I think the spread of metrics has become more severe than I ever dared fear. It has spread to the medical field. The same field that cannot give you a definitive answer about what’s wrong with you should you show up in the ER with, say, abdominal pain is now trying to tell you exactly how every child should develop. Apparently they have charts or something.

I recently spent time with a friend of mine named Tim Russo. He runs his own physician recruiting firm and if I could remember the name of it I would tell you what it is. Sadly, I am selfish and my brain chooses to forget things that would be important to me later at times. So, I can’t remember the name of it, but trust me, he’s good at it and if you have the need to recruit physicians or are a physician in need of placement you should contact him.

Anyway, Tim also has several children. They are great kids. He’s a great dad and his wife is a great mom. I have had lots of practice being the cool uncle through the kids I consider my surrogate nieces and nephew until my brother and his wife decide to have their kids.

He has a son who is 18 months old. In a recent discussion he told me that their pediatrician wants to send this child to speech therapy. Why? Because he isn’t speaking full words yet. Let me repeat that. He is 18 months old and cannot form a complete sentence yet so the pediatrician wants to send the kid to a specialist.

When did this happen? When did this become the norm? You mean to tell me that pediatricians expect every child to follow the same path of every other child and that they look at some mystical chart and if the child does not match the exact pattern of that chart it’s time to panic the parents? Pediatrician must use metrics of some kind of another. What, by 12 months the kid has to be reciting the Gettysburg Address with perfect diction?

I spent the day with Tim and his family recently. His son says words like “uh-ohj” and “Mama.” Of course he calls everything he points at “mama” but let’s not forget the key fact here and that is that he is only 18 months old. Since when does every kid develop at the same rate as every other? Just how many words do the charts say he is supposed to be speaking right now? Are the pediatricians in cahoots with the speech therapists to get kick-backs from every parent or family they refer? A cynical man might think so.

When you go to the doctor they hem and they haw and they prescribe test after test. Then, when you try to ask questions they nod and they act like they’re listening and then they do whatever they want. You tell them that your left arm doesn’t have particularly good veins for drawing blood and they might want to try the right arm and they seem to take that as a personal challenge. It’s like they think you are questioning them and the time and money they spent going to medical school. So, before too long, you come out with your right arm full of holes like a sieve. Sure, they get the blood from you but they do it by stabbing you until you bleed enough to pour it out into a bucket.

I think part of the problem must be the litigious nature of people. If people would just stop trying to sue every doctor they find because they think the doctors have vaults full of money laying around then maybe doctors would stop doing crazy things like this. I am willing to bed some pediatrician somewhere was sued by a mother who was told by that pediatrician that her child would be find even though he or she wasn’t speaking yet. Then, later on, it turned out the child had some kind of problem and so the parent sued. As if doctors have to be perfect all of the time.

So, you see, it goes both ways. We as people put too much into the hands of doctors. People should take more time to learn about their own bodies and how things work. Sure, this cranks out hypochondriacs like myself but it also helps you understand that people are different and the body is rather complex. Your body is not like your car. You can’t just take out the carburetor and replace it with a new one and then go about your business. A doctor is also only human although many of them prefer to think of themselves as gods. They cannot be right one hundred percent of the time. Still, many doctors I have met are honest people who really want to try and help. They problem is laws and people who just want to sue and eager lawyers who want big retainers seem to be doing everything they can to tie their hands.

Now, I don’t want to get to a point where every doctor can just do whatever the hell they want. They shouldn’t be made to believe they are gods. They should also be reminded they are human. At the same time they need to remember the people they deal with are humans. That means each of them is different and each of them have different needs. Each child develops at a different rate.

I remember a time when relatives would discuss the development of the various toddlers. It was a common discussion that Sally wasn’t talking yet and, gee, isn’t that interesting because her brother Jimmy was reading Moby Dick by the time he was six months old. Does that mean Sally is stupid? No, of course not. Let’s not forget that Albert Einstein flunked math many times over the years. Had there been doctors during his time so quick to jump the gun on things he would have been tutored and tutored and put into special education classes until he ended up working in some menial job that required wearing a jumpsuit with his name stitched over the pocket.

I am not saying Tim’s son is the next Einstein. I do know I spent time with him and he certainly seems curious about things and bright. He seems to be making an effort to communicate. It’s just that he hasn’t yet developed the ability to make all of the connections yet. The great thing about kids is that can all change so fast. He might be reading the newspaper by tomorrow night and talking at great length about what he just wanted on the McNeil/Lehrer Hour.

People need to stop with the charts. You cannot and should not put humans up against charts. Not unless you want to create a society where everyone tries to be the same. Like that short story where the only perfect person is forced to wearing weights on his arms and legs so he can’t run faster than anyone else and a cap in on his head to prevent him from being smarter than anyone else. Charts aren’t people and people don’t conform to charts.

Bryan W. Alaspa’s new novel Dust is now available for purchase at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.