"Whistleblowers Endure Stress And Personal Hardship"

Covering for a colleague's vacation (as pay-back for covering me during last month's farcical show-trial of Jeff Martin - whose free hate speech wound up being very much protected), I am working on my third week of 24-7 call in the middle of far-Eastern N.C. nowhere (acknowledging gratefully, of course, that far-Eastern NC nowhere has been far kinder/generous to me than my good-ole-hometown-of-Asheboro-North-Carolina EVER was).

Given all the practice I've had compartmentalizing my life, three weeks and two weekends "on" is very doable . . . indeed, most of the time it's not a bad way to make a living in today's whacked-out medical world. But I must admit that three weeks and three weekends of being "on" all the time pushes the limit of my endurance.

Anyway, very early this morning I got called in for a C-Section. I don't normally round so early - because none of the other doctors have made their decisions about things that my decisions kind of depend on. Once done with the section, too wired to lay down in the call room, but to tired to do anything else, I had time to surf the Internet between baby-exams and waiting out labs/other people's decisions.

I came upon two articles . . . one at Kevin MD's and one at the Raleigh N&O (a continuation of their series on SIDS).

This post deals with the article at Kevin's (I'll post on the SIDS issue again later). And I'm really too tired to do anything but post a link to the comment I left there.

Kevin featured an article by MedPage Today staff writer, Charles Bankhead. It was entitled "Whistleblowers Endure Stress and Personal Hardship".

Well yeah, Charles. No duh.

The post focused on the False Claims Act and "Qui Tam" lawsuits. Very loosely translated, medical whistleblowers reporting fraud & abuse involving Federally-run or regulated (i.e. financed) programs/businesses, can collect a piece of the moneys recovered IF the case is successfully prosecuted. It's a big "if" and the "when" of it all can be life-and-soul killing.

Such "jackpot" awards have ranged from $100,000 to $42,000,000.

As medical whistle-blowers go, these "lucky" doctors are in a very small minority. Most of us get legally trampled. No one cares - certainly not the press. And class-one/know-nothing/do-nothing-but-sit-behind-a-computer-all-day-hurling-insults/stinking jerks like Jeff Martin can make our stress and personal hardship the object of their ridicule. It's a "hobby".

My comment:

It is mistake to lump all whistle-blowing actions (or protections) into Qui Tam actions. It’s a legal black-hole.

I’ve found that the False Claims Act and Qui Tam actions have a very narrow and difficult-to-practically-use application for most medical whistle-blowers . . . particularly those who are blowing the whistle on BAD CARE as opposed to FRAUD (as the article indicates, the real Qui Tam money is in fraud).

Things here are complicated by what I can only describe as a subculture of physicians out there who are trying to push these actions as some kind of “jack-pot” justice (in a real John Edwards sense) for their suffering . . . real or imagined/made-up/exaggerated.

Some of these people are real pieces of work.

REAL medical whistle-blower protection is something that needs to provide physicians who feel threatened (for doing their jobs the way they’e supposed to be done) with some tangible/IMMEDIATE career-saving way of getting help when they need it . . . as opposed to months or years after the fact . . . or NEVER.

Most importantly, medical whistle-blowers need a way to by-pass the local cliques and cabals around them (including local DA’s offices) and have a direct line (ala the “bat-phone”) to state and US Attorney Generals . . . state and US Attorney Generals who will then be REQUIRED-BY-LAW to TAKE DECISIVE ACTION as opposed to telling the physician that, “Well jeepers, that’s too bad – you’re absolutely right to have done what you did, but your life and career is/was just not important enough to us to save . . . we have much more important things to do – like focusing on making the terrorists at Gitmo more comfortable.”

Or better yet, “A non-profit cannot lie to the IRS. But it can lie to a citizen all it wants. No biggie.”

Prosecutorial “discretion” KILLS the doctor in these cases. And NOBODY cares . . . especially not the do-gooding President who just force-fed us Federal-budget-killing healthcare “reform”.

Medical Boards, JCAHO and DHHS also need a fundamental 180 degree turn-around in the way that they treat whistle-blowing MD’s (JCAHO has gone way beyond overboard with the “disruptive physician" thing) . . . and legislate themselves some real TEETH in terms of how they deal with the institutions and non-MD executives who are guilty of the fraud and abuse (not just financial abuse).

As a physician-formerly-in-public-service, fired by a “non-profit” for defying threats and saving a baby’s life (not a lot of Federal money involved there comparatively speaking) . . . then SLAPP-sued for telling the Federal government what happened (when it asked) . . . then swindled by in-your-face perjury at settlement-in-my-favor (so far un-prosecuted by the local DA), I’m twelve years into an ordeal that NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED – and when it happened SHOULD HAVE BEEN STOPPED COLD IN ITS TRACKS by the state of North Carolina and the Federal Government.

The baby whose life I saved is now twelve years old – happy and healthy – the only child of parents very grateful that I was there. It’s some consolation for a career and personal-life-of-my-own completely derailed.

But not enough.

Just thoughts – from a refugee from Hillary’s village.

I've got to go. They've called another C-Section.

Man-o-man, it's been a day.

6/8 Afternoon Update: A nice e-mail from a real friend that I respect (as opposed to mean-spirited, warped jabs from a cowardly piece-of-sociopathic scum):

Even if we whistleblowers knew in advance how hard it would be, we would do it anyway . . . so that we could live with ourselves.

Looking back on the wreckage, I'm not so sure about that these days. But it sure is nice to think so.