The man sits at the wooden table. The table holds a laptop. The laptop shows a website. The website is the General Medical Council register. The man types the name of the surgeon into the search box. The search box is small. The man hits the enter key. The screen changes. A profile appears on the screen. The profile has a name. The profile has a reference number.

The digits are five, zero, six, four, three, two, one. The man looks at the digits. The man looks at the status. The status says the surgeon has a license to practice. The status does not say the surgeon is good at the work. The status only says the surgeon is allowed to do the work.

The Blue Circle and the Society

The man opens a second tab on the browser. The second tab is for a specialist society. The society is for hair restoration surgeons. The man types the same name. The name does not appear. The man feels a small fear. The man checks the spelling of the name. The name has an extra letter in the middle. The man removes the letter. The name appears. The surgeon is a member of the society. The society has a logo. The logo is a blue circle. The man looks at the blue circle. The blue circle is supposed to mean the surgeon is a specialist.

I once thought the word misled was pronounced mizz-uld. I thought to misle was a verb. I thought the verb meant to confuse a person. I used the word mizz-uld in a conversation with Max D. Max D. is a hospice musician. Max D. plays the guitar for people who are dying. Max D. looked at me. Max D. did not laugh.

Max D. told me the word was mis-led. The word was the past tense of lead. I felt a sudden heat in my face. I had used the word mizz-uld for twenty years. I had used the word in front of teachers. I had used the word in front of girls. No person had corrected me. I realized that my understanding of the word was a private mistake.

I made a similar mistake with the medical register. I thought the register was a list of the best doctors. I thought the register was a recommendation. I was wrong. The register is a census. The register is a floor. The register is not a ceiling. To find the quality of the surgeon, the man must leave the register. The man must find the map. The map is not on the website of the General Medical Council.

The man opens a third tab. The third tab is for a different society. This society is for plastic surgeons. The man wants to know if the surgeon has a background in plastic surgery. The website for the plastic surgeons is slow. The man waits for the website to load. The website shows a map of the United Kingdom.

The man clicks on London. A list of names appears. The name of the surgeon is not on the list. The man feels the fear again. The man goes back to the first tab. The first tab says the surgeon is a doctor. The second tab says the surgeon belongs to the hair society. The third tab says the surgeon does not belong to the plastic surgery society. This is the fragmented nature of the truth.

Companies House and the Ghost

The man opens a fourth tab. The fourth tab is for Companies House. Companies House is the register of businesses in the United Kingdom. The man searches for the name of the clinic. The name of the clinic is not the name of the company. The man looks at the bottom of the clinic website.

The small print has a company number. The company number is zero, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two. The man types the number into the search box at Companies House. A company name appears. The company name is different from the clinic name. The company name sounds like a financial firm. The man looks at the directors of the company. The name of the surgeon is one of the directors. The man feels a sense of relief. The surgeon owns the business. The surgeon is not a ghost.

The evening is half over. The man has four tabs open. The man has a headache. The headache is behind the left eye. The man rubs the eye. The man thinks about the advice people give to patients. The advice is always the same. People say the patient must do the research. People say the research is easy. People say the tools are online.

The man looks at the four tabs. The tools are online but the tools are not connected. The General Medical Council does not link to the hair society. The hair society does not link to Companies House. The companies register does not link to the reviews of the patients. The man has to build the connection himself. The man has to be an auditor. The man is not an auditor. The man is a person who is losing his hair.

“The hardest part of playing music for the dying is the silence between the songs… The patient waits for the next note. If the note does not come, the patient looks at the door.”

– Max D., Hospice Musician

I think the silence between the registers is the same. The patient looks at the medical register. The patient looks at the specialist society. There is a silence between the two records. The patient does not know if the silence is normal. The patient does not know if the surgeon is hiding in the silence.

Yellow Stars and Bright Photographs

The man opens a fifth tab. The fifth tab is a review platform. The review platform has stars. The stars are yellow. The surgeon has four point eight stars. The man reads the reviews. One review says the surgeon is a genius. One review says the surgeon is a late person. One review says the clinic is clean. The man does not know if the reviews are real. The man knows that a person can buy reviews. The man knows that a person can delete reviews.

The man looks for a review that sounds like a real person. He finds a review from a man named David. David says the surgery took eight hours. David says the surgeon stayed in the room for the whole time. David says the result is natural. The man likes the review from David. The man wants to believe David.

The man opens a sixth tab. The sixth tab is a social media account. The account has photographs of hair. The photographs are bright. The hair looks thick. The hairlines look straight. The man knows that a photograph can be edited. The man knows that the light can be adjusted. The photographs tell the man nothing about the medical safety of the room. The photographs tell the man nothing about the qualifications of the staff. The photographs are a distraction.

Closing the Gap: Westminster Medical Group

The man at the table has learned these things tonight. The man at the table has spent four hours on six websites. The man at the table is tired. At Westminster Medical Group, the process is different. The clinic is at 134 Harley Street. The clinic is in a building with a black door.

The clinic does not want the man to spend an evening in six tabs. The surgeon at the clinic is the person who does the consultation. The surgeon at the clinic is the person who does the surgery. This is a literal fact. There is no silence between the assessment and the procedure.

The man closes the laptop. The laptop makes a clicking sound. The room is quiet. The man thinks about the word misled. The man thinks about the word mizz-uld. The man realizes that a person can look at a list and still be wrong. A person can have the data and still miss the truth.

The data is the register. The truth is the person in the room. The man decides to go to the clinic. The man wants to see the surgeon. The man wants to see if the surgeon is the same person from the sixth tab. The man wants to see if the surgeon is the person from the first tab.

The registers are well run. The General Medical Council is a good register. The specialist societies are good societies. Companies House is a good record of business. The problem is not the quality of the registers. The problem is the distance between the registers. The distance is a tax on the time of the patient.

I was wrong about the word misled for twenty years because I saw the word in books. I never heard the word spoken. I built a version of the word in my head. The version was wrong. The patient who does not check the registers builds a version of the surgeon in his head. The version is built from the photographs. The version is built from the stars. The version might be wrong. The only way to know if the version is right is to do the work. The work takes an evening. The work takes a map.

The man stands up from the table. The man stretches his arms. The man looks at his hair in the mirror in the hallway. The hair is thin at the front. The hair is thin at the crown. The man knows the numbers now. The man knows the names. The man has the map.

Max D. told me that the best music is the music that does not try to hide the silence. The best music acknowledges the silence. A good clinic acknowledges the registers. A good clinic makes the check easy. A good clinic does not hide behind a company name that is different from the door.

The man goes to bed. The man dreams of hair. The hair in the dream is not edited. The hair in the dream is literal. The dream is a good dream. The man wakes up and knows what to do. The man will call the clinic. The man will talk to the surgeon. The man will use the map he built during the evening. The man will not be mizz-uld again.