Cultural Differences at the Annual House of Delegates
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Colleagues:
Even though we are all in NY State, the cultures of Upstate and Downstate are different in surprising ways. When my wife and I bought our first house in Binghamton, my brother-in-law drove up from Dix Hills on Long Island to visit us. This was during hunting season. On the way, he stopped off at the Roscoe Diner on Route 17 (now Interstate 86). He went to use the restroom facilities. As he was exiting the toilet stall, he saw a man washing off a bloody knife in the sink.
My brother-in-law then put up his hands. The man asked him what he was doing, and my brother-in-law responded,” Where I come from, when someone pulls out a knife in a restroom, that means you are being mugged!” The man told him to put his hands back down, that he was not being mugged, and that all the man was doing was cleaning up after having shot a deer and dressing it in the woods.
Upon his eventual arrival at our home, my brother-in-law was still upset and unnerved. “Where in the world are you living?” he exclaimed. “They are shooting Bambi and Thumper up here!”
My brother-in-law also told us his conversation with the hunter. The hunter’s response to objections about hunting was, “How am I supposed to feed my family? This is how we eat.”
The coda to the story is that 25 years later, I was talking to one of my patients about this story. It turned out that my patient was the hunter who was washing off his knife. His side of the story was that he was minding his own business when a crazy guy bolted out of the bathroom stall.
In Upstate NY, there are so few of us that we are maybe 2 degrees of separation from each other. If this incident had occurred in NYC, I could not imagine the odds of me meeting both individuals in this story.
I mention this story now for another reason. MSSNY is preparing now for our House of Delegates Annual Meeting in Westchester on April 3-5, 2025. Although we are all from NY State, there are distinct cultural differences among us. As we debate the 90+ resolutions that have been submitted, I urge everyone to remain respectful. Whatever you see or hear, try to interpret it in the best possible light, not the worst. If you encounter the equivalent of a bloody knife, keep your cool, keep an open mind, engage in meaningful dialogue, and let us all learn from and enjoy the upcoming meeting.
One more thing. MSSNYPAC needs your donation. It is nice to pass Resolutions at the House of Delegates, but MSSNYPAC provides the punch to get the Resolutions to actually do something. Click here to donate now.
All the best,
Jerome C. Cohen, MD
MSSNY President
