Patient: I’d like this prescription filled. Druggist: That will be ninety eight dollars. Patient: How much is the placebo? (After Parker) A recent FP-HMO (For Profit Health Maintenance Organization) merger netted nearly $1 billion for one individual. The profit from health care dollars for this one individual would have covered the health care overhead for […]

The American Thoracic Society and its International conference continues to enlarge. Of 15,000 registrants, there were 12,000 professionals including 3,000 international physicians who made the trek to New Orleans this year. It was a pleasure to be sharing ideas with colleagues from three continents over breakfast and en route to conferences. Valentine Poppa, a member […]

Sacramento has a new cover lady. Congratulation to Sister Bridget McCarthy, Sacramento’s Business Woman of the year. The recent staff meeting of Mercy General Hospital at the Hyatt regency was an honest attempt at dialogue among the various management groups, whose talk about how fine a job they were doing with the lives they were […]

A patient mentioned that he had escaped Canadian Medicine. While living in Canada, he would take his wife to a 10AM doctor’s appointment by dropping her off at 9 AM. It was frequently 5 PM when he was called to pick her up. He states there were usually 50 people waiting and patients went through […]

Congratulations to Doctor William Au, the new Chief of Staff of Sutter who took a firm leadership position at his first meeting. He wants to strive for collegiality amongst the staff members. What a refreshing breeze. Nothing could stop us if we treated each other as colleagues. The Orange County REGISTER reports that the lady […]

The nurse was confused. The patient was confused. And the family became confused when they read their father’s death certificate: The doctor in frustration had entered as the cause of death: Confusion. Philip K. Howard, author of The Death of Common Sense, states “Humans may be flawed, but at least they can think and act […]

Atrocities against women continue. Egypt has done another reversal on female circumcision. After CNN aired footage of an amateur cutting away the clitoris of a screaming 10-year-old girl in September 1994, the government again allowed hospitals to do the “procedure” stating that the ban implemented in 1959 had not changed practice. This practice was continued […]

The continuing saga of the “biomedical rape” of women at UCI’s fertility clinic continues to get more complicated. Some of these eggs have been implanted without donors or recipients consent and have produced children with biologic parentage in doubt. A second doctor is out of the country developing a huge practice in Chile. However, the […]

Being a physician whistle blower in the past has been tantamount to professional suicide which lead to loss of practice, income, bankruptcy, with rejection and humiliation terminating a career–as well as society’s investment of $500,000 to produce that physician. Nonphysician whistle blowers, however, at UC Irvine have found an additional source of income. They are […]

Diogenes, a Greek ascetic and philosopher who lived in poverty, slept in public buildings, and begged for food, intended to show that happiness and independence were possible even under reduced circumstances. He is best known for his answer as to why he walked about with a lantern in broad daylight, “I’m searching for an honest […]