind me that I’m a physician,” he said as he smiled and took a seat behind his desk. That’s when I realized my hypothesis of who I thought surgeons were would be challenged, and everything I expected them to be would be put to the test.
What I expected—was for him to walk in wearing a lab coat whiter than a rabbit’s fur, a Rolex that cost more than your grandmother’s house, and an expression that would be intimidating even in the devils eyes. I mean, isn’t that how most surgeons are—overly sophisticated and extremely unpleasant.