Perhaps you have seen it – The Hospital with George C Scott circa 1971, I think. I saw this movie at the University of Texas Student Union theater, if I recall correctly. The hospital’s Chief of Medicine is a bit down on his luck, and so is his hospital where there has been a spate of mysterious deaths. The Chief is falling in love with a much younger medical colleague whose father is a mental (possibly demented) patient in the same hospital.
It is the father who is surreptitiously offing patients. In his rantings, he declares that he is the Paraclete of Caborca and the Angel of the Bottomless Pit. Paraclete is a holy spirit, and Cavorka (Kavorka) is a town. The expression is nonsensical and meant to illustrate the insanity of the speaker.
After posting about Minimal Cognitive Impairment (MCI) on FB earlier today, I was thinking of one of my own colleagues this afternoon and of a particular patient that we two attended when we were residents back in 1980. The patient was an elderly woman whose life at home had become hopelessly difficult. She had moderately advanced Alzheimer’s disease and was well beyond the point of being able to pay her bills, shop for groceries, cook meals, and now even care for herself. She lived with a son who saw her as a burden and treated her accordingly. He wasn’t a particularly grateful sort.
On the last day of her hospital stay, my partner encountered the son in his mother’s hospital room. “What caused this condition?” he asked my partner. My partner replied, “It’s a hereditary illness.” The son looked stunned.
Later, I asked my partner, “Why did you tell him that?” She looked at me impassively. “Well, because it’s true, and also because he was being such an asshole to his mother.” She smiled sheepishly. I think that my partner Linda was if not cast in the role of Paraclete of Caborca – was at the very least an Avenging Angel.