Dan Hett’s guest column (Oct. 11), “Marcus Welby has left the building,” resonates with my observations of the health care scene in recent years.

One disturbing innovation is the demand that every patient recite his or her date of birth as often as they are asked (often four or five times per visit). The usual rationale is that doctors cannot tell one patient from another by the means that enable all other social interactions (name, face, personality, etc.). Sometimes, it is claimed to be for the patient’s safety.

I think it is for the safety of the doctor, not that of the patient. There is something they are afraid of. Just what terrible thing will happen to them if they don’t insist on the date-of-birth ritual is never made completely clear.

I had a wonderful doctor, Leslie Harding of Jay, who didn’t go in for rituals, but when he retired last January he did not know of another such doctor. Now, I am without health care, and may be without it for the rest of my life unless I can find another such practitioner.

Licia Kuenning, Farmington