MD Whistleblower

A close acquaintance of mine voiced objection to the lighting of the National Christmas tree, which occurred on the first day of this month.  Red, white and blue LED lights were illuminated.  I find no offense in this practice, which for me is a secularized event, even though I acknowledge its connection to the Christmas season.   Kids who visited Santa, as I did decades ago, do so in the days and weeks before Christmas.  Neither Santa nor his elves visit us during Arbor Day, the Fourth of July or Veterans Day.  He is connected with Christmas, although like the tree, his purpose is far removed from the true religious meaning of December 25 th .  A Christmas tree is not quite the nativity scene.  Readers who have more knowledge of the New Testament than I can inform us if a Christmas tree with a star on top and wrapped gifts underneath is mentioned in the Gospels.  Perhaps, Santa truly is a religious figure, since like the three wise men, he c...

Jingle bells, jingle bells, Romney’s at the door, Standing there with cup in hand, “Please sir, may I have some more?” Who will be the chief at State? Mitt or Dave or Rudy? How ‘bout tough guy JR Bolton? Isn’t he a beauty? Kellyanne, she’s our man! Smiling like a shark, Oh what fun it is to see Her ever present snark. Hillary, gets shellacked! Trump has doused her flame, Except for Comey, racists, assorted haters, Fox News, deplorables, poor messaging, Russians and Wiki leaks, She freely accepts the blame. How did he win? How did she lose? Did she have disdain For forgotten heartland’s pleas, While he felt their pain? Will we ever see the wall? Mexico pays the bill? Or was that just campaign red meat. A huckster’s ‘sugar pill’? The game is done. We must move on And think of lessons learned. Demonizing couldn’t halt Millions who’ve been spurned.  I challenge you to reach inside And summon your good sense ...

Even though I am over 40 – by a long shot – I am familiar with the abbreviation TMI.  We are inundated with so much noise, chatter and static.  I feel that we are bombarded with information that we must sift through and ultimately delete.  The news cycle is 24 hours and hits us from so many electronic sources simultaneously.  I am deluged each day with so many unwanted and unsolicited e-mails from organizations that I have never heard of.  One of my favorite words on their e-mails can be found when I scroll to the end.  UNSUBSCRIBE! Another genre of information assault is the panoply of warnings and disclaimers that we confront.  Of course, we are all numb to them since we have been so supersaturated.  I’ll prove it to you.  The next time you are about to take off on an airplane, the flight attendant will review safety information in the event that a catastrophe occurs.  While one might think that folks would be attentive to informa...

Most of us are skeptical that insurance companies are devoted to our health.  Answer the following question.  Do you think your insurance company is more interested in your health or in controlling costs?  Pretty tough question, huh? There is a tension between medical quality and medical costs.  If we had a system that offered perfect quality, it would be unaffordable.  If we imposed rigid cost controls, then medical quality would be compromised.  Where do we draw the line?  It is clear to most of us that the medical industrial complex is riddled with waste.  Keep in mind that one man’s medical waste is another man’s income.  For example, physicians define waste as excessive charges by hospitals.  Government officials define waste as excessively high drug prices.  Patients define waste as high co-pays and deductibles.  Drug companies define waste as outrageous legal expenses to get drugs to market and to defend against...

While folks across the country were gathered around their holiday tables, I suspect that conversations were not focused on the First Thanksgiving when the Pilgrims broke bread with the Wampanoag native Americans over a 3 day feast in 1621.  There was no pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce served then, and it was more likely that venison was on the table than turkey.  Sometimes, myths are more fun than facts. The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth I surmise that the many of our Thanksgiving dinners were sites of spirited discussions regarding a recent political earthquake that convulsed this country.  Indeed, over the past 3 weeks, I have departed from this blog’s medical commentary, to offer some thoughts on what occurred and why. The nation is sorely divided, but I sense that there will be healing, depending upon everyone’s ability and willingness to listen deeply and absorb the views of reasonable folks whose opinions differs from ours.  Reasonable people ...

Let the whining begin!  Donald Trump, the president-elect, has chosen Mike Pompeo, Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions to serve as CIA director, National Security Advisor and Attorney General respectively.  Here’s the shocker.  They are all conservative!  Let me offer some guidance to the demoralized and deflated liberal, I mean ‘progressive’, political left.  When the nation elects a president who resides to the right of the political center (leaving aside that where Trump truly resides is an arguable question), he is going to choose personnel who share his philosophy.  Trump ran hard on immigration, trade, anti-terrorism policy and the Supreme Court.  Now elected, he should be expected to assemble a team that will further the objectives that he campaigned on.  Isn’t this what we expect when a candidate gets elected? I think that Trump’s appointments mentioned above – all of whom are qualified – cause the left to hyperventilate in an effort ...

Many folks talked about the possibility of an October surprise prior to our recent presidential election.  Rumors swirled of an FBI bombshell, more WikiLeaks or a Russian hack attack.  The predictors were off by a month.  We received instead a November surprise that many view as apocalyptic.  The nation was shocked, as were the candidates, despite Trump’s minions’ confident public exhortations of victory.  How did the press and the punditocracy get it all wrong?   Even days prior to the election, many pollsters were placing Clinton’s chances of victory in the 75-90% range.  An Unexpected Guest We are beginning to understand how a man who has never held elective office, who by all accounts is a boorish and vulgar narcissist, could vanquish 17 Republican adversaries to gain the nomination and then handily trounce the Clinton political machine on November 8th.    The brash outsider prevailed over the consummate insider.   W...