My doctor made a house call!

Don’t get excited. He did not arrive carrying a black leather bag. There was no knock at the door, no stethoscope emerging from beneath an overcoat and no request that someone bring over a kitchen chair.

He appeared on my computer screen.

It was a telemedicine visit, arranged to discuss a medication I had been taking. The appointment was efficient and focused. We had about 15 minutes to discuss what needed to be discussed, and we did.

No one took my blood pressure. No one listened to my breathing. There was no examination table, no tongue depressor and no instruction to say “ah.” But none of that was especially necessary. This was a conversation about medication, and modern technology allowed it to take place without my leaving home.

Still, the experience made me think back to the doctors of my childhood and the very different way medicine was practiced then.

In Middle Village, Queens, there was Dr. Schwartz.

He was more than the neighborhood doctor. He delivered me and my two siblings. He was part of the family’s history before I was old enough to know what a doctor was.

Dr. Schwartz had what we would now consider almost unimaginably open office hours. You did not go online, scroll through a calendar and select an available appointment three weeks away. You did not receive a confirmation email, a text reminder and a warning that you would be charged if you failed to cancel 24 hours in advance.

You simply went to his office.

If you fell and scraped your knee, you went to Dr. Schwartz. If a dog bit you on the nose while you were trying to pet it—as happened to me—you went to Dr. Schwartz.

You walked in, took a seat and waited your turn. To pass the time, you could pick up a reasonably current copy of Life or Look magazine.........

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