When "The Mother Of All Healthcare Reform" Posts Excludes The Bastard Stepchild

I submitted one of last week's Housecalls posts to this week's edition of "Grand Rounds" . . . whose host (Evan Falchuk of "SeeFirst") boasted that it would be "the Mother of all Health Care Reform Round-ups".

I did everything exactly as instructed, and sent the email in well in-advance of the deadline. Nothing bounced back.

It's the first time I've gotten no response from a Grand Rounds host (who in this case, happens to be the lawyer-son-of-a-doctor) that the post was received . . . and it's the first time since I started submitting Housecalls posts to Grand Rounds that it was not included . . . nevermind that the post could not have been MORE RELEVANT to Falchuk's topic:

Dr. Mary should have been invited to Washington to testify before Congress - before the President invited Bill Groome for a bad-bill signing.

It just seems to me that if you're going to boldly proclaim that you're giving the world "the Mother of all Healthcare Reform" posts, you should really pull back that veil.

It's been a source of contention in the past with Kevin Pho too . . . but he seems to be more open to dissent lately (Walter Olson at Overlawyered, not-so-much). In Kevin's case, maybe it's because, with the passage of this bill, the disgruntled masses actually providing the healthcare have had enough and are finally making themselves heard.

The AMA and the rest of the medical powers-that-be did not represent ordinary/front-line/primary-care physicians well at all. So pop the popcorn and get ready for a really good show. The inmates are getting ready to take over this asylum. The bastard stepchildren will wear the glass slipper. And it's about time.

Of course, I do realize that "SeeFirst", like "KevinMD" and a number of other medical blogs these days, is corporately sponsored (in Evan's case by "Best Doctors") . . . and my "more-confrontational-than-the-average-medical-bear/name-the-names-to-expose-the-guilty" style of blogging (hey, if anybody has a reason to fling tea, it's me) makes the lawyerly & establishment types VERY uncomfortable.

Lately, a few friends have wondered if I should be pull more punches. Turn the other cheek. Flies and vinegar and honey and all that. That would be all well and good if being nice and playing by the rules and laboring within the system had worked for me.

It didn't. So (tea) party on. It's the South and flies are for swatting.

Anyway, I sent a couple of e-mails to Falchuk yesterday questioning the omission, and got no response. Moreover, the blog/host ("SeeFirst") will not load its comments section for me on either "Levi" (my uber-big HP laptop) or the Acer. I don't know why . . . I've tried every trick in the book. "SeeFirst" is still coming up loaded with page errors.

But ironically, while at the hospital yesterday, I was able to access "SeeFirst" from a desk-top (being that "SeeFirst" is corporately sponsored, the blog is not considered "contraband" by the "Big Brother" computer program that routinely blocks & bans selected websites it deems not germane to the conduction of medical business). The comments came right up and I posted a response . . . with a link to the post I had submitted.

Evan replied and says he did not get the e-mail/submission and would have included the post had he gotten it. So I'll take him at his word. It's possible the e-mail I send got deleted as SPAM. But I just cannot shake the feeling that the omission was on purpose.

I just don't trust a lawyer. Can't imagine why;)

I'm also sensing that the medical blogosphere is at a critical juncture. And I'm not liking everything that I'm seeing . . . which is a not-subtle-at-all undercurrent of trying to control (even more than had already been done) what doctors read, think and say.

The White Coats must mind their manners, embrace socialism with open arms and stand behind this President.

For instance, I got from Medscape (please don't get me started) last week touting the "10 Blogs Most Read by Physicians". But the e-mail should have been entitled, "The 10 MEDSCAPE Blogs Most Read by Physicians".

Big difference.

Anyway, the "Mother-of-all-Healthcare-Reform" forums is a very good read, but it came up one short. For my story-of-woe at Randolph Hospital in Asheboro, North Carolina stands as a good example of what MORE government healthcare (poor oversight and zero administrative/organizational accountability) is going to do for doctors and patients alike.

But tomorrow is another day in the medical blogosphere.