Earlier in the week I wrote about Winston Churchill and his speeches to the people of the British Empire. I had seen the movie “Darkest Hour” and was blown away by the courage of Winston and King George VI (who was the king in the movie The King’s Speech). Churchill was a rock and dearly loved his homeland and it’s people.
I made reference to Churchill’s third speech (not shown in the movie) which was called “the finest hour” speech and was delivered only 2 weeks after the speech to the House of Commons and the people of England that ended the movie. From darkest hour to finest hour, a feat probably only accomplished by Winston Churchill.
Whenever I hear those words “finest hour”, I think of my old boss in residency, Dr Henry Laws. He was a man not unlike Churchill… confident but humble, a remarkable leader of men. He had a hundred “sayings” we residents called “Laws-isms” and whenever the subject of an abscess came up, he said, “draining the abscess, that’s a surgeon’s finest hour.” That meant that the abscess was not going to get any better by throwing antibiotics at it until it was drained and that, typically, required a surgeon’s knife.
I can’t see a patient with an infected boil or sebaceous cyst without hearing those words and draining that abscess. Thank you, Dr Laws!