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DECISION _  Original Oil on Canvas __ 20 in. x30 in.  

(SOLD)  

Provenance:  

"LAUNCH PAD" Group Show, Don O'Melveny Gallery, Melrose Avenue,

West Hollywood, California  (Catalogue)

ABOUT THE PAINTING:

Sometimes you can look at a work and it makes you feel something.  Not entirely clear how that occurs,  but maybe Energy - which is neither created nor destroyed - is somehow transferred out of the Artist and onto the canvas.  And you can actually see that when you look at the work.  I was surprised that Don liked DECISION as much as he did.  It was different from all of my other work - it wasn't a floral.  But he insisted that it be in the show, so I agreed to bring it back to the Don O'Melveny Gallery on Melrose Avenue just before the Opening.  

DECISION actually began as a floral and is part of the September Eleventh Series of florals.  The painting came easily,  but I was struggling in my professional life realizing that as much as I enjoyed helping people as a physician and surgeon,  the administrative aspects of healthcare combined with the utter lack of integrity of colleagues more concerned about the bottom line than the patients - it was wearing on me.  I was flat out tired of having to go to bat for patients against my fellow physicians.  And often when I did made to feel that in so doing I was putting my livelihood on the line. Why was I having to do this? Then couple that with having found something I truly loved,  something that truly made me happy . . . I was in a state of confusion about what to do.   The thought of leaving medicine entirely was in my mind, and it was weighing heavily upon me.   

What made it all the more difficult was the fact that I was not near the end of my surgical career,  but rather at the very beginning.  I was definitely not in a financial position to make the leap.  In short,  I did not have tons of money - a buffer - stashed away somewhere. In fact I had the opposite.  Student loan debt.  Friends and family strongly discouraged it.  In fact,  the words "crazy" and "nuts" and "stupid" and "foolish" were bantered about repeatedly every time the subject was breached.  It was exhausting.  It was disheartening - as in taking my heart and crushing it.  They couldn't hear me.  They weren't listening.  And all those years of education - just toss them all away too?  I really struggled with this 'decision.'  Mostly I thought about Lawton, and what he would say.  He was the one person I felt horribly about disappointing.  The time we had spent together had meant so much to me in so many ways.  (But I think I know what he would have said to one of his favorite "pies!")  After all,  he was not just my most important mentor.  He was also a man with deep religious convictions. HOW I LOVED THAT MAN!!

Then one day at the practice,  arguing with a senior colleague who didn't want to provide the appropriate care to a patient, simply because that patient was 'capitated' - & he (his practice) would incur all financial liability for the patient's care - well, . . . that was the final straw.  (What happened?  I had ordered neuro-imaging on a young child with an INO (an internuclear ophthalmoplegia) in order to rule out a mass lesion of the brain.  The child had been to multiple physicians and nobody could locate the problem.  Nobody noticed the subtle INO.  I did.  It's what I was good at. Finding things that nobody else could find.  So I ordered the imaging study. And then all hell broke loose.  "WHY DID YOU ORDER THAT TEST?  THAT IS GOING TO COST US BIG!  DON'T YOU REALIZE THAT THIS PATIENT IS CAPITATED?  THE PRIMARY IS REALLY UPSET!  HE CALLED TO SAY THAT IF HE BECOMES FINANCIALLY LIABLE FOR THIS SCAN,  HE IS GOING TO PULL HIS CONTRACT WITH US.  YOU COULD COST THIS PRACTICE A VALUABLE CONTRACT!  HOW DARE YOU DO THAT WITHOUT RUNNING IT BY ME!  I WOULD NOT HAVE ALLOWED IT!  AND YOU TOLD THE MOTHER WHY IT WAS NEEDED -- ARE YOU INSANE?  NOW SHE IS GOING TO INSIST ON GETTING THIS TEST FOR HER CHILD - THERE'S NO WAY OUT OF IT NOW!  I TOLD YOU TO GET THEM IN AND GET THEM OUT.  DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TO LISTEN?"  And so on and so forth. . .  you get the idea, Dear Reader.  But it was too late.  The test had been ordered. A short time later the large manila sleeve holding the images appeared out of nowhere on my desk at the office.  Attached to it was a note from my Senior colleague,  the owner of the practice.  It read,  "CONGRATULATIONS!  YOU WERE RIGHT!  THE KID HAS A BRAIN TUMOR.  I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY!"  I remember staring down at his words for some time.  "I hope you are happy."  Happy because I was correct?  Happy that I would need to tell a mother that her four year son has a brain tumor?  Happy that I cost a bunch of wealthy physicians a thousand bucks?  What exactly was I supposed to be 'happy' about?) 

I walked into my colleague's office, and I gave notice.  I didn't have any plan at all for what to do next.  I just knew I couldn't be a part of this type of healthcare.  He didn't take it well and insisted that 'you can't just walk out.'  And he yelled at me like a raving lunatic.  It was positively frightening.  But I did walk out.  And when I got home,  I wept.  I felt lost.  I felt frightened (Suddenly, I didn't have a job.)  I felt alone.  I walked into my garage in Hermosa Beach and a beautiful floral was on the workbench. It was luminous. It enveloped me and I wanted to be inside of the painting.  It was nearly complete.  But I took a palette knife and swished and swooshed across the surface of the painting (okay,  so it became an abstract ~ no biggie) But something beautiful was being destroyed and it was painful to watch it. . .  the end of a beautiful painting, . . . the end of my vision of what healthcare should be, . . . . . . . where was the beauty? What happened to it?   I stood for a moment staring at the ruined canvas.   And then I wiped my tears away and I took the back end of a brush and scribbled the words CHAOS all over the canvas.  Then I sat down on the steps into the garage, on the cold cement floor, bent over putting my head in my hands, and I wept even more. Simba came over to put his head on my lap and Buster positioned himself close by. It was comforting.  Once I 'got it out of my system,' which took awhile I'll admit,  I finally did pull myself back together. And I sat there thinking about the beautiful painting that was ruined.  If it had all gone according to plan,  it was going to be 'perfect,' but somehow or other everything was all messed up now.  Everything was all messed up! 

And seeing the words right there, in print, made me realize that a job or profession that you spend the better part of your life dedicated to ought not to make you feel this way.  This was not what I signed up for all those years ago when I first signed up for years & years of education and training.  Not at all!  And no job or individual,  nothing and nobody should make anyone feel this way.  And staring back at me all alone from up on my work bench in my garage, just a block from the beach and the cool Ocean breeze,  was that canvas.  Beckoning to me ~ Come hither.  It wouldn't be easy.  YOU HAVE TO MAKE A CHOICE.  It would NOT be easy.  But I pulled myself together,  stood back up, went to the canvas and finally,  painfully, made my decision.  And with that my bare hands scribbled a different word into the still wet paint, once and then again and again as if to reinforce it . . . . . .  "PEACE."  

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