Brick Borg Cube

Today I visited a really big hospital. Don't worry. It was strictly business. I refer to the size because it was really huge. I think it consisted of some twenty buildings all at least four stories, all of them interconnected by long corridors. I wasn't sure of where to go but followed the indicated route, which led me, among others, through the basement were I saw a huge kitchen, piles of blankets, a nurse and a patient riding together on a hospital bed, and people wearing all kinds of uniforms. I have been to hospitals before and very likely this visit is not going to be my last one (professional or personal), but for some reason I was impressed and felt awestruck. Maybe I should say I felt depersonalized. I'm not sure what the right words are here. Anyway. On my way home I found myself thinking of a spaceship. Don't ask me why my head turns the directions it does. Spaceships are largely imaginary things. But I do think they represent a concept. What was my next step? I couldn't help thinking of this hospital as a kind of brick Borg cube gone out of control. It had been growing, and building activity was still going on. I cant say I feel very comfortable comparing a big academic hospital to a science fiction bad guy starship. The people working in this hospital are doing it for some good reasons; they're there to help us. But like everything in medicine there are side-effects. Depersonalization in this case. I think I can say it made me feel a little dehumanized. Indeed, like being assimilated and living in a Borg cube. If you're really ill there's probably no better place to go than an academic hospital. At the same time I realize there's probably no other place where so much suffering is concentrated, where things unimaginable even for science fiction writers happen and which we all, sooner or later will inhabit.