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Saturday, August 13, 2011

The Fim Doctor's Wives

When I was a college student in New Orleans some 40 years ago, my first wife and I had our great entertainment each week on Friday night. We would go to a dive in theater in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. For a $1.00 admission fee, we would watch movies until early Saturday morning. The films were never great first run movies. Rather they were films that never made it big. Some were terrible and some had some had real merit.




One Friday night we saw a film with Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman, Dyan Canon, Carrol O'Connor, Richard Anderson, Janice Rule, etc. title Doctor's Wives. It was about a group of wealthy and successful doctors who owned a clinic in Southern California. The movie focused on the wives of these very successful men. On one level they seemed to have all of the status and economic security that any woman could wish for. They drove luxury cars and lived in luxury homes. They all had country club memberships and "time on their hands."



Under this idyllic life were all sorts of conflicts and problems including adultery, drug and alcohol abuse, murder, etc. It turned out that all of these women had miserable lives.



This humble and commercially unsuccessful movie had a profound influence on my life.



In 2000 I met a woman who was a doctor and cancer specialist in Argentina. She came to the USA and married me in 2001. Sadly all of her medical credentials from Argentina had no value here in the USA. She had to literally "start over from scratch." She worked as a medical assistant. She had to take some brutal and competitive tests. She then had to repeat a grueling three-year medical residency starting when she was 42 years old. I had to live through weeks where Elena literally had 36-hour work days for two weeks in the intensive care unit.



I was very proud when Elena graduated from her residency and became a fully-licensed doctor with a major health maintenance organization. Sadly the hard work and long hours did not stop; nor did the pressure and the great demands.



When I get together with her female doctor friends, I mention the movie Doctor's Wives. I tell them that if the movie was remade today it should be titled Doctor's Husbands as so many women are now doctors.



My wife Elena is an incredible lady. There is no drug addiction, murder, luxury cars, luxury homes or country club memberships in our life. There is just hard work and a lot of loneliness. Being a doctor's spouse is not an easy and a glamorous life.



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067004/



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