Be Wary of Concealed Carry

Once upon a time, a young oncologist doing his post-residency fellowship sort of ‘jumped the gun’ on diagnosing a tumor based solely on CT scan results. He told me that a large mass next to my spine was almost certainly an untreatable melanoma tumor that would put me underground within a year. Lucky for me, my attending faculty doc pulled me back from the abyss and sent me off for a biopsy. The fellow’s initial diagnosis turned out to be dead wrong.

Fortunately, I don’t carry or even own a handgun and never saw the fellowship doc again. So I never had the opportunity to fulfill my urge to shoot him down in the clinic hallways. But thanks to Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff”, I can express my lingering homicidal fantasies in music…

I shot the fellow
But I didn't shoot no faculty, oh no! Oh!
I shot the fellow
But I didn't shoot no faculty, ooh, ooh, oo-ooh.)
Yeah! Far away from my home town,
He’s tryin' to take me down;
He say he think they found melanoma
Instead it was just schwannoma,
It was just a big schwannoma.
But I say:

Oh, now, now. Oh!
(I shot the fellow.) - the fellow.
(But I swear it was in recompense.)
Oh, no! (Ooh, ooh, oo-oh) Yeah!
I say: I shot the fellow - Oh, Lord! -
(And they say it is a capital offense.)
Yeah! (Ooh, ooh, oo-oh) Yeah!

Fellowship doc nearly cratered me,
With what, he don't know:
Even though I hope for me,
He said can’t kill it, still will grow -
He said can’t kill it, still will grow.
And so:

Read it in the news:
(I shot the fellow.) Oh, Lord!
(But I swear it was in recompense.)
Where was the faculty? (Oo-oo-oh)
I say: I shot the fellow,
But I swear it was in recompense. (Oo-oh) Yeah!

Freedom came my way one day
And I started out of town, yeah!
All of a sudden I saw fellowship doc
Aiming to make me frown,
So I shot - I shot - I shot him down and I say:
If I am guilty I will pay.

(I shot the fellow,)
But I say (But I didn't shoot no faculty),
I didn't shoot no faculty (oh, no-oh), oh no!
(I shot the sheriff.) I did!
But I didn't shoot no faculty. Oh! (Oo-oo-ooh)

Prognosis once got the better of me
And what is to be must be:
Every day the bucket a-go a well,
One day the bottom a-go drop out,
One day the bottom a-go drop out.
I say:

I - I - I - I shot the fellow.
Lord, I didn't shoot the faculty. Yeah!
I - I (shot the fellow) -
But I didn't shoot no faculty, yeah! No, yeah!

The truth is, I don’t hold a grudge against this young doc—he may have erred by getting out ahead of the known facts, but he couldn’t have been kinder or more caring.