We Interrupt This Story For...

Well, for no particular reason.  I was just thinking…and wondering to myself…  Why is it called a doctor’s practice?  Is there any practical or specific reason for it, or is it just because they think they’re so special that they get to be different?  Maybe it’s like those stinking lawyers and their Freudian “Firms.”  On the other hand, a lot of things like this turn out to have stemmed from some reasonable, although long forgotten point of origin.  Maybe there was a time when practice – in it’s common definition – was the most appropriate descriptor of what a doctor was doing; some sort of preparation for the big show.  Of course, if that were the case, then what was the main event?  A childbirth?  A surgery?  War?  On the other hand, it could be a form of detachment.  It could be a way of distancing themselves from the ever-present possibility that they might fail.  As though, somehow, calling it practice would mitigate the effects of a less than desirable outcome.  Like a really tasteless joke:  What do you call it when a doctor accidentally kills his patient?  PRACTICE!  Ba dum DUM.