How Soon Armageddon?

I spent most of yesterday with my wife at the local Breast Cancer Center while she had a Stereotactic Biopsy performed. This was in response to a suspicious area identified recently on a mammogram. The mammagram was at the insistance of our family physician upon learning of the recent radical bilateral mastectomy with additional lymphectomy undergone by my wife's eldest sister. Getting older is grand, isn't it?

The reason for the title above, however, is I was witness to something I didn't know was even remotely possible. I saw and heard a DOCTOR apologize. For making a mistake. And the earth did NOT open and swallow him whole! And this wasn't a garden-variety mini-mistake. This was a "Yikes, I've blown it this time!" kind of blooper.

Pardon my very obvious cynicism. My brother was a Doctor and I don't think he apologized for anything, ever, during his whole life. I have been on the receiving end of a serious cockup by the medicos. So, when my surgeons at the same hospital destroyed half of my breathing capacity with a slice of the scalpel, all I got was "You smoked for 35 years!" When my wife gets a mistargeted biopsy, she got the full blown "I am really very sorry, I don't know how I could have made this mistake." It didn't make the pain any easier, but it did make being charitable a whole lot nicer.

Is that a crack in the driveway? It wasn't there yesterday, was it?