An 88-year-old woman came in for a complete examination. Afterwards she said she was concerned about her late husband possibly having had Herpes and asked if I could recommend someone to check her out “down there.” She was becoming quite daffy over a 77-year-old man who lived in her complex and wanted to know she was free of disease if romance progressed. Our nurse practitioner found her clean and gave her some advice concerning lubrication. The patient then asked the RN-NP (since her intended had diabetes) could she give her some advice in case he could not perform? The RN-NP recommended that she apply a small amount of her nitroglycerine ointment on his organ to help it get ready. She cautioned my patient to be very careful not to apply too much or he might develop a headache.

Which of the following Watergate thugs were lawyers? a) Richard Nixon, b) John Mitchell, c) Spiro Agnew, d) Gordon Liddy, e) John Dean, f) Charles Colson, g) Robert Mardian, h) Herbert Kalmbach, i) John Ehrlichman, j) Donald Segretti?

Answer: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, & j. –Jess Brallier: LAWYERS And Other Reptiles

The law is the only profession that records its mistakes carefully, exactly as they occurred, and yet does not identify them as mistakes.” –Eliot Dunlap Smith

I was told about a patient who took an albuterol and Vanceril inhaler and aimed both to the front of her face, then stuck her nose and mouth into the cloud, took a deep breath and held it. I understand she was from San Francisco where they are use to dealing with “air you can see.”

A 40-year-old woman asked for an air purifier. When she was reminded that she was still smoking cigarettes, she said, “That’s true. But by cleaning up the air around me, surely the cigarettes wouldn’t harm me as much. I know MediCal pays for it.”

Bureaucrat to doctor: Don’t you feel bad taking money from sick people?

Doctor: Not really. . . I just keep them alive so you can get their taxes.

Bureaucrat to himself: I guess doctors are more important to me than I have given them credit. (After Parker)

Remember: For every doctor in prison, there is an attorney out there who represented him.

Doctors should never talk to patients about anything but medicine. When doctors talk politics, economics or sports, they reveal themselves to be ordinary mortals–you know, idiots like the rest of us. –Andy Rooney

LAWYER: Trying to explain to his doctor client how the “Law of the Deep Pockets” might affect the litigation, “By way of the converse, A Bum is Judgment Proof.”

DOCTOR: So by treating this BUM, I get sued. But if he had struck me and paralyzed me, that would just be too bad?

LAWYER: So you’re beginning to see how we attorneys win no matter who loses.

Will Rogers said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.”

Attorney: “I never met a man in a neck brace I didn’t like.” (After Parker)

An email from my Auburn connection. He says it’s a true story, although rather dated. An old country doctor went out to the boondocks to deliver a baby. It was so far out that there was no electricity. When the doctor arrived, the lady said her husband was out in the fields and no one was home except for her 5-year-old child. The doctor instructed the child to hold a lantern high while he helped the woman deliver the baby. The child did so, the mother pushed and after a little while, the doctor lifted the newborn baby by the feet and spanked him on the bottom to get him to take his first breath. “Hit him again,” the child said. “He shouldn’t have crawled up there in the first place.”

“I would like to see the time come when the massive hemorrhage of some of our best talents into the law will cease. . . Our country is already sufficiently litigation-prone and legalistic. The over-supply of lawyers not only helps create its own demand but can get in the way of solving problems. Jess Brallier: LAWYERS and Other Reptiles II

Attorney to client who had just fired him: “You can’t act as your own attorney. This kind of trickery and duplicity is best left to professionals.” WSJ

Attorney Jill Demmel reporting in our local newspaper about the unending assault on her profession, “I think it was maybe five or six years ago that we ranked right above used-car salesmen in respect and it’s gone downhill from there…” Well don’t worry Jill. Our administrative and professional leadership feels that your efforts and more laws are the answer to medicine’s problems. So we’ll be right down there with you shortly.

Conference Brochure: We follow the educational principle that to learn anything important, you must be able to swim, ski, or sail afterwards.

To register for the conference: call 1-888-CME-EASY

Topic in a Dermatology Meeting: The Diagnosis of Rashes that Resolved Last Week

Topic in a Primary Care Conference: The Management of Acute and Chronic Death

Topic in an Endocrine & Metabolism Seminar: Managing Carbohydrate Emergencies

9:45 to 10 am: Break – 10 Kilometer Run

Topic in Obstetrics: Intrauterine Circumcision

Topic in Infectious Disease: Foot-in-Mouth Disease

Topic in an Internal Medicine Conference: Management of Congestive Chart Failure

Topic in a Medical Legal Seminar: Anaphylactic Reactions to Lawyers

Topic in a Pathology Seminar: The Prognostic Value of Hypothermia in Dead Patients

Topic in a GI Conference: “Self-Colonoscopy”–How Reliable Are the Results?

Pharmacology Seminar: Comparison of Placebos in Treatment of Type I Hypochondria

PacificNet Conference: How to see 80 patients a day and not miss lunch

Medical Economics: Join an HMO to solve your high tax problems

Sports Medicine: HMOs: Transitional job to make the jump from medicine to wrestling

Laboratory Medicine: How to manage patients without ordering any lab work

Proctology: A Blind Study of Herbal Tea in the Treatment of Chronic Hemorrhoids

Weight reduction clinic: Forget essential amino acids-get the essential carbohydrates

Topic at Bankruptcy Lawyers Conference: Chapter 11 Health Plans

Estate Planning Conference: It’s never too late to go to law school

MBA Seminar for Doctors: The Cut-Rate Health Plan–Kevorkian Plus

Did you hear of the new managed care plan, Equivocare–the Suboptimum Choice?

Have a great summer of fun. Hope you were able to get your cat to fetch. See you in the fall when the ax meets the emery wheel.