Mar
17
The Best-Laid Schemes O’ Mice an’ Men Gang Aft Agley (And Other Things)
March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment
(With apologies to Robert Burns. -PB) Less is Better I imagine that some day Graham, the author of the superlative medical blog Over!My!Med!Body, who is just now emerging Siddhartha-like from the palace of his father to see the world-as-it-really-is rather than how he wants it to be, is going slam his imported microbrew down on [...]
Feb
15
Overdoctored
February 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Rocking Your Fragile World-View Let us again consider Albania, a tiny country tucked into a little corner of Europe which is only now emerging out of the communist Dark Ages in which it had stagnated while the rest of Europe moved on. This very poor country sits on the Northern border of Greece for whom [...]
Jan
14
Freeloader Mothership
January 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
(Let us delve, oh my long-suffering and indulgent readers, into the realm of real economics, an area of study much neglected in the utopian groves of academe. It’s almost as if our isolated professariat, protected behind the great bulwark of tenure as they are, have become afraid to get their hands a little dirty discussing [...]
Jan
9
Freeloader Nirvana
January 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
No Cows Were Harmed Your typical leftist, a person conditioned for shameless abasement to every social issue that can be blamed on his distant ancestor who allegedly once shot an indian, eats his bowl of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream with the same gusto he usually reserves for giving other people’s money away in the [...]
Jan
5
Freeloader Heaven
January 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Screw Social Justice If you proposed to me that all of the poor were lazy and desired nothing more than to live lives of sloth and overindulgence; smoking their cigarettes, drinking their cheap booze, shooting their drugs, and having their lllegitimate babies willy-nilly at the taxpayer’s expense I would call you a starry-eyed idealist and [...]
Dec
31
Throwing Money Away and other Medical Topics
December 31, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(I confess, what with the feasting, shopping, caroling, and wassailing of the holidays I cannot collect my thoughts to write anything coherent longer than a couple of paragraphs. My apologies. -PB) Taking Leave of our Common Sense In a previous article I mentioned that politically, health care reform was not a big issue for me [...]
Dec
13
Putting Granny Down and Other Health Care Conundrums
December 13, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(I hesitate to present this article because everything in it is so indisputable to those who work in health care that I might be accused of belaboring the obvious. With this in mind I ask for the indulgence of you, oh my regular readers, who may skip this article entirely as nothing new will be [...]
Jun
26
Kabuki Medicine and other Wonderful Tales
June 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Kabuki Medicine In one month I have had Mary as a patient four times. I have also noticed her roaming restlessly through the department on days when some other resident had the bad luck to pick up her chart. I would not be exaggerating if I said that she has been a patient in our [...]
Jun
13
Socialized Medicine: Survival of the Fittest
June 13, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(My mother, who is an avid reader of my blog, is a native of Greece and while a fierce partisan of that country is never-the-less perplexed at the love so many of my readers have for socialized medicine of the kind which is the rule of life over there. I offer this brief description of [...]
Jun
3
Curbing Health Care Spending, Belling the Cat, and Other Dangerous Activities
June 3, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Where the Money Goes American medical care is expensive and only getting more expensive. I blame the nurses. Think about it. Who is always at the hospital drawing their princely 25-to-40-dollar-an-hour salary? Who must provide continous coverage for the patients? Who are the most numerous employees of the hospital? Nurses, that’s who. Think about it. [...]