Second Opinion

Most of us have a delicate relationship with health care. We appreciate its availability, of course, but we prefer not to acknowledge its existence until it’s necessary. We like to think of the healing arts only when we are already in danger — and then they serve not as a threatening reminder of mortality but rather as a comfort, a promise to try to delay suffering, if only for a while. Until the start of the COVID‑19 pandemic, it was possible for a relatively healthy person to maintain a calculated distance from the everyday activities of the medical world. But by the start of last summer, as more and more lockdown rules were implemented, evidence of that world had seeped uncomfortably into the fabric of quotidian life. In Montreal, hand sanitizing stations were nailed to every wall, neon signs reminded us to wear masks inside every building, and garbage bags covered every other sink in public washrooms. Even as lockdowns have lifted, those measures remain in place, here as...