But I didn\u2019t go to med school.\u00a0I became a journalist.\u00a0I once researched and wrote an article on open-heart surgery. I watched surgery for that article, and I tried surgery. The docs let me.\u00a0It took two years for the patient to regain her health. Plus, I suffered significant financial losses.\u00a0A lawyer called me a \u201ckidnapper\u201d as if I took the patient \u2013 call her Karen \u2013 into the operating room and held her against her wishes for eight hours. (The surgery was nine hours, actually.)<\/p>\n
Afterward, I told Karen, \u201cThe good news is you\u2019re alive, and I have your aortas \u2013 two of them \u2013\u00a090-percent clearer.\u00a0The bad news is your other aortas are controversial.\u00a0Also, any sudden outburst by you, and you might die.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karen screamed<\/strong><\/span> but she didn\u2019t die. She sued me.<\/p>\n Danny Kaye featured Herman\u2019s Hermits on the Danny Kaye Show<\/em> in 1965 to get more baby-boomer viewers. The regular viewers preferred Imogene Coca and Jim Nabors. Danny Kaye was a terrific dancer, comedian, mimic, singer and medical enthusiast.\u00a0My parents liked him more than me. I operated on Karen so I wouldn\u2019t have to endure any more of my folks\u2019 diatribes about my suspect career path. They said,\u00a0 \u201cSon, you write for a suburban weekly. That\u2019s not a living to support a family.\u201d So I took up the knife. The cold rejection of my parents.\u00a0Walk in my bloody booties for a second. I\u2019m decent at surgery — maybe not Cleveland Clinic level — but I\u2019m OK. I\u2019m as good as Danny Kaye.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n fiction. <\/em>A version of this first appeared here 10\/30\/13.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Danny Kaye liked to hang around doctors and operating rooms.\u00a0My parents admired Danny Kaye because he could dance, sing, and do impersonations — plus the medical stuff.\u00a0 My parents wanted me to be Danny Kaye — the medical part. But I didn\u2019t go to med school.\u00a0I became a journalist.\u00a0I once researched and wrote an article […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25054"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25059,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25054\/revisions\/25059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"doc\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/doc-300x237.jpg\")
<\/p>\n