MD Whistleblower

My personal paradox is that I have railed against the intrusion and dehumanization of technology, and yet I am tethered to my iPhone.   Do I feel differently when it’s my technology and not someone else’s?  I hope not or I might be forced to add hypocrisy to my list of flaws.  I’ll have to monitor myself in a fair and balanced manner.  Will I conclude that my phone call while at a restaurant is of monumental importance while another patron’s phone use is a selfish and unforgivable threat to world peace that should be prosecuted?  Purple Heart - Read on... This morning, I was halfway to work when I felt for the phone in the inside pocket of my jacket.  Not there.  I palpated other pockets none of which contained the desired item.  The car seat was bare.   I did not fear the most dreaded explanation, that being that the phone was mistakenly left in Starbucks and purloined by a Frappuccino felon.    As a U-turn seemed hazardous on the highway, I took the next exit and heade

Over the course of a year, I have an alternating pattern of caffeinated coffee ingestion.   As readers should know, I will not swallow Starbucks ‘Joe’ as I do not think that I have sufficient stomach acid and other bodily defenses to successful prevail against this corrosive elixir. Of course, everything has a benefit if one is resourceful enough to discover it.  For instance, I have found their coffee to be quite useful as a paint remover or shark repellent.  The best coffee in Cleveland is found at Dunkin’ Donuts (DD).  Perhaps, one of the reasons their java is so smooth is that my order of coffee with cream is mixed at a 1 to 1 ratio.  Cream at DD is no half and half concoction; it’s the real thing. As I write this, there is an environmentally unfriendly Styrofoam cup beside me. I’ll down this coffee every day for weeks reaching a point where if I skip a day, I will enjoy the pleasure of an ice-pick, throbbing headache at 4 pm.  It’s a pounder that stays with me for 3 hou

It’s morning and I’m imbibing a beverage that has no nutritive value.  I only hope it won’t cause me harm, as it’s a beverage that slides down my gullet with regularity.  Of course, today’s poison may be tomorrow’s panacea.  This is one of the amusing ironies in the medical arena.  Every 10 years or so, it seems that what was felt to be medical dogma gets tossed out by a new set of studies, which will be reversed a decade later.    Remember when every peri-menopausal woman was advised in the strongest terms to take hormone replacement to protect her bones?  That was then... As to our diet, these recommendations are also subject periodic mutations.  Butter in.  Butter out. I am presently planted in what can safely be regarded as a fast food establishment, where in a single meal, one can exceed his daily caloric need.   With my fidelity to personal responsibility, I don’t blame the establishment for the free choices that its patrons make.   Some years ago, Burger King (BK) w

I have enormous respect for the military who have suffered the highest costs of protecting the freedoms that we often take for granted.  I have never served, but these men and women serve me and the rest of us every day. The Whistleblower blog is not an anonymous samizdat, such as was present in the former USSR.  I criticize the president openly under my own name.  Those who challenge governments in other countries risk imprisonment or worse. To those who protect our freedoms to write, speak, assemble, pray and criticize our leaders, please accept our collective endless gratitude, knowing that it will never be sufficient for what you have done and will do for us.

Yes.  Professions that heretofore enjoyed public admiration for pursuing noble work and reputedly insisting on the highest ethical standards have been exposed.  The Catholic Church could write a few blog posts on this.   Police officers, journalists and even teachers have also shown us that they are members of the human species and are subject to its weaknesses and frailties. George Washington Cannot Tell a Lie The fallacy is to expect certain professions and professionals to be more irreproachable than the rest of us.  We are all vulnerable to experiencing a fall from grace.  Staying straight and true is a struggle, at least for me.  Yes, physicians lie.  Sometimes, we rationalize a falsehood because it serves a patient’s interest.  We 'adjust' a diagnosis so that the medical test is covered by insurance.  Explain to me please why this is not stealing?  Is this different than shoplifting?   Why should the offense change depending upon who the victim is?   Many

I’m all for enhancing patient safety.  Count me in on reducing medical errors.  I acknowledge that medical mistakes harm patients and many can be prevented.  The medical profession should promulgate and support any initiative that accomplishes these objectives. The public has become suspicious of the medical community who seem to circle the wagons when external scrutiny of its actions is threatened.  Yes, sunlight is the best disinfectant, but many of these shining lights are murky shadows that do not illuminate as intended. Murky Sunlight Copyright Christopher Down The government and insurance companies are now providing financial penalties if certain medical quality benchmarks are not met.  While this sounds attractive and overdue when it is expressed in a headline or a slogan, the true motivations and capability of these efforts have been questioned.  Is it really about safety?  I have tried to expose throughout this blog the fallacy that the medical malpractice syst

This past week, I had a once-in-a-career event.  Indeed, if I didn’t already author a blog, this episode would have been the catalyst to begin one.   As I write this, I am not certain which category label to assign to this post.  I will likely include it in General Whistleblowing rather than create a new category called Search and Rescue. Gastroenterologists are not just healers of the alimentary canal.  Yes, we are consumed with issues of mastication, salivation, rumination, trituration (GI power word), secretion, digestion, propulsion and elimination.  But, we are so much more than this.  We are poised to serve humanity in so many ways beyond medicine.    The colonoscope is mankind’s Holy Grail.  Please study the photograph below carefully.  When we were medical students peering at a chest x-ray while the attending physician hovered behind us, we were told that “the answer is on the film”.  Of course, we always missed the diagnosis.  We would focus on the heart and lung