Why I Blog (Part One): How Our Local Newspapers Aided And Abetted "Libel In A Small Town"

A few Sundays ago, the N&R's John Robinson told us all why he blogs. Given the myth of "citizen journalism" I bought into when I dived into this blogosphere two years ago (not to mention the fact that the Rhino is scooping the N&R on just about everything these days), it was hard not to hurl. Before that, it took a consultant to tell JR that, "They (readers) love to hate you".

So I thought (without being asked) that I'd have a go at (1) why I blog, and (2) why I love to hate my (two daily) local newspapers.

The idea for this post actually came after I read a recent column by syndicated-conservative-curmudgeon-pundit James Kilpatrick (published in the Courier Tribune) entitled "Libel in a Small Town".

I know quite a bit about slander and "libel". And I learned what I know the hard way. You see, once upon a time, I sued Randolph Medical Associates for the former, and a year after that, Randolph Hospital sued me for the latter.

It was in the hometown paper. Eventually.

The key point is that it was not ALL in the hometown paper. From day one of my ordeal (which began in 1998 if anyone is still keeping score), David Renfro, the publisher of the Courier Tribune, has demonstrated over and over again that he pretty much lives in the deep pockets of Asheboro's mill-town-kings-posing-as-hospital-board-members. In Asheboro, you simply do not say anything bad about Randolph Hospital. It's part of the "strategic plan" for economic development (David's wife, Bonnie, is in charge of that). My reality, as a citizen & home-grown public servant burned, is that advertising dollars and economics trump those much ballyhooed small-town values of truth and justice every time.

So journalistically speaking, I never had a chance.

I started writing this thing right after reading Kilpatrick's column. It's actually been percolating in my draft folder for a few weeks. When I got sick a week or so ago, I had to put it on hold.

Then last week something very bad happened at a place where I used to work (this as I was being "parodied" by a local anonymous someone who did not seem to understand that "No thank you, I don't want to play", REALLY MEANS, "No thank you, I don't want to play."). Of course, that was in the wake of the malignant musings of "Dr. Sue".

The very bad something was something I (and a number of other good people) worked very hard to prevent. We'll talk about that in Part Two.

Then, last Saturday, Pediatrician-blogger extraordinaire Flea asked me why I blogged. Flea is "trying to keep it real". He does a fantastic job at that . . . particularly as he blogs in real time about his experience being sued for malpractice. As the debate over tort reform rages (actually it's not really raging . . . the politicians all start off as lawyers and they're not going to cut their own throats), this is exactly the kind of REAL stuff the general public need to hear from doctors.

But it doesn't. At least not from the MSM.

Then on Tuesday, I got an e-mail from a locum tenens company asking me if I wanted to work in Asheboro, North Carolina . . . just for a few months . . . the practice in question (the one where I used to work) needs someone to fill in until it can recruit a new Pediatrician . . . the umpteenth Pediatrician Randolph Hospital has had to recruit since two of the original three "partners" (ladies who wanted to stay) were literally driven out of town almost ten years ago. Lots of way-bad managerial decisions, and a whole lot of Pediatric recruitment money (not to mention tax dollars) down the drain, plus the general ill-community-will generated by treating good physicians like dog-doodoo does not matter when you're Steven Eblin, darling of the Chamber of Commerce.

Maybe someday somebody doing those "dine-arounds" will realize that the biggest problem with health-care in Asheboro has nothing to do with the doctors.

Then Wednesday, one of the doctors at my current locums assignment showed me a "Mommy chat room" where women posting under no name (or fake ones) openly trashed the practice and/or the doctors in it. I could not believe what they were writing . . . about people I know to be excellent, conscientious, waybeyondhardworking physicians. Nasty stuff. Vicious and inaccurate/self-aggrandizing stuff. Despite being in the blogosphere for over two years, it never occurred to me that this sort of thing was out there.

So you could say that this post is about me keeping it "real" . . . and balanced . . . and, at the same time, setting a record straight.

Going back to Kilpatrick's column, a little-known part of my story-of-public-service-woe in Asheboro, North Carolina is that I let two medical "colleagues" walk on the counts of libel and slander. They went right on with their happy-little-small-town lives despite richly deserving to be sued within an inch of them. They suffered no palpable consequences for their acts of malice . . . certainly nothing that disrupted their lives in any significant fashion.

Now, in letting these professionals completely off the legal hook for the derogatory and false statements they made about me (statements that caused irreparable harm), I was being what the North Carolina Medical Board calls professionally "collegial".

You see, in the idealism and naivete of youth, I believed in the nobility of the profession and its ability to police itself. I also adhered to the unwritten tenant (as a colleague said a week or so ago . . . in a conversation about something else) that "doctors just don't sue other doctors".

I came to understand that doctors just let other people do their dirty work for them.

Take it from me, turning the other cheek gets you no points with anybody. And ultimately, it just made me more of a sucker.

As far a journalism goes, I know a great deal about being part of a news story that the local newspapers did not get anywhere close to right . . . where lazy, baiting reporters (1) ambushed me by e-mail; or (2) after three years of pretty much blowing me off, suddenly showed up at jury selection and wanted to chat; or (3) conducted their two minute "in-depth" interviews by phone.

Reporters these days suffer from one of the worst of the seven deadlies: SLOTH. Most of the time, you have to file a lawsuit to get the papers to show up. Because as far as the papers are concerned, nothing is true unless somebody has a lawyer and it's filed in court. Nothing is a crime unless a prosecutor wants to pursue it as a crime.

Investigative journalism is dead as a door-nail.

And the law is America's new religion. In North Carolina, we have our own never-ending Presidential wannabe ("there is no global war on terror") John Edwards cleaning up as one of its new priests. He built his very big house suing doctors and channeling dead babies in court. And he has lots of swell plans . . . like loan repayment programs for doctors and teachers (similar to the one I got burned in) . . . and "universal care" where every medical thing is free when it's not. It's funny how this champion of the "ordinary man" never made time for this physician constituent when she begged him for help (maybe it's because I'm an "ordinary woman" . . . the "anti-nappy-headed-ho").

While we're on the subject of blow-hard Democrats (especially the ones our local blogger kings and queens tend to support), I would point out that Democrats (Hunt, Easley, Cooper, Black) have "owned" Raleigh since my ordeal began. Likewise, Slick Willie Clinton and Donna Shalala ruled the roost when Randolph Hospital breached its agreements with the National Health Service Corps and treated a public servant like dirt under a mill-owner's shoe.

When I discovered the blogosphere two years ago, I saw great potential get my story to the kept-in-the-dark-local-masses (given that I could not get the time of day from the N&R and the Courier Tribune). I jumped in with both feet. Naively, I thought that a good doctor/public servant getting fired and sued and swindled after doing the right thing by a desperately-ill newborn might be relevant and newsworthy (in our world full of ethics violations, corruption and perjury) . . . especially in terms of shedding some much-needed light on what is very wrong with medicine and law these days.

Slowly, I came to understand that the same prejudices and biases and and disparities and injustices and just plain cruelties existed in the blogosphere. It was no magical path to light, air and vindication.

Plus, mine is a story that might be somewhat embarrassing to one of the princes of our local (Greensboro) blogosphere, Edward Cone. Now Mr. Cone thinks I'm insulting his family when I bring up the Cone connection. He's also upset that I posted e-mails he deemed "private", and de-linked me from his blog-roll in retaliation. On the other hand, it's okay when John Robinson does it with Jerry Bledsoe.

But here's the thing: If our roles were reversed and I was the journalist and local-blogger-supposedly-on-the-cutting-edge (not to mention the son of a physician and father to young children) . . . and if my family name was plastered on a hospital that had figured into the trashing of a local Pediatrician/fellow blogger's life and career . . . I'd be on the phone chatting up some of the family connections I occasionally link to prove how important I am . . . trying to find out what the *&^% really happened. As a journalist, I'd be doing something to get that blogging physician to someone who could help right the wrong (if I could not do it myself).

That, as opposed to being the fifteen-millionth wannabe-White-House-speech-writer-in-a-Democratic-administration trashing George Bush.

Not our Edward. However "not implausible" he may find my story, he is "at peace" with the journalistic jerk-around he and his N&R buds have given me.

Before I really get started, let me say that I am exercising my First Amendment right to express an opinion here. I paid dearly to have one. There is considerable documentation to back up those opinions . . . medical records and contracts and letters and such that (first) the Randolph Hospital/RMA Boards of Directors, (then) NC/US DHHS, (then) the Medical Board, (then) the Randolph County DA, (then) the NC State Bar, (then) the NC Attorney General's Office and any number of lawyers along the way were never really interested in taking a serious look at.

The truth did not matter. My devil was in the details these fine, upstanding public servants have deliberately and methodically ignored.

Let me also say this: If any of the principles in the story I now tell gets in a snit and wants to allege that what I'm saying here is "damaging" to their precious careers and/or reputations . . . or that I am acting with "malice", consider this: (1) In deference to "collegiality" (collegiality stretched way beyond thin), I'm not publishing names here (except Bob and Steve's), and (2) I'd dearly love to sit down with any or all of these people and compare incomes & Social Security statements over the last nine years. Or we can talk about the "quality" of small-town life they enjoyed while I lived in hotels and cheap apartments, eking out a relatively meager living on the road. Or we can talk about how I am supposed to feel about being on the wrong end of multiple acts of retaliation and malice . . . on the wrong end of perjury, contempt of court, and fraud.

My advice: Don't even go there.

When I originally read Kilpatrick's Op-Ed, I strongly suspected the Courier published the piece to kind of back-handedly address (without directly addressing) their total non-coverage of the criminal allegations I've made against senior Randolph Hospital administrators, Bob Morrison and Steve Eblin . . . and the charges of conflicted interests and bias I've lodged against Randolph County District Attorney, Garland Yates (who has refused to ask NC Attorney General, Roy Cooper to take a look at the case).

I would not have seen the editorial, had I not been reading a hard-copy of the paper. Regular readers might question, how can this be (since I cancelled my subscription to the Courier long ago)?

As I have mentioned before, I have a live-in YaYa . . . one of the core group of best friends I've had since high-school (we bonded for life as youngsters at Asheboro's First Baptist Church). In what has worked out to be a wonderful arrangement, Baby Ya (that's what we call her . . . I am Queen Ya) lives in the "West Wing" upstairs and keeps an eye on the house & animals while I am off on assignments. I feel much better that she is there.

In a grand social experiment last fall, Baby Ya bought a six-month subscription to the Courier Tribune. As professional women of some substance (she runs a performing arts production company for young people), we wanted to see just what exactly our hometown paper had to offer that you could not/did not get on the paper's website.

Because I'm sorry (really I am . . . sorry for all of us), the Courier Tribune's website is a just pathetic joke . . . hawking "shovelware" . . . totally not of this century. No blogs. Nothing interactive. Of course, the powers-that-be don't really want interactive.

And the big guns sue you for talking back in Asheboro.

Anyway, while I am on the road, Baby Ya saves the newspapers for me to look at . . . at least the papers the neighborhood dogs don't chew and mangle (maybe that will stop when the city adopts all those Asheboro 20/20 plots and annexes the neighborhood).

Unless they are very local, the news stories in the Courier are generally re-hashes of stories I've already read on the web . . . recycled AP's one or two (or even sometimes three) days after the fact of their publication somewhere else. If you follow births/birthdays and funerals and local sports, I suppose the Courier still has its uses . . . like the want ads . . . and the coupons (which Baby Ya scarfs up with reckless abandon - don't get near her when she's got the scissors in her hand). The Letters to the Editor are sometimes entertaining, especially Allen Pugh's (it's funny how those word limits for publication of LTE's don't seem to apply to anybody but me) . . . and I will read anybody's funnies/horoscopes. I also enjoyed the recent piece on 93-year-old Marvin Caviness another childhood FBC connection) . . . Marvin's a sweetie.

Of course, there are also the more obvious/practical uses for the paper . . . like for bird cages and puppies and indoor kitty cats.

But unlike newspapers in other North Carolina towns (for instance, Hendersonville and Jacksonville . . . where the local newspapers are all over their hospitals like white on rice . . . they sometimes get it wrong, but at least they try), if you want hard breaking news or investigative journalism or original viewpoints, and you're looking for it in the Courier Tribune, you're looking in the wrong place.

And please don't get me started on some of the editorials or featured local columnists . . . in many cases demonstrating the adage (especially in light of the facade of "small town values" as practiced in Asheboro), "do what we say, not what we do."

For example, in terms of their columnists, the Law Log has been pretty interesting reading lately;-)

Most of the columns are just too cutsie for my taste. I know the guys & gals are going for small-town "folksy", but more often than not it just doesn't work for me.

And here's why: For all of the heart-warming stories of eagle scouts and hometown authors and Seagrove potters (I love me some Seagrove Pottery) and cancer survivors and local folks making good . . . for all of the recent editorials bemoaning corruption in government . . . Asheboro's Courier Tribune has never gotten around to telling the story of Dr. Mary Johnson . . . a homegrown Pediatrician, who despite threats and intimidation on the part of people now strategically planning the future of our town, answered a nurse's call in the middle of the night about a patient who was not her own . . . went in and saved the baby's life . . . and got fired because she would not keep her mouth shut.

If Warren Dixon wants to talk about tributaries I should have not have taken, and a hometown job offer I should have run screaming from, I've got an epistle for him.

Oh, and like I care what "really bugs" Annette Jordan.

My "disconnect" from local columnists has its origins in two things:

Thing One: In December 1995, right after I came "home" to practice, the Ramseur Bulletin published an "editorial" by a local columnist (Sharon Womick). The thing read (to me) like the rant of a soccer-Mom-on-acid . . . in what can only be described as a hatchet-piece on childhood immunizations. Now, I am one of those less-than-robotic "fringe" Pediatricians who doesn't always swallow every policy statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics hook line and sinker. I have always questioned the wisdom and reasoning behind giving some vaccines en mass . . . Varicella (i.e. Chicken Pox), Rotovirus and HPV in particular. Now they want to add Hepatits A to the mix. At some point it just gets ridiculous . . . and well-child checks become dreaded torture sessions. Years ago, I was telling Mamas that the Chicken Pox vaccine would likely just postpone the inevitable nastiness (with the potential for worse nastiness as an adult) and would probably require boosters . . . long before recent research bore that out. And I've been reasonably tolerant of parents who don't want to protect their children from things like polio and tetanus. I try to work with them when the law allows.

But Womack's "Op-Ed" was a bit too over-the-top for even me to stomach . . . sarcastic (an art form I actually appreciate when done properly), paranoid, inflammatory . . . with a good portion of its facts cherry-picked or just flat out wrong. The Randolph County Health Department (back when I was their darling) actually contacted me about penning a rebuttal. I left the dirty work to them, but I did write a letter to the paper's Editor (on RMA letterhead) expressing my dismay with Womick's rant.

I don't think it ever got printed. That's okay. I never picked up the Ramseur Bulletin again.

Thing Two: Fast forward three years into the future. At about the time I got fired, the Courier started its "guest columnist" program . . . where prominent members of the community (as decided by the paper) were given free reign to pontificate on one thing or another. Medical professionals are often involved.

In the immediate months after I got fired, the Courier Tribune appointed both my former "partner" (the one who "inherited" my practice), and a local dentist, as guest editorial writers. It was a fairly suspicious move for those in the know (not many), because unbeknownst to the general public, both women were directly involved in the behind-the-scenes, back-stabbing machinations that led to my "departure" from RMA.

As my life deteriorated into a mish-mash of legal filings (while the government I served tucked tail and ran in the other direction), it was a little hard to take seeing the smiling faces of these two "mill-town-most-favoreds" beam at me on a semi-regular basis, from their glorified perches in the editorial section of my hometown paper.

With regards to my former "partner" (the third of the original three at RMA), there are many stories I could tell about what went on in RMA's office before I was fired . . . and why my other partner and I repeatedly begged for outside intervention and mediation. Apart from what was filed in legal responses and has been related in one post on this blog (about an experience which considerably colors - get it? - my view on the David Wray matter) I have chosen not to tell those stories (me being so "collegial" and all that).

Meanwhile, the dentist got a free ride . . . leaving her treadmarks on my career and psyche. It is time, I think, to balance the scales of karma.

Now, if anyone ever deserved to be sued for libel, this woman did. The whole story really deserves a post in and of itself. If I were writing under a pseudonym, I'd probably put up the whole ugly story for the doctor-bloggers to disect. But I sign my name.

Suffice it to say that, as a dentist in private practice (and a then-member of the local Board of Health), this woman apparently fancied herself part of the town's upper echelons. When she did not get what she wanted from the lowly (merely employed) non-profit Pediatrician . . . by just (repeatedly) calling the office and demanding it . . . even after being told (repeatedly) that what she wanted was NOT medically indicated . . . this fine, upstanding, community-minded professional put her poison pen to paper and worked some real dark magic on the doctor who said, "No".

The whole mess started on a day when I was not even in the office . . . when my ex-partner (the one who eventually "inherited" my practice and got her own newspaper column) answered a phone question (badly) and conveyed information in a fashion that violated office policy (i.e. through non-clinical staff members). Whatever she passed on started a fire . . . a fire that burned me as I scrambled to put it out. But nobody in RMA management seemed to be interested in that.

Now in medicine (despite the growing "Walmart" mentality and the lawyers who play to that), "customers" are NOT always right. In this particualar case, the "customer" was wrong and the doctor was right (and, in fact, simply upholding a decision made by the Randolph County Health Department).

But that did not matter to Randolph Hospital executives. They were working on plans to oust the troublesome Pediatrician (who was emphatic about adhering to that pesky "non-profit" mission), and this complaint more than fit their bill.

Here was a local professional openly trashing Dr. Mary Johnson . . . and trashing her everywhere. Dr. Johnson couldn't fight back publicly, without breaching confidentiality.

Bob & Steve really couldn't pass that one up.

I'm sure if you looked closely at the dentist's original letter to the hosptial, you could see the salivation stains. CSI purists could do DNA tests to match the saliva to Eblin and Morrison.

Forgive me if I go into "third person" for a little while, but sometimes it's easier to tell the story that way (since I'm being collegial and not dropping names). The dentist's letter (which apparently bounced around allovertheplace for over a month before someone even thought to bring it to the Pediatrician's attention and ask for her side of the story . . . not that it ever mattered) was cited, in a "letter of warning", as an example of the wayward Ped's "embarrassing" behavior.

What was so "embarassing" for hospital executives (and quite frankly several of the doctors on staff) were the Pediatrician's annoying tendency to complain about quality of care issues at the hospital . . . from botched circumcisions . . . to missed diagnoses . . . to the dumped/mangled critical care & nursery cases that the Ped was constantly asked to clean up . . . to the incomprehensible stuff going on in the ED (a sore spot, it seems, in many communities) . . . to credentials issues (like maintaining the continuing medical education necessary to have pediatric ventilator privileges) . . . to broken promises regarding Pediatric infrastructure (it's nice the Peds unit has a playroom now . . . back in the day, the hospital shut down the whole unit) . . . to adequate staffing & nursing . . . to putting up with the in-you-face shenanigans of a married OB who couldn't keep his hands off an LDRP nurse (and who was too important to the hospital's economic bottom-line to reign in).

Most of this was related in filed legal responses during the years of litigation that ulitmately followed. But the local newspapers don't delve into these things until they're absolutely forced to do so.

Now, if you're the Pediatrician in this story, you're supposed to work like a dog and put up with all of this stupid stuff . . . and put your malpractice insurance on the line cleaning a lot of it up . . . and provide critical-care back-up 24/7 . . . and be available every night and all weekends . . . while the overpaid, medically clueless Bob Greczyn wannabes keep their banker's hours, dine at the Country Club, vacation at Hilton Head, play their golf and push your buttons for more . . . More . . . MORE.

In the "letter of warning" generated by the dentist's complaint, RMA's practice director (being so "in tune" to the needs of the Pediatrician's hometown that he never bothered to move there from Greensboro) essentially told the Pediatrician, "The fact that what you're saying is legitimate or that you're right is not the issue. It's how you say it.

So say even one more thing that we do not like and you will be fired."

It was a "What the hell?" moment for the Pediatrician (who ran it by other doctors who also said, "What the hell?").

Now the "warning" letter was a pathetic attempt to capitalize on the "disruptive doctor" theme that so many hospitals and law firms (not to mention JCAHO) have embraced to keep doctors who might complain muzzled and under strict control. The description has even become a nebulous psychiatric "diagnosis" (the kind that Sue likes to make) that can be made based on anonymous complaints. The accused doctor is often forced to box shadows . . . with no examination whatsoever of the forces that may have made him/her "disruptive".

So much for due process and the right to face one's accuser.

Nothing is ever the hospital's fault. Confidentiality and privacy laws (which hospitals and our state Medical Board often hide behind) compound the problem for a doctor trying to defend him/herself against bogus allegations.

If the peer review process itself is corrupted to attack competitors or whistle-blowers (as opposed to really bad doctors who need discipline), it's called "sham peer review". Many good doctors have been blind-sided by this technique . . . and have seen their careers irrevocably altered or destroyed for less than noble reasons. Very little has been done anywhere (much less in this state) to correct the problem.

Back to the story: Of course, just two nights after getting the Director's "warning", the Pediatrician had to go and get all "disruptive" and blow that whistle.

Now with regards to the Pediatrician's "disruptive" behavior that night, she did not raise her voice . . . or use foul language . . . or throw chairs/instruments . . . or disappear and let someone else handle the disaster . . . or take five to decompress by feeling-up an underling in a linen closet.

I answered a phone call. I came in. I did my job. There is no doubt in my mind that the actions I took and the orders I gave and the decisions I made saved a newborn baby's life. She is alive today because of what I did.

I filed a confidential complaint with hospital peer review (on behalf of myself and the nursing staff) about the UNACCEPTABLE behavior of the doctor I "rescued".

No one can dispute ANY of that.

Now, in a world where medical peer review really accomplished what it's supposed to, the FP in this story (the one who screwed up) would have found himself in some very deep trouble. But the lay person needs to understand that the true purpose of medical peer review is not to punish. It is to educate (i.e. learn from mistakes) and reform bad behavior . . . to "salvage" the doctor (if he/she is salvagable) while protecting patients. So, even though the doctor would've found himself in the hot seat, he would have been given a way to gracefully redeem himself (i.e. get more CME, work under supervision, that kind of thing).

Alas, too often these days the medical peer review process is warped and used to destroy those who would blow the whistle on badness . . . and cover it up. And fairly often, bad doctors get lots of cover as hospitals scramble to cover their badness. It's all about "risk management" and avoiding liability . . . a fox guarding the henhouse kind of picture. For all of the talk of "quality assurance", patients don't really factor into the equation.

Unless somebody dies. I'm gonna get to that in Part Two.

As the "whistle-blower" in this case, that's where I found myself. For let's be clear: If peer review worked the way it is supposed to, I would've gotten a pat on the back for a job well done.

Instead, Randolph Hospital gave me a "boot in the ass".

But, of course, I live in Asheboro (which apparently operates very similarly to Stenchville).

Two weeks after issuing its warning (and very conveniently as soon as my service obligation to the NHSC was up), Randolph Hospital officials decided to make me eat my whistle. In doing so they breached the agreement they made with the Feds/NHSC . . . by not allowing me to work out a notice or offering the opportunity to transition the hometown practice I had spent three years building. They really did not want me setting up shop down the road . . . and dragging a partner and two-thirds of the Pediatric practice with me.

Neither, I expect, did the other big family practices in town. I expect they did not want a private Pediatric practice sucking up "white-bread" business. They just wanted somebody around to see the Medicaid/"under-served" (translation: non-English-speaking) patients and take the dumps. So people in the medical community who could have and should have intervened to help me did not.

To add insult to injuty, hospital executives refused to provide a good reference (which makes a big difference on those fellowship & job & privileges applications) . . . saying instead that they would only "confirm employment".

Despite my pleas for help, DHHS and the NHSC, with all of the power of the mighty US Government behind them did absolutely nothing to help or protect me. I was thrown out on the street with nowhere to go and told if I opened my mouth I would be fired. My patients were sent a sorry excuse for a letter that offered no explanation of my departure, and offered no way to contact me. In fact, Randolph Hospital executives and their Board members blatantly lied to patients about the circumstances of my departure. Patients/parents were given the impression I had abandoned them. Because , you see, the hospital brass lying to patients about what happened to their Pediatrician is a prime example of "care you can trust".

I was supposed to "just go away".

For years, as the Pediatrician in this story, I've kept my silence about the dentist's role in what happened to me . . . in deference to the obligations I once had to the woman's daughter.

But a few weeks ago, as this woman's smiling countenance beamed out of the Courier's pages in yet another "puff piece" devoted to her community involvement and generosity, I decided that the time for silence was over. Nine years ago, this "professional" acted like one of the nasty Mommys in the chat room that my temporary colleague showed me. It's time all the other Mommys in Asheboro knew about the role one noble community-minded dentist played in them loosing their Pediatrician(s).

While I will not publish her identity, I owe this woman no other consideration or courtesty. She acted like a spoiled, entitled small-town prima donna. I was supposed to give her what she wanted simply because of who she was. I was supposed to play favorites. When she got mad because I wouldn't over-ride a decision made by the Health Department (a decision endorsed by the specialists I consulted on her child's behalf), she didn't think to bring in her child for an exam . . . or talk to me face to face. She did not write directly to me to discuss her beef. No. Instead, she bad-mouthed me to all of her well-connected friends (including apparently the wives of hospital VIP's). That wasn't enough, so she wrote the CEO of the hospital and spewed more vitriol. Of course, in doing all of this, she did not keep her complaint private or confidential (so she cannot whine about me violating confidentiality nine years after the fact) . . . in fact, she tried (and failed) to draw other parents into her vendetta . . . and she also disparaged my partner (the one who didn't get her own newspaper column).

She also tossed around the word, "malpractice". Now, that's a fighting word. And she wasn't able to back it up.

The gist of the letter was that we were "horrid", "horrible" doctors . . . a "poor reflection" upon the hospital.

Now being a "professional", this lady should have known better than to put that kind of poison to paper. And if anyone in RMA/Randolph Hospital management had been endowed with a brain, they would have responded to her by saying, "We're sorry you're unhappy, but out doctor is right and we stand behind her 100%" . . . and then dropped the letter into file #13.

Instead, the "customer's" tirade was used by hospital executives as the convenient trigger for the cascade of events that started with threats and intimidation and ended with doctor's termination a few weeks later . . . after doing the right thing for someone else's (really sick . . . as opposed to not-sick-at-all) newborn daughter.

So you see, I would have had a great case for libel (and damages) against this dentist. I could blown her Pleasantville-type existance out of the water . . .. and given her a small taste of the extra-special-living hell I've endured . . . a hell her actions made her a party to.

But it just isn't done.

And a child was involved. Concern for children caught in the crossfire of these adults behaving deplorably has always been the biggest factor holding me back. But children grow up. And life is ugly. Parents aren't perfect. It's a lesson we all have to learn at some point.

I did write the dentist a letter after my "notice" was up (when I could talk back without loosing my "severance" income and my house) . . . offering up my perspective (professional to professional) on what she had done . . . and telling her that she had been WAY beyond out of line. I told her I considered the communication privileged. She never responded. But my letter to her wound up in discovery during the lawsuits, so I know she gave it to hospital administrators.

It was an act of spite. And in giving the letter to ex-employers who were suing me (executives of a practice that she left), knowing (and probably hoping) that they could/would use it to try and HURT ME in litigation and at trial, she (once again) relinquished any right to privilege.

This woman . . . this so-called "professional" featured prominantly by the Courier as both as a columnist and (later) a feature story subject . . . has never had the Christian decency or depth of character to that say she was wrong or that she was sorry.

But wait. We're not done with the Courier's medical columnists!

As another example of the kind of medical professional the Courier chose to promote to the community, the Family Practitioner involved in the nursery screw-up (for which I ate the whistle) was also ultimately gifted with a guest column.

I'm going "third-person" again for a few paragraphs. This is a man who, after falsely advertising his level of training and skills to the community, tried to cover his tail by telling a critically-ill baby's parents that he was "Chief of Neonatology" at Randolph Hospital (based on his status as an NRP instructor) . . . the same irresponsible, gutless piece of work who lied to the baby's terrified/confused parents after his arrogance and ignorance nearly killed their daughter . . . when he told them that he was more qualified in neonatal resuscitation than the Pediatrician the nurses called in . . . and that the infant's critical condition was the Ped's fault. Never mind that the Pediatrician he bad-mouthed was then-Chair of the hospital's (toothless) Perinatal Committee, and had spent MANY MORE nights in neonatal & pediatric intensive care units (and ER's) honing her skills taking care of very sick children.

Having done so, the Pediatrician could recognize respiratory failure & pulmonary hypertension due to meconium aspiration when she saw it.

As opposed to the FP's non-existant pneumothorax.

The Pediatrician could also suction/intubate and place umbilical lines.

None of which our captain of Neonatology had done.

He was the expert. He was the man. We girls who had completed wickedly tough Pediatric residency programs were just that . . . stupid girls . . . the equivalent of "nappy-headed-ho's".

There's no sexism in Randolph County. No Sireeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Now the FP's shenanigans (which would have likely placed the Pediatrician smack-dab in the middle of a malpractice lawsuit had the baby died) presented a another good case for slander . . . unless one works for Randolph Hosptial.

This FP was eventually appointed Chief of Staff of Randolph Hospital after the pesky Ped was out of the way . . . a real caregiver you could trust.

Back to first person. When I eventually was forced to sue for my supper, I did not sue the hospitals that privileged or employed this doctor (either Randolph or Cone), or the FP himself, for what he had said and done. I did not fire the shotgun or shake the tree. Instead I kept my legal complaint narrow and focused on the practice and the people who deserved to answer to the state and justice system . . . the executives who fired me in retaliation for trying to keep this guy in line . . . and from hurting someone else.

No one has ever appreciated that. Especially not my Medical Board . . . which did absolutely nothing to help me as I drowned in a legal quagmire resulting from the Board's abject failure to protect & defend the duties it requires.

The high and mighty North Carolina Medical Board has done nothing to this day. I am a peon to them . . . a "whack-job". The Board doesn't respond to correspondence. It doesn't ask appropriate law enforcement agencies to intervene in obvious crimes against its own. If Thomas Mansfield doesn't want to talk to you, he just pretends you do not exist.

The Medical Board just does nothing. What's more, they KNOW they've done a crappy job at policing quality of care issues. Like I said, I'm gonna address that in Part Two.

Much later on, to add insult to injury, the Medical Board complaint that I filed against the FP (six months after the fact . . . when I could speak without risking being fired "for cause") wound up in discovery. The only person who could have released the document was the doctor. In releasing it, he violated confidentiality and waived any rights he had to privacy.

Yet, I'm still not serving up his name on the Internet. You see, I'm being "collegial" again.

For the reader's information, despite the fact that complaints filed with the Medical Board are supposed to remain strictly confidential (and it's supposed to be illegal for the Board to release them), nobody at the NC Medical Board or Attorney General's office really cared much that my complaint against the Family Practitioner wound up bouncing around in discovery (along with other hospital peer review documents I had authored). These were serious breachs of confidentiality that no one ever felt compelled (or was compelled by the state of North Carolina) to fully explain.

It's very much like the RMA report on the GPD fiasco being released to the N&R and Ben and then the worldwide ether. No one at the GSO City Council has been held accountable for that.

Those pesky confidentiality laws really aren't worth the paper they're printed on, are they?

As an aside, the FP saw me in the hall one evening shortly after the nursery disaster. He stopped me to say that we needed "to talk" about what had happened. I quietly and very firmly told him that yes indeed, we did. But I told him it wasn't a conversation we were going to have in a hallway. And I quietly walked off in the opposite direction . . . despite wanting to slam him up against the wall (I could've done it too - I'm a big girl) and scream at him for putting me/that family throught what his did . . . and wanting to ask him just exactly what the hell he was thinking when he did what he did.

I silently counted to ten and kept walking. But hey, I'm "disruptive".

We never had that conversation. Because I got fired before the peer review complaint I filed was even fully investigated. You see, in an incredible show of arrogance, the Family Practitioner had filed his own complaint with hospital peer reveiw . . . whining that I had intervened in the case without his permission.

Hospital executives pounced on that: I had complained about the behavior of another physician without their permission . . . never mind that (1) I was right and (2) peer review was absolutely NONE of their business. By doing my job, and complying with my duty to report badness, I had defied the conditions of continued employment set forth in their written warning.
I was "disruptive".

I was notified a number of weeks after I was fired that I had been "cleared" in a peer review "investigation" that the hospital had not bothered to notify me was taking place. And there was absolutely no acknowledgement by Randolph Hospital's Executive Committee that maybe, just maybe, I had gone above and beyond the call of duty that night . . . only the mealy-mouthed platitude that (if I thought a baby was dying because of what another doctor was doing) I could be excused from deciding to intervene.

Like the lady dentist, this Family Practioner never had the courage or Christian good grace to admit that everything he did that night (medically and ethically) was wrong . . . or he was sorry for what he put all of us . . . the baby, the baby's parents, the nurses, me . . . through.

I keep harping on the Christian thing because that's what these people say they are. So do most of the mill-town giants who run the hospital. But they certainly have never acted like it when it comes to Dr. Mary Johnson. Her life and career and reputation being wrongfully splattered all over the walls of their hospital is no big deal. It's okay to call her a "whack-job" for fighting back, and keep pretending none of this crap ever happpened.

All of this has, very honestly, caused a bit of a crisis of faith on my part . . . something with which I have not quite come to terms with. You certainly find out who your real friends are.

But these are the kind of people that the Courier Tribune (which often touts "small town values") chose to represent the best of medicine in the community. Of course, this all happened long before the courageous, profoundly ethical NC Medical Board ever publicly commented on professional "collegiality".

At the time, the newspaper's guest columnist appointments could not have served Randolph Hospital's cover-up better: The Courier refused to print all of the letters it got from angry parents & colleagues about what had been done to me . . . and it did not print a word on my lawsuit agsint RMA (which included a slander claim) when I filed it.

Their excuse was that my lawsuit was merely an "employment matter" (funny how that same reasoning does not apply to Goodyear when the union needs to be trashed).

On the other hand, the Courier could solicit and print the self-serving blather of these medical professionals whose jealousy and/or arrogance and/or ignorance all contributed to driving a good Pediatrician (two good Pediatricians actually . . . and a beloved OB/GYN) out of town.

My slander claim against hospital executives was actually the only claim that did not survive summary judgment as my case against the practice slowly plodded forward to trial. Incredibly, a local judge did not think that a hospital CEO telling my patients and colleagues that a doctor was "not a team player" was the least bit damaging to her professional reputation.

Of course, I don't play on teams that would have me just knowingly stand by and let a baby die when I could do something.

So I guess the "team player" statement was kind of true. And truth is an absolute defense in any slander/libel claim.

My parents (as life-long residents of Asheboro) and I fumed with every new journalistic slight and insult . . . particularly the faces of these medical professionals beaming above the columns they penned.

And ultimately, we cancelled our subscriptions to our local newspaper.

A short time later, the Courier printed the story of Randolph Hospital suing Dr. Mary Johnson for "libel" (because she reported badness in confidence to the US & NC Departments of Health & Human Services) as front page news.

Let me pause/digress for a just moment to say Hi! to Donna Shalala (now enjoying a cushy post-public-service job at the University of Miami). Hey Donna, I hear you're gonna fix military medicine. Excuse me, while I go say a prayer for all those poor soldiers/their families who think you will do anything but minimize and bury this very embarrassing mess as fast as you can (FUBAR is right CMBJ!).

Sorry. I needed to get that off my chest.

Three nightmarish years later, when the legal battle was all fought and done, the libel lawsuit dimissed, and the complaints settled in Dr. Mary Johnson's favor, the Courier Tribune (covering Bob & Steve's embarrassing tucking-of-the-tail) buried the story as a second page "short-take".

Years after that, the fact that Randolph Hospital's senior administrators were caught red-handed lying under Oath (fairly obviously to minimize the damages they paid to Dr. Johnson at settlement) is just not newsworthy.

The journalistic gurus at the Courier know that the real damage was done to Dr. Mary Johnson when they reported on the filing of the "libel" lawsuit: when they aided & abetted their biggest advertiser in portraying a popular, homegrown physician as a "liar".

The goal was public humiliation and financial destruction. That's why it's called a SLAPP suit.

Ironically, in its reporting, the Courier's local reporters often did not seem to know the difference between slander and libel. When the lawsuit backfired on the hospital and blew up in everyone's faces . . . when Bob Morrison and Steve Elbin were slapped down by the cold hard facts contained in federal agreements, the cannons of medical ethics, the facts in the medical record, and the testimony of two of my very brave colleagues . . . Mr. Renfro and Mr. Criscoe didn't really want all of the ugly "embarrassing" goo on their front page. They buried the story.

And for years afterwards, I still took questions from folks who never saw the follow-up headline that Dr. Mary Johnson was not a liar.

As Flea once reminded me, "The proximity of someone to a news story is generally inversely related to the truth in what is published."

So. You will NEVER be able to convince me that that David Renfro does not live in the Randolph Hospital's pocket . . . or that he is in ANY WAY impartial or fair. I've earned the right to express that opinion.

And I seem to have a whole lot in common with David Wray.

As for the other local daily paper (the one my parents resorted to taking when they gave up their subscriptions to the Courier), the Greensboro News & Record is all about generating new revenue streams (via the web) for the paper. And they stand for truth and justice and open government and all that blather. But somehow, the case of Dr. Mary Johnson and the lying non-profit hospital administrators just down the road just doesn't fit JR's bill. John Robinson has been cruel in his rejection of the story . . . and (like Edward Cone) gleefully taunting in his posts that ask me why I haven't been able to get other journalists to run with it. Never mind that two columnists (one for Medical Economics and another for Business NC) have interviewed me and have written about my case . . . AND that the national outlets I've contacted have ALL opined that this is a "local" story (the kind JR says his paper specializes in).

Maybe this post will demonstrate to JR why I've never been able to get the time of day from the Courier Tribune . . . and why I had hoped that the N&R (as it's primary local competitor) would step up to the plate. Growing a spine in that regard might go far to wash off the stink of Ethan Feinsilver.

It definitely doesn't help Dr. Mary that the Family Practioner who botched the neontal case that got her fired works for an affiliate of Cone Hospital.

Why that would be embarrassing for a major local advertiser!

AND a certain well-named/well-connected local blogger-prince/sometime N&R columnist.

Anyway, a few weeks ago the Courier published James Kilpatrick's piece on libel (in a small town). I don't read Mr. Kilpatrick's stuff on any kind of regular basis, but I do remember him from the "Point-Counterpoint" segments of 60 Minutes.

My Dad always enjoyed that segment. I liked it too. I love a good verbal spar.

Anyway, Mr. Kilpatrick was unhappy about a "clumsy case" from Martinsville, Virginia (a place he seems to think no one has heard of . . . I guess he's not a NASCAR fan), and hopes the Supreme Court will reverse the rulings of the lower courts on the matter.

It's about a libel case involving a newspaper. I had heard about it.

In short, a "disgruntled" prisoner languishing in the city jail on murder charges sent a letter to "the Buzz" (a newspaper that Kilpatrick dismisses faster than JR can diss the Rhino).

From Kilpatrick: (Za'Kee P.J.) Tahlib sent a letter to the Buzz, a one-time, sometime newspaper in Martinsville. In his letter, Tahlib identified himself as a former "very high-profiled drug dealer" now on parole from a federal prison. He was awaiting trial in the Martinsville jail, he said, on "trumped-up" charges of murder.

In his letter, Tahib alleged that the prosecutor had "conjured up the charges against him" (pursuing some kind of vendetta over something he had conjured up about her sister) . . . that she was "out of control and very vindictive" . . . per Thahib, Ziglar was "very paranoid toward most of the public and especially toward all black men."

Hummmmmmm. Classic race-baiting. It worked for OJ. Sounds like something that the News & Record would print in its letters section as fast as the printers could go. It's probably worthy of the front page. Just ask the "victims" of non-hate-crimes at Guilford College.

What's the problem you ask?

Well, the problem is, the prosecutor, being a moron (my opinion, and as a free-speaking American I can have one about public/elected officials AND organizations that use public money . . . as well as matters that are on the public record) sued the newspaper's publishers for "libel", after they printed Thahib's letter under a headline, "Convict Speaks Out Against Joan Ziglar".

Of course, it's nearly not as stupid or glass-house transparent as a local "non-profit" hospital and its overpaid administrators suing a doctor for "libel" over a letter she sent to US & NC DHHS officials . . . a letter that was stamped "confidential" on every single page and was not made public (until, of course, Randolph Hosptial filed its lawsuit).

The Martinsville DA's case actually made it to trial (this is what I don't get given current case law . . . the DA is a public figure and we're all allowed to talk disparagingly about public figures). She was awarded $75,000 by a local jury (good luck with collecting that).

The "drug dealer" is appealing to the US Supremes.

According to Kilpatrick, a well-edited newspaper never would have published Tahlib's letter without first running it by counsel. A sensible state's attorney would have shrugged off a personal attack by a loquacious convict in a fringe publication.

Ironically, Kilpratricks' curt dismissal of a case that should have been dismissed at summary judgment (I wonder if the case got as far as it did because the plaintiff was the DA) is a variation of what I myself have heard as I try to get someone somewhere to enforce the law and/or help me get my story to the masses.

Substitute just a few words and you have John Robinson's excuse: A well-edited newspaper never would have published Dr. Johnson's story without first running it through counsel (never mind that a reporter has never sat down to look at the evidence Dr. Johnson has presented to the local DA). A sensible state's attorney would have shrugged off a personal attack by a loquacious physician in a fringe publication (like say, I dunno, a personal web-blog).

Kirkpatrick goes on to cite the case most relevant to current libel law (and the U.S. Supreme Court opinion upon which I rely to sign my name on this blog as I use the only weapon I have . . . my voice . . . to battle our state's non-profiteers): Times v. Sullivan (1964). In that case, the magisterial New York Times behaved almost as fecklessly as this inconsequential sheet in small-town Virginia. The Times ran a full-page paid advertisement that impugned a city commissioner in Alabama. He and four co-plaintiffs sued and won a $500,000 judgment.

Speaking through Justice William Brennan, the high court unanimously reversed (the lower court's decision). Erroneous statements, said Brennan, are inevitable in public debate. Even false statements must be protected "if freedoms of expression are to have the 'breathing space' that they need to survive." This was a case brought by a public official against critics of his official conduct.

Published criticism of public officials, Brennan observed, is often "uninhibited, robust and wide open." It may well include attacks that are "vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp." The Times ad contained half a dozen errors of fact. No matter: "Erroneous statements are inevitable in free debate." Brennan's eloquent opinion ended with a sweeping concurrence from Justices Hugo Black and William Douglas. In their uncompromising view, public officials must be made effectively immune from even the most libelous accusations of misconduct.

Despite this ruling by the Supremes, when I tried to buy an ad in the N&R a few years back . . . to publicize the Asheboro Pediatrics website and try to get some attention cast on my criminal accusations against Randolph Hospital big-guns . . . the paper refused to sell me the space.

Although he decries it as "a bad case", in the end Kilpatrick supports the drug-dealer's First Amendment right to criticize the DA. The judgment against him should be reversed.

After-all, the drug-dealer's letter is "of substantial public interest". It accused a commonwealth's attorney of "official misconduct" and "abusing her authority".

Even if you're a drug-dealer, you have the right to do that. It's called Free Speech.

It's exactly what I've done with a local District Attorney as I decry his gross indifference to perjury and contempt (you might call it "official misconduct") on the part of two "non-profit" hospital administrators (who most certainly abused their authority and the public trust).

The black Muslim drug-dealer's letter . . . filled with false allegations . . . got published. Just like a black, doped-up, story-changing exotic dancer's false charges of "rape" exposed the North Carolina justice system for what it is. And James Kilpatrick is writing about the libel case. Everyone else on the planet is writing about Duke.

Of course, these things are being written about only because lawyers are involved . . . because somebody sued somebody or charged somebody.

Meanwhile, the (not-black-at-all/Chrisitian) Pediatrician's story (which hasn't changed in nearly ten years) . . . and the truth . . . remains buried. "Justice" (whatever that means) falls through the cracks.

Allow me to paraphrase the loquacious drug-dealer (and it is really sad that a doctor is reduced to doing that): Randolph County District Attorney, Garland Yates has shown prejudice towards me because of my name and our bad encounters . . . I want this to be known to the public because I feel I've fallen victim to Mr. Yates (and Mr. Morrison and Mr. Eblin) and that other men and women (doctors and nurses) are in my same situation but are afraid to challenge them (and people like them) . . . "

You could say it's the reason I blog.

Baby Ya will be cancelling "our" subscription to the Courier Tribune this week. The great experiment in sampling local journalism is over.

And Part Two of my response to Flea's question is being drafted.

You see despite my absolute best efforts to prevent it . . . despite doing everything I was supposed to do . . . jumping through all the hoops . . . going through all the proper chains of command, a baby died. Needlessly. And I am angry . . . very, very angry . . . about that.