Doctor Quote by Robert M. Fresco

The line lands like a friendly apology, then quietly flips into a miniature critique of what we demand from doctors: constant availability at the cost of basic human continuity. Fresco frames medicine not as a noble calling bathed in halo-light, but as a life of perpetual interruption. The “penalties” phrasing is doing sly work here. It suggests a job with benefits and drawbacks like any other, but the drawback isn’t just long hours; it’s the erosion of ordinary social time, the inability to be fully present long enough to complete a thought.

“I’ve got to go” is the classic exit line, but the speaker refuses to let it stay small. By naming the pattern - “I never seem to finish a conversation” - the doctor turns a routine dismissal into a confession. The subtext: don’t take this personally; the system takes it from me. It hints at an identity shaped by triage, where every interaction is provisional because somewhere else, something is more urgent. Even in casual talk, the job colonizes attention.

There’s also a subtle emotional bargain embedded in the humor. The doctor offers a wry self-deprecation as compensation for leaving: a joke to soften the abandonment, a little charm to maintain intimacy while exiting it. That’s why it works. It captures the modern medical persona many of us recognize: competent, harried, likable, and slightly haunted by the fact that care often requires vanishing mid-sentence.