Taxi Drivers

Chicago - It’s not the place to be in October. Rainy, chilly, and grey, the windy city is not La Jolla or Maui. But the American College of Surgeons traditionally holds its annual clinical congress here every three years, so here I am with colleagues, learning the latest developments of our profession.

Unlike at previous meetings, the general mood is somber. Health care reform is in every surgeon’s mind. One survey indicates that up to a third of surgeons are set to lay down their scalpels and seek other avenues of work or retire prematurely if socialized medicine were implemented in the United States. The jubilant greetings I encountered, the happy faces I saw were those of physician surgeons visiting from outside the states -- Italians, Chinese, Filipinos, Argentineans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Africans were excited to be in Chicago. They could hardly wait to test the latest DaVinci robotic instrument and try out other American-made surgical innovations.

Every morning, I take the taxi from Union Square to McCormick West, where the congress is held. I take the taxi again every evening back to the train station. Having left New York for Southern California twenty-four years ago, I am reminded that the thirty degree weather now cuts through my woolen clothing and bites my bones. From the relative warmth of the crowded Metra Station, I rush to the comfort of the back seat of a taxicab. At times, I just peer out at the crisp skyscrapers and wonder how people can live in the bitter cold. Most of the times, I chat with the drivers.

I met two drivers from Poland, one from Czechoslovakia, an immigrant from Algeria, a transplant from South Korea, a Caribbean, a native Irish woman from Chicago. Their driving mode, temper, attitudes, political, cultural, and religious views vary, as expected. Others are politely quite, some are chatty. Some are happy and love their job. Others are sour and work in silent desperation. I find them all interesting.

The happiest was Piotr or Peter. He had immigrated with his family from Poland fifteen years ago. His children are in their twenties and early thirties, some of them are now married. “To other Poles?”, I asked. “No, no, no -- to Americans. One American from here (Chicago), the other American from South America (Colombia). Ah, these kids”, he laments, “ they have become Americans!”. “Do you still get together for reunions, family holidays?”, I asked. “Yes, but not like in Poland.” I told him that Filipinos like big family reunions and that even here in the states, we try to get together often, specially during Christmas. “Yes,” he agreed, “In Poland, we also have big Christmas celebration with the family. But now, here in America, it’s not easy to get everyone together. This Christmas, we will be spending the holidays in a friend’s house, outside of Chicago.”

The unhappiest fellow was the Czechoslovakian, specially since I initially thought I heard him say he was from Slovenia or Ceausescu’s Romania. He was one sour dude. He had been waiting “for one hour” in the taxi pool and had gotten no passengers. I offered to give him an extra tip, but he said he was so unhappy, he was going to give me a ride for free! I felt our conversation was not going anywhere, so I asked about his family. I find that subject invariably melts the heart, unless I am in conversation with a hardened soul. He lightened up a bit. Czechoslovakia was better when it was a communist country, he declared outright. I reminded him about the oppressed masses under the Communist regime, food lines, etc. “Nah..” he dismissed my comments. “During communist time, everyone had a slice of bread or no bread -- but everyone was equal. Now, only the rich have bread, the poor have nothing.” For a minute, I thought he was talking about the Philippines!

So why did he leave Czechoslovakia? He had won the immigration lottery. Every year, he told me, a lottery is held and four families win passage to the United States. He was one of the four winners, out of 3,500 applicants. He should consider himself lucky, I said. Yes, but then his son got sick, was diagnosed with desmoid tumor or sarcoma and died at age 14. He knew everything there was to know about the cancer because he went to the public library to research the subject. I asked if his child got treated. Yes, a team at the University Hospital had done everything but could not save his boy. No wonder, he carried so much sadness on his shoulders.

The Korean was all business. He did not talk much, but he drove well and was efficient. He had the latest credit card machine installed in between the car seats. All I had to do, as soon as we reached our destination, was swipe my VISA and the trip was paid. He reminded me to add the tip on the machine. As always, I left a bigger tip -- as we all tend to do with credit cards.

The Muslim driver from Algiers was most fascinating. He was pleasantly surprised I knew about the Seven Pillars of Islam. I told him we, Christians, say our morning and evening prayers and occasionally pray the office of the hours, but not as frequently or as regularly as Muslims do. “It is most important we pray”, he tells me,” otherwise how can we live our lives well?” In his distinctly Arabic accent, he laments that children and young adults preoccupy themselves with material things, like video games and computers, but pay little attention to the spiritual dimension of life. So I asked if he were teaching his children Islamic spiritual values. Of course, he says, but it is a constant struggle to inculcate in our children our cultural and religious heritage. Tell me about it, I said silently.

Last but not least, was the Irish woman taxi driver, born and raised in Chicago. She looked to me like a fiftyish grandmother or a teacher. I didn’t asked why she chose to be a driver, just that I didn’t recall ever hailing a taxi driven by a lady. She gave me a nice Irish smile, to indicate somehow that my comment was universal. Was she happy that a fellow Chicagoan was in the White House? Boy, did that question elicit a flurry of political commentary. As it turned out, she was a big Sarah Palin fan! I like Sarah too, I said. Unfortunately, the odds were stacked against her; Katie Couric and her liberal media cohorts did a nifty job of ambushing Palin before national TV. “What is this country coming to?”, she threw up her hands, while still driving carefully. “President Obama wants us to work, work, work so that thousands of lazy bums can sit, sit, sit. What happened to honest-to-goodness American labor ethic?” When the subject turned to federally-funded abortion, she asked if I was a Christian. Roman Catholic, I replied. She happily gave me a Christian pamphlet and a list of spiritual authors she had written on a small pad with a pencil. I had read some of those authors, I told her. Kathy beamed and gave me an Irish blessing as I got out of her taxi and joined the teeming mass of humanity into Union Station, in downtown Chicago.

I learned the latest updates in surgery at the 95th Annual Clinical Congress and precious human vignettes from the taxi drivers of Chicago.

___________________

Dr. Gamboa is the author of the book "Virtuous Healers: Models of Faith in Medicine."


more . E-mails from the Desert - by Dr. Edgar A. Gamboa

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