Her Name was Kimberly Hiatt - And She Was A Good Nurse

6/28 Author's Update:  After sleeping on it, this post has been edited several times through the course of the morning, and slightly expounded upon.  As I've re-read and played with the text - adding links as the whim arose, I realize that it sounds incredibly bitter.

And I just don't care.

A nursing colleague of mine pointed me to this story on MSNBC today - about a Seattle Pediatric Critical Care nurse who was fired after making a medication mistake that may (or may not) have contributed to the death of a medically-fragile baby.  She accidentally gave a cardiac patient ten times the normal dose of calcium chloride, and the infant died five days later.

The nurse reported her mistake immediately.  She cooperated with hospital and state investigators.  By all accounts, she was a stellar employee/nurse with glowing reviews, and this was her fist major mistake after over two decades of nursing.

The child's prognosis (the baby apparently suffered from a complex congenital heart defect) was poor to start with.  The attending cardiologist was very quick to throw the nurse under the bus (uber predictable), but it's not clear the overdose had any direct causal relationship to the baby's death.

The child's parents said they "didn't want anyone's head cut off" over the mistake.

That's real grace.

But despite that sentiment . . . as well as current JCAHO guidelines for handling medical mistakes, and what the eggheads-in-the-ivory-towers call "Just Culture" . . . the hospital still fired the nurse (using the gutless/snivelling reputation-killer that hospitals commonly hide behind - telling the world that there was “more behind her case than can be made public” - because of personnel and privacy policies).

The "Just Culture" business is a wholesale joke to me.  For thirteen years ago (before the days of blogs and friending on Facebook), when I defied the threats of a couple of CLUELESS practice executives in Asheboro, North Carolina, and did the right thing by a very sick patient-not-even-my-own (while in public service no less), I got no fair review, no due process.

Nope.  I had to be SILENCED.

A couple of carpet-bagging MBA's decided that I did not fit in.  To my own hometown.  It was news to my horrified parents and dumbfounded friends.  My patients/their parents were deliberately lied-to and kept in the dark.  They were supposed to think I abandoned them.

That was about money - and the hosptial keeping "the business" for itself.

And/so, I was destined to become medical roadkill for intervening to STOP malpractice and then reporting what happened via proper channels.

(Call me entitled, but employment law in North Carolina pretty much equates doctors and nurses with the guy/gal who scrubs toilets at one of Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco's mills - and it just aint' right.)

Those who actually did the wrong have never been held accountable.  In fact, the doctor who screwed up was eventually promoted to Chief-of-Staff.

I don't know what kind of "culture" it is, but it for sure wasn't "just".

And President Obama's hallowed healthcare "reform" (our resident genius-in-the-White-House threw even more money at the National Health Service Corps - and put the IRS in charge of oversight) hasn't fixed any of it.

As it happens, on the state level, I was pleading my case to convicted & soon-to-be-convicted (if God is just) felons (does anyone else want to slap the oily smiles off of John Edwards and his fat-cat lawyers's faces as they smugly stroll to various Federal courthouses?).

OBTW, the nurse in Seattle was a lesbian.  (Insert sarcasm) I'm sure that had nothing to do with what her hospital did to her.

Regular readers know that Asheboro's mill-town thugs-in-suits thought I was a lesbian (those "small town values" require a man - and children - to justify a woman's existence).  The thugs were wrong.  But the truth has never EVER mattered to the scheming Neanderthals running Asheboro and Randolph Hospital.  Rumor and innuendo and snickering behind people's backs are their stock and trade.

I guess dumping on the faux-lesbian was a better story to tell and snicker about than the one about the OB who aborted his own child at home (24 hours to think it over wouldn't have done any good).

Randolph Hospital bigwigs ignored what the OB did (acting like a back-alley baby-butcher) until they couldn't anymore (he was a surgeon and a big money-maker for them).  But they fired the Pediatrician who answered the phone in the middle-of-the-night and came in to save a baby's life.

They couldn't have anyone on the inside saying anything bad about their hospital - even if it was TRUE.

Much later on, when I stopped cooperating with a gag order negotiated on a pile of lies and in bad faith, I became "crazy".  Still, no one in a position of oversight (don't even get me started on the local "journalists") could pose a coherent question to the over-paid MBA's who hid their dirty deeds behind confidentiality and privacy - and used the law as a vicious weapon against a good doctor on the tax-payer's dime.

Make no mistake, my life was not supposed to be only about taking care of other women's children.  I wanted kids of my own.  But after my stint in Hillary's "village", I just never had the time to settle down with someone worthy-of-being-a-Father to have them.  I was too busy fighting off liars and thieves - and just trying to survive.

I know.  I should just "get over it".  And "move on". Surgical scars and all.

Moving on along in this very-sad-story-that-I-cannot-help-but-justapose-against-my-own, the nurse in Seattle fought to keep her license in the resulting firestorm of negative publicity (after the media black-out of my case, I'm kinda wondering how the story got out - I guess privacy and confidentiality only go so far).  She was ultimately fined, sentenced to "CME" (continuing medical education) and put on probation.

The next hurdle became getting hired anywhere else - so she could pay the fine and the lawyers.

Enter the Washington State Nurses Association - whose leadership thought Seattle Childrens' actions against the nurse were overly harsh, and intervened to help her legally - negotiating a confidential settlement with the hospital on her behalf.  But the damage was already done.

If had to guess whatever she got did not begin to cover the damage.  Hospital CEO's don't think nurses - or doctors - are worth very much.

Still juxtaposing, when I asked the North Carolina Medical Society for help, they waived my dues for a year (secondary to financial hardship) but otherwise continued to play footsies with the North Carolina Hospital Association on peer review reform and whistle-blower protection . . . looking the other way as the hospital dons made the CEO who orchestrated my misery an officer in their organization.

I don't belong to the North Carolina Medical Society anymore - or the Pediatric Society - or the American Medical Association.  It was by choice.  For if they "don't do individual advocacy", then it seems to me that individual dues are wasted on these organizations.  Doctors should pull out and stop throwing their money away.

Meanwhile, the North Carolina Medical Board, whose ethical canons and position statements REQUIRED me to do what I did, hasn't come in out of the rain in all of the thirteen years I've been sending them letters.  When challenged about what they should be doing to protect those in their ranks crucified for actually not screwing up, all you'll get is a blank stare and, "What . . . who us?".

For years, JCAHO has been all over the very convenient (for hospitals) theory of the "disruptive physician" (blaming everything on doctors solves so many problems for the suits), but told me TWICE that they had no mechanisms in place to discipline executives behaving badly.

They still don't.

JCAHO Accreditation is just a dog and pony show and the game is fixed to favor the hospitals that pay for the party.  Doctors are the source of all evil at a hospital, don'tchaknow.  And "non-profits" always act for the public good (that was sarcasm - the Wall Street goons who bankrupted this country have NOTHING on the non-profiteers - who can hide behind charity - and whose slick lawyers can style their lies as "agressive representation" and "legal conclusions" without the N.C. State Bar batting an eye).

It all speaks volumes about accountability and transaparency when it comes to patient safety in North Carolina.  The recently-vetoed medical malpractice reform bill had no provisions for peer review reform or better whistle-blower protection for doctors and nurses.  So I'm not crying over the veto.  It wasn't even close to being what we need.

This time it just doesn't hurt for Bev Perdue to pander to her base.

But I am crying over this:  Riddled with guilt and drowning in despair (doubting she'd ever be able to work again), the Pediatric critical care nurse in Seattle committed suicide several months after making her one and only major mistake.

Outsiders looking in say she ran out of coping skills.  And that's just a cop-out.  Lame-to-the-nth-degree.

She died of a broken heart.

The system did not work for her.

Just as it did not work for me.

I'm actually surprised that an American news outlet published the story sympathetically - much less at all.  Doctors and nurses these days are much easier to cast as public enemy number one.  Our President certainly has had no problem doing it.

(Speaking of styling doctors as demons, the New York Times reported this week that the While House plans to conduct a "stealth spy" campaign against rural doctors - in an effort to "prove" that they are screening out Medicare and Medicaid patients - as opposed to being over-burdened and grossly underpaid for their work.)

I cried when I had time to sit down and read the MSNBC article.  That picture of the nurse - in happier days - broke my heart.  For although I was fired for very different reasons (in my story the baby lives and her  grateful parents send me a Christmas card every year), I know EXACTLY how this woman felt.

I KNOW that kind of darkness - and that depth of despair - the sensation of being utterly abandoned and isolated/alone.  Unjustly humiliated.  The object of ridicule.  It took a Herculean effort to keep fighting the good fight . . . and to keep working/doing what I love and trained for decades to do.

Some in this blogosphere found my pain and vulnerability amusing - and reason to pummel some more.  It gave them some kind of sick, warped charge to try and finish "breaking" the doctor.

Despicable.  Unforgivable.  There are not words to express how contemptible and pathetic I find those actions.  And I'm pretty good with words.

If I'd gone off the deep end and done myself in, these high-minded, enlightened progressive types in the Greensboro, North Carolina blogosphere would have thrown a party (Steve Schmidly and Bob Morrison would bring the beer).  For doing myself in would have proven that they were right about Dr. Mary being a "wack job" . . . and in their twisted games of partisan oneupmanship, that's really all that matters.

I took a summer break from Housecalls in part because I'm really struggling with the relevancy of blogging.  The Ed Cones and John Robinsons of this world have nearly killed me.  I'm wondering why I ever took them at their word - or gave a rat's tail about what they thought.

The message in all of this for doctors and nurses is that if you make a mistake - or see medical badness - just keep your head down and your mouth shut, lest you be crucified . . . lest you be cast off and stripped bare to walk the medical-yellow-brick-road-from-Hell . . . to a land where fake wizards behind curtains - who have no clue as to what they're doing - can rip your heart out and destroy your dreams.

A Pediatric critical-care nurse in Seattle would probably still be employed and alive (albeit very troubled) if she hadn't opened her mouth.  And I would probably still be in Asheboro cleaning up other people's messes.

I'd like to think I would not have kept putting up with it . . . that I would not have become like the "colleagues" I once trusted and called "friend" . . . the ones who looked the other way and let the businessmen/lawyers do their dirty work . . . but you just don't know. 

I wanted so badly for Asheboro to work. For it not to be what it was.  What it is. 

I don't feel like tackling this subject in greater detail tonight - but I may pick up this post later on.

In the meantime, the nurse's name was Kimberly Hiatt.  She was a good nurse.  And I know in my bones she is someone I would have been proud to call friend.

"The Majestic"

This afternoon, on-call in the middle of far-Eastern nowhere, I caught a movie on TV that I had never seen before.

It's called "The Majestic" starring Jim Carrey.

I'm not a huge fan of a lot Carrey's early comedy work . . . I don't do "Dumb and Dumber" . . . but he is a tremendously-gifted dramatic actor, and he hit this one out of the park.

The movie, very sweet in a totally hokey way, had a happy ending - as most movies with good intentions and noble messages do.  But despite the warm fuzzies that wafted out of the rafters of the renovated small-town theater at movie's end, "The Majestic" made me very sad.

For alas, in real life, the "good" guys and gals of courage and conviction - ordinary folks standing on principle . . . don't always get their happy endings.  Their "neighbors" don't care about what happens to them.  They're not invited to Congress to tell the truth.  Their First Amendment (and other very basic civil) rights do not matter.  The bad guys keep right on being bad - and getting away with it.  The American dream becomes a nightmare.

And the quaint small towns they came from . . . and/or came back home to . . slowly die.  It's the ultimate reality show.

After thirteen years wishing that Asheboro, North Carolina was what it markets itself to be, I'm thinking that those kinds of towns RICHLY DESERVE to die . . . and that I should not have cared so much.

Back on summer break.

Asheboro N.C., My Hometown, As A "Retirement Community": Does Anyone Else Smell A Rat Named Keith?

A friend sent me a ditty by Mary Anderson published in the Courier Tribune last week -  about Asheboro & Randolph County exploring the possibility of being certified as a "retirement community" by the N.C. Department of Commerce.

It was timely, because I was travelling last week, and at a rest stop I hit before crossing the state line into the Commonwealth of Virginia (my personal preference for retirement), out of sheer curiosity, I picked up a publication on retirement communities in North Carolina.  It seems that seniors like places like Wilmington, Asheville, Chapel Hill and even my old stomping ground of Winston-Salem . . . places with diversity and culture (arts/entertainment/good eats) and superior medical care (yeah, I know, I told a funny).

The e-mail my friend sent screamed, "Please do something with this!".  And so, I shall.

The Courier's article sang about the many virtues of Asheboro - as if Asheboro still had any real virtues to sing about (let's just say this home-girl ain't feeling it).  And it rattled off the names of many of Asheboro usual suspects "right people" involved in the scamming planning.

It really is nauseating (as someone who found herself on the wrong end of small-town-values as practiced by Asheboro's mill-town elite) to hear the same, old, tired pitch that was once tossed to new doctors (those "young professionals" that the mill town elite like to eat) recycled for feeding to unsuspecting seniors.

It's all right out of the Bob Morrison play-book.  He plans to retire here too, I bet.  Over $700,000/year gets you a whole heapum lot of ammenties in Randolph County.

Another friend thought the whole notion ludicrous - wondering how many people really want to retire to a "high-intensity drug traficking area".  Yes indeed, Asheboro really has come a long way since I bought the Bobber's line.

On the other hand, I hear there will be a couple of over-priced town-home developments that could become available real cheap real soon.  Who better to unload them on than gullible retirees?

The N.C. Department of Commerce is, of course, headed by former Asheboro City Council member, Keith Crisco.  No possible conflicts of interest there.  I'm wondering.  Are other communities applying for this "certification"?  Because Dr. Mary smells a giant stinking rat.

The whole process is probably going to be about as accountable and transparent and based on true merit as the former President of First National Bank (Mikey Miller) landing on his feet as President of Pfeiffer College.

(Did ya heart that First National's "half-way there" with regards to raising the capital necessary to "save" the bank?)

If would be really nice if the schemers would just stop their scheming and maybe try actually doing something to embody the Mayberrish values they talk so much about.

As I am trying very hard to stay on break, comments remain closed.

Bob Morrison, Randolph Hospital And Mental Health: "Dead In The Water"

I think my summer break may wind up being more about popping up about once a week or so to comment on stuff that I just cannot let pass without commentary, and then diving back under cover.  A friend sent me such a story today.
It's from the Courier Tribune, so I can't link it, and must summarize.

Randolph Hospital's over-$700,000 year man, Robert Morrison . . . the guy who let his minions run a homegrown Pediatrician out-out-on-a-rail for saving a baby's life - and then sued her for telling the truth - and then swindled her in civil Court of fair restitution for the horrible things he put her through - by (among other things) lying repeatedly under Oath about the "confidentiality" of his books and salaries (see the sidebar, folks) . . . appeared before the Randolph County Commissioners Monday night begging for money.

And the Bobber didn't just want extra money - he wanted someone else's money (typical for Bob).

Bob wants $298,777 from the County to offset the cost of providing care to the seriously mentally-ill at his hospital.  We'll get to what that "care" entails in a couple of paragraphs.

This is in addition to $100,000 that Randolph will get to help pay for "past construction" at the hospital.

Bob wants the money to come from the money that Randolph County gives to Sandhills Medical Center - to offset their cost of caring for the county's severely and long-term mentally-ill . . . something that Randolph Hospital cannot/does not do (Bob was too busy running off doctors and building glitzy cancer centers to care about those people), and currently "dumps" on Sandhills.

(I've blogged on Bob's grandstanding with Sandhills before.)

But, as is the case almost everywhere in North Carolina . . . in the wake of the abject disaster that was (ex-Governor and convicted felon) Mike Sleazely's mental-heatlh-care "reform" . . . and in a bad economy that presents a whole lot of unique challenges for mental health . . . Sandhills' doors overflow.

Psychiatrists are also at the low end of the medical food chain in terms of reimbursement - and I expect providing night & weekend MD coverage can be problematic.  And/so all that "overflow" gets to spend the night - or many nights - being "baby-sitted" in the Emergency Department until a proper bed on a psych unit can be found.  These patients take up bed space in the ED.  But they're not getting defninitive psychiatric care in there.

(I know this because one of my many Locums assignments since being run-out-of-town-on-a-rail for saving-a-baby's-life involved working in a very-big-city Pediatric Emergency Department.  I actually was invited back to work there several times.  It totally negates the Morrison/Eblin mantra that Dr. Mary Johnson was some kind of crazy banshee - and difficult to work with - as opposed to say, tin-god OB-Gyns who had affairs with staff and aborted their own children.  Maybe, just maybe, Dr. Mary Johnson simply needed a professional environment that did not involve continually banging her head against thick brick walls of mill-town arrogance, sloth, greed, and/or ignorance.)

This is NOT a unique situation.  Bob & his NON-PROFIT hospital is NOT special.  His ED doctors are NOT martyrs for some kind of cause - certainly not in the sense that I was back in 1998 - when Bob made the whistle-blower EAT her whistle and the state & Federal governments looked the other way (while Randolph Hospital weilded the local legal system like some kind of sick weapon).

You wanna talk about PTSD?  I can.  It's a shame when the local hospital revels in trying to break people.

(While we're at it, you must also remember that Bob, as a "non-profit" hospital CEO, supported the sale of alcohol, a legal drug ripe for abuse by those who might have difficulty coping, in Asheboro.  It ranks right up there in the "great moves" for the health and well-being of Randolph County in Bob's book of greatest hits while CEO of Randolph.)

The best part of the Courier's article was Bob's rationale for taking Sandhill's share of funding.  The money, you see, should go to the people/institutions who actually do the work.

It's all for "the patients" you see.  It's not about the money Bob thinks he should make babysitting them.  Never mind that, in addition to years of treating doctors like pawns on some warped chessboard, he was too busying building fancy cancer centers Asheboro didn't really need . . . and that his "vision" of utopia-in-a-small-town did not include caring for the seriously mentally-ill.

Out of sight (to Sandhills), out of mind.  Bob thinks about the seriously mentally-ill in the same fashion that the citizens of Greensboro regard their trash.  It's something for someone else to worry about.  And when he does have to worry about it, well, he deserves top dollar.

Now Bob's rationale (i.e. the money should go to the people actually doing the work) was good for a mid-morning coffee sinus wash, as that argument never moved Bob and his "team" of executives before.  As I recall, the mantra way-back-when was that "good Pediatricians are a dime-a-dozen".  Back in the day, as employed physicians, our weekends, our evenings, our very lives and souls BELONGED to him.

I expect it's no better for any psychiatrist unfortunate enough to cross his path.

The Courier says that the request is "dead-in-the-water".  The state will not allow the money to be split.  And the TRUTH is, Sandhills is actually doing most of the heavy-lifting - for several counties.

I'm thinking that the locals are fed up with this grandstanding crap . . . they can see right through Bob's self-serving BS . . .  and that our usually-thick-as-thieves local politicians are even starting to clue in (well, except for Harold Brubaker - who let the N.C. Hospital Association run a full-page ad last week broadcasting that he was their best kept man - is there any wonder why the fat cat would not represent me when I needed representing?).

I'm also thinking that Robert Morrison epitomizes the stereotype of the morally-bankrupt, greed-mongering "Wall Street" CEO that crippled this nation.  He's overpaid for what he does/where he does it by several-hundred thousand dollars per year.  He's bully and a tyrant in a fancy suit who has suffered little or no oversight from his Board of Directors as he monopolized and manipulated the medical landscape for his own profit (instead of the community good) - as he literally ripped apart people's lives.  His less-than-honorable methods have glided under-the-public-radar (all thanks to the Courier and his pals at the Courthouse).  He's gotten rich taking credit for the work of others . . . while skimming his mega-bucks off the top.

(But hey.  Let John Robinson and Ed Cone keep telling you that Dr. Mary's story-of-hometown-woe has NOTHING to do with the issues of the day.)

I'm thinking the money should come out of HIS salary and benefit package . . . and be given to the people actually doing the work.

I'm actually thinking that if the Randolph County Commissioners really want to take a "stand" for patients, against the system that Bob now abhors (you know, the one that made him rich), they should demand that the Randolph Hospital Board of Directors conduct a thorough review of Bob's despicable/illegal behavior over the years . . . suggesting that if even half of Dr. Mary Johnson has alleged is true, Bob Morrison and his left-hand man, Steven Eblin, should be FIRED for cause, and prosecuted for PERJURY.

That would send a very nice "message" indeed to those who might profit on the backs of the poor and indigent and mentally-ill (aka, "the underserved").

I'm not holding my breath - because when it comes to "the right people", those Rotarian civic virtues  - and Christian values - just are not what they're cracked up to be in Asheboro.

Back on break.

Just When You Think You're Out, Those Dancing (Randolph County) Stars Pull You Back In

Inspired by my stunningly beautiful, incredibly brave, totally-fricking amazing friend, Charlene, I thought I was out in May.  But then former North "Senator", Johnny Reid Edwards, was indicted.  So I came out to play.  And then I went back on break.

But this morning, my well-named pal, Buzz Armfield-of-the-Armfields (not to be confused with Ed-Cone-of-those-Cone-Health-Cones) called at an ungodly hour to tell me that the front page of the N&R's "Life" section featured a full-page article on Randolph County's "Dancing With The Stars".  And the article boasted a 3/4 page picture of my ex-attorney, Steve Schmidly.

Dancing.

Regular Housecalls readers know that liquor-loving "Schmid" was the Asheboro-based-legal-eagle who "represented me" in my legal dance with Randolph Hospital.  He's the oh-so-ethical practitioner of the law who was (A) too stupid, or (B) too lazy/negligent, or (C) just too concerned about keeping his status as a "right person" in Asheboro to BUST Randolph Hospital executives, Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin, on their PERJURY (in the discovery phase of Randolph Hospital's own bogus SLAPP counter-suit) . . . and get his client (that would be moi') a settlement that more accurately reflected her real/actual damages (based on the information contained in tax returns/public records that the boys swore under Oath were "confidential" and withheld).  During negotiations, Schmidly could then communicate back the bold-faced LIE that the practice was all-but-bankrupt - and could not afford pay out the kind of money I was rightfully owed due to their MALICE and malfeasance (funny how being "nearly bankrupt" did not seem to affect the doctors' and administrators' salaries).  It wasn't his only lie.  He also told me that punitive damages were not taxable - a ruse to get me to accept the settlement.

Of course, Schmidly's professional lapse could have been (D) ALL of the above.

The carpet-bagging non-profiteers running Randolph Hospital took my practice - the one I was recuited HOME with Federal dollars to build and KEEP in Asheboro - and simply handed it over to other doctors and gave them raises . . . while they shoved me in a windowless box and battered me with creative interpretations of contract law.

(Lest the reader think I am being too hard on my former attorney, I trusted Schmid.  Totally and completely.  With everything.  With my future.  For literally years, I lived under a cloud of fear - particularly after the SLAPP-suit was filed, and he was the one person with whom I could discuss the situation and players freely.  And/so, the betrayal, when I realized it, cut to the core.)

Later on, when Dr. Mary figured out just how thoroughly she'd been hosed, Herr Schmid could not be bothered with taking his fellow lawyers to task for suborning perjury.  Randolph Hospital wanted to pigeon-hole me back into civil court - where their slick shysters could argue about the meaning and virtues of "agressive representation".

But perjury is a felony.  Bob Morrison and Steve  Eblin are the executives of a "non-profit", and they negotiated a deal on the lies.  That's fraud.  And it's the purview of CRIMINAL court.  Except in Garland Yates' jurisdiction.  Or the IRS's (God help us when Obamacare really kicks in).

I ain't "right people", you see.

Dr. Mary is torqued and blogging because, as someone who bought-all-the-lines on public service, she never got the kind of fair play from our government and our legal system that Annette Jordan says that the Courier Tribune cares so much about.

Of course the Roch Smith, Jrs. (GSO We101) and Lex Alexanders (former medical "reporter" at the N&R) and Edward Cones (of those Cones) in this blogopshere would rather you go along with Schmidly's standard wink-&-nod that, after thirteen years of this bullshit - pleading her case to every oversight agency under the sun (and several politicians who are now convicted felons - or who deserve to be), Dr. Mary's heart does not have very good reason to be hardened . . . or her tongue to be razor-sharp.  Her story-of-hometown woe is "irrelevant" to the issues of the day.  Her soul is cold and angry and bitter for no particular reason . . . and she needs "professional help" . . . never mind the help she didn't get from those "professionals" in law and journalism who turned her into medical road-kill.

"Public servants" repeatedly lying in and out of Court in order to get their way does not matter TO ANYONE.  And I don't get it.  I just don't get it.  If John Edwards can do the perp walk, what . . . or who . . . exactly makes Morrison and Eblin so Teflon-coated?  It's not like the U.S. Attorney or N.C. Attorny General would have to "broadly interpret" anything.  The lies are recorded and sworn in black and white. 

What the HELL does it take to get justice in North Carolina when "right people" are involved?

This morning, Buzzy reported that he could not access the story on the N&R's website . . . wryly commenting, "probably because John Robinson doesn't want you to rip the story to shreds in the comment section".

That's why I have a blog.

(I will concede that God is merciful in that at least it wasn't a photo of Bob Morrison - also a dancing Randolph County "celebrity".  Schmid cutting the rug under what appears to be a rug was bad enough in terms of keeping breakfast, lunch and dinner down.)

I did a little more digging later this morning, and discovered that I could actually access and see the pictures on the N&R's temporarily-free "e-edition".

And what I saw burned my eyes.  And a post was born.

I told the Buzzman to save the hard copy because no one I know in Asheboro takes the N&R any more.  It probably has something to to with the way those much-more-enlightened-big-city-reporters cover the news down here in the redneck-soaked sticks (or, as some of Greensboro's more tongue-in-cheek/high-minded/sneering-&-spitting citizens now refer to Randolph County, "South of our Border").  Buzz says he only takes the N&R because he can get it for somewhere around 20 cents a day and he thinks the carrier is a fine fellow who needs to keep his job.

The evening of dancing raised $97,000 (after expenses) for Randolph Community College . . . an institution still on academic probation.

The leaders of Randolph County really, really care about their young people getting a good higher education.  Because they WANT "young professionals" to kick around.  They GET OFF on it.  We're "a dime-a-dozen".)

Really, what can I really say that I haven't already?  All the "right people" (most of whom were instrumental in running the college . . . and the bank . . . and little ole me . . . not-to-mention a good portion of the rest of the town . . . into the ground) gathering together to celebrate themselves . . . and reward mediocrity . . . seems to be an on-going theme in Asheboro.

It never ends.  And the leaders of this town cannot figure out why it's "dying".

Here's the thing:  I can't quite figure out the N&R's angle on this.  They don't care about what happens down in Asheboro - they haven't for years (in fact, it's been one of JR's excuses with my story) - they rarely acknowledge it exists (well, except when our hometown bank is eating NASDAQ's dirt).

Is the "creative class" of Greensboro poking fun at Randolph County?  Is it a hoot for a hot summer day?

Is the N&R sicking it to the financially-struggling Courier Tribune . . . ala, "Look at us stomp all over your turf"?

Is the hard-copy media attention some kind of "reward" for Schmidly . . . because he and his not-really-a-homegirl daughter finally brought alcohol to Asheboro?

Or maybe it's reputation-rehab because not everyone in Asheboro holds Sir Schmidly in high regard for drving the last nail in the coffin of small town values.  So let's take the act up to Greensboro (CNN likes fiction), because the ordinary folk of Asheboro aren't buying it anymore - and are just lining their litter pans with this stuff.

(And they're not buying it because booze on every corner did not bring Asheboro  economic salvation, you see.  "Mayberry" sold its little soul just so the local convenience & grocery stores - and Walmart - could boost their profits.  Of course, it's probably just as well.  You have to have something to wash down the drug-runner's goods with.)

Or maybe, just maybe, this just a little bit more personal . . . i.e. John Robinson & company getting a high-school-level jab in on me . . . for all of my jabbing of them?

I mean, doing the article is one thing . . . there are always folks out who thrive on these incestuously-incestuous civic games in life.

It sells a few papers, but usually, they join Rotary and the rest of us can take a pass and stay out of their way.

But there were other right-people-dancing that night who could have been photographed and featured . . . apart from the oily lawyer who aided and abetted in the hometown screw of the doctor-in-public service . . .

. . . the local story that John Robinson & company, in this era of public corruption-exposed and healthcare-reform, has thus far REFUSED to tell . . . because it might embarrass those Cones.

I've probably given this too much thought already.

Did I mention that, once upon a time, Schmid was a big fan of John Edwards?  Peas in a pod, IMHO.  Alas, there were lots of peas in these parts.

The upside is that I'm learning how to shoot firearms, and can laminate Buzz's newspaper remnant to use for target practice the next time the YaYa's take me to the gun club.  It'll be better than sticking pins into the voodoo-doll I named Steve (for Eblin, not Schmidly).  And short of suing some government agencies for letting me swing (I am working on it), shooting newsprint of the imaginary Travolta may be the only satisfaction I ever get.  A two-for-one when you think about it.

Back on summer break.

Johnny Reid (Edwards) I Knew Exactly What Ye Were

You-all knew that there was only one thing that could pull me out of Housecall's summer break.

As opposed to wasting any more time on Mr. Edwards than I already have, I think that simply melding and modifying/expounding upon some comments I've left on several of the Raleigh N&O's articles this week will shortly (well, shortly for me) and succinctly sum it up:

I've read the indictment (having copied it off - along with the arrest warrant to consider for framing), and it seems a fairly straightforward case to make to a jury stacked with ordinary people who don't have millions to pay big-gun attorneys . . . and who don't have old bunnies sitting around willing to pay their bills when the rabbit dies (I must confess the bit about the bunnies is not original - but from a comment left by someone else on another blog).

This guy was still trying to trade off an endorsement for a seat of power in the Obama (or Clinton) administrations right up until the bitter end of his campaign.

He could have been VP or even (horrors) Attorney General.  What if he had gotten there - with his secrets intact . . . ripe for blackmail and scandal?

Even when the Enquirer (as opposed to the N&O) had him dead-to-rights, Edwards earnestly looked straight into a TV camera and lied to the American public he once wanted to lead . . . about a daughter his wife once called "it" (someone should tell him he blinks more when he lies).

Does Johnny Reid really think anyone is going to buy that his actions were only about sparing Elizabeth - when she knew about the affair (in 2006) and let him run anyway?  I know that lawyers think that juries are malleable, gullible and stupid, but come on!

Our former Senator has no shame. Trotting out his eldest daughter to stand behind him as Elizabeth once did. Not taking his medicine (all irony and puns intended) when he's caught literally with his pants down.  Does anyone else wonder if the infamous sex tape (potential evidence in this case - do you really think the DOJ doesn't have a copy?) was filmed with camera equipment purchased by the campaign?

Oh, and did he pay taxes on that "gift"?  Isn't tax evasion a felony?

At least it's good to know that when, as a lowly constituent, I BEGGED Senator Edwards for help in my case, his indifference was not about the merits.

Lying just came second nature to him.

And what was my case about?  Why corruption in healthcare!  Healthcare being one of the very things John Edwards said he really cared about:   Two "non-profit" (Randolph) hospital executives used & abused this homegrown Pediatrician (serving honorably in the very kind of public service program that Edwards and his wife championed) . . . all but professionally destroying me after I blew the whistle on bad care in a newborn case.  As a result, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars spent to recruit two Pediatricians to Asheboro were wasted - poured down the drain in order to serve Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin's greedy schemes to monopolize the primary care landscape in Asheboro. 

THEN they SLAPP-sued me (unsuccessfully) for telling the government I served the truth (as I fought them off, the government pretended I didn't exist).  THEN they swindled me at settlement . . . by lying under Oath about the "confidentiality" of their non-profit books and salaries . . . pleading "near-bankruptcy" when the "non-profit" still had the profits to write fat checks for themselves. 

The "non-profit" hospital covered these guy's legal fees as their slimy, lying lawyers creatively "interpreted" the law - and used it like a battering ram.  Their useless, rubber-stamp Board-of-Directors looked the other way.

Perjury (a felony without a statute of limitations).  Contempt.  Fraud.

(It's all in the Housecalls' sidebar, so you'll forgive me if I don't insert all the links.)

So it's best not to get me started on the "ethics" of the lawyers in this state - or the JOKE that the NC State Bar makes of their oversight.  Indeed, what I've seen of Edwards' defense so far reminds me of the excuses I've been given since 2003 for lawyers who lie.

I did not vote for Edwards (this doctor could not quite bring herself to punch the chad for a trial lawyer), but when he won office, I took him at his word that he would be "different" from the status quo offered by the Harold Brubaker and Jesse Helms-types . . . that he really cared about good/responsible healthcare (he sued "bad" doctors after all) . . . and that he would be easily accessible when ordinary constituents needed his help.

When I made my appeals to his office, I'd already been to civil Court, and with perjury clearly documented, my case should have been a slam-dunk corruption case for the DOJ and IRS to investigate and prosecute.  One could argue that some testimony before the Congressional committees funding the National Health Service Corps might have been in order - certainly before President Obama threw more good money after bad (in his moronic "reform" bill that put the IRS in charge . . . the SAME IRS that basically told me it was okay for non-profits to lie to citizens - just not to the IRS).

(Yep.  Good ole, wealth-sharing President Obama is just the guy to save healthcare.  He's married to a former $317,00/year cherry-picking, patient-dumping hospital executive - and is pretty much just another lawyer who wants you to think that Pediatricians perform tonsillectomies just for the money.  WHERE DO WE FIND THESE PEOPLE?  HOW DO THEY GET TO POWER?)

Indeed, the U.S. Attorney's office has NEVER refuted the facts, but instead has told me that my case has never been "important" enough for them to pursue.

Can you put yourself in my shoes (maybe just for one damned minute) - and imagine how that might make YOU feel - after busting your arse to become a doctor, coming home to serve the "under-served" (you know, government-speak for poor people), and doing everything you were supposed to do - the way it was supposed to be done? 

Your life - your hard work - your sacrifice - is worth NOTHING?  But everyone else with their hand out for the government-funded freebies is some kind of victim?

I needed John Edwards to be what he said he was.  I needed my Senator to light a fire.

But alas, the sordid story, if it got to the masses, would've embarrassed a whole lot of very important people with "the right" name or lots of money (who might assist in - or donate to - his campaign), so I got endlessly bounced around Edwards' various offices . . . left out in the cold of the Two Americas.

Later on, when I took to the blogs . . . because local, state and Federal law enforcement basically ignore white-collar crime . . .and (perhaps even more sadly/pathetically) local journalists in the Piedmont-Triad of North Carolina are either brain dead, wholesale hypocrites or just plain sold out to the highest bidder . . . Elizabeth Edwards' "progressive" friends (my friends call them "the brie & Volvo" crowd) in the Greensboro blogosphere continued the pummel.

Given the run-around I'd gotten from the Senator's offices, I did not worship at the Edwardian altar.  And, fairly early-on, I made the tactical error of questioning the motives behind Elizabeth's appearance at Sue Polinsky's "Converge South". 

For that, I had to be DESTROYED.

They battered me online . . . hurling what Edward-Cone-of-the-Cone-Health-Cones (yeah, those Cones) would call "invective" if even a small portion of it were aimed in his direction . . . wtihout EVER asking a single objective question of the so-called "public servants" I accused of very bad, amoral, unethical, and illegal things.

It was partisan politics at it worst.  Right and wrong did not come into play.  The letter and intent of the law held no sway with these people.  The bottom line was that you simply could not tell a story that might reflect badly on the stewardship of Senator John Edwards.

Elizabeth - or more accurately in my case - Elizabeths' pals would go for the JUGULAR.  She could gracefully watch.

Too many people in this state . . . especially in its mainstream media . . . got caught up in the rarefied air of the Edwardian orbit and hopped on their bandwagon . . . too many people wanted to have that "inside connection" to the White House and jump up and down on the Lincoln bed.

The doctor-done-way-beyond-wrong needed to just "get over it", "move on", and "go away".

What torqued me the most was that if the doctor (who spent too many years battling the dirty trick of lawyers and fighting to keep her head above water to ever consider having her own children) complained about the ugly hands she had been dealt . . . if, after YEARS of fighting corruption all by her lonesome, she dared confront people with the difference between their noble words and their deeds . . . she was "whining" or needed "professional help".

The John Robinsons and Ed Cones and Lex Alexanders of this world were total jerks.  My medical ethics had compelled me to defy threats and save the life of another woman's child.  But their journalistic ethics did not compel them to buck the advertisers or jostle the family name (thank God for Armfields!) to expose the ugly in what came after.  A few strikes of their keyboards - aimed at "the right people" - could have changed my life for the better - and they KNEW it - and they did nothing.

Oh yes, indeed.  Come and sit by my side, Obi Wan, and regail me with the grand tales about how our local journalists bravely reported on the "non-trivial amounts of fraud" in their own back yards . . . as it was happening. 

IT'S FICTION!

Really, Mr. "Stench"/Martin, I broke Ed Cone's heart?  You're freaking kidding me, right?

On the flip side of being condemned for the "mememe", when Elizabeth did nothing but complain about her lot in the books that she wrote . . . the excuses for the mistakes she made predicated mostly on hiding behind her love for her children and her illness . . . she was praised for her bravery and honesty . . . and she made millions.

Now we're told that John Edwards' defense will be built on the notion that all of the lies and all of the subterfuge that went on during the campaign was about hiding the truth from his wife - as opposed to the American voter.  We're supposed to believe that using Bunny's funny money to keep his secrets was never about securing the Presidency . . . with all of the power and attention a truly "malignant narcissist" could want.

It's a total load of horse-hockey.  And I don't think the North Carolina juries that John Edwards trusted so much to do the right thing back when he was channelling-dead-babies-in-falsetto and suing OB-Gyns into oblivion will buy it either.  Being pretty isn't gonna get him out of this one.  He's earnestly looked into the camera and lied to us once too often.  And does he really believe he could be an effective trial lawyer again?  Puhlease.

Ironies abound.  As of 2011, after thirteen years of the public-service screw, I'm still a nothing and a nobody with black-&-white evidence of multiple felonies-that-have-no-statute-of-limitations (i.e. NOTHING to "interpret").  It's a slam-dunk . . . justice would be fairly easy and not very expensive for the government to extract.  But the people who turned the screw are still skimming their big phat salaries off the top of a non-profit's profits.  On the state's side of this sordid tale (a whole nuther story - as I got state loan repayment too), our Attorney General is spineless and useless as Edwards once was, and our ex-Governor is a convicted felon.  And the USDOJ, under Eric Holder, will let me swing while they spend a fortune broadly interpreting campaign finance statutes in order to send John Edwards to jail.

(Not that I have a problem with sending John Edwards to jail.  My point is he's not the only one who deserves to be there.)

And there you have it.  No hope, no change for Dr. Mary Johnson, NHSC alumna.  Nope.  She's not the "right" kind of victim for the brie-&-Volvo crowd to get behind . . . or a "success story" from the days of Hillary's village that the Obama White House can parade around.  She had stones.  She fought back.  She didn't give up.  She never asked the government for anything more than what she was truly owed after signing on the dotted line of public service.  And it's all just so damned embarrassing.

In the end, I feed sorriest for the totally innocent little girl whose parents "star" in a sex tape and who doesn't merit a mention when most progressives bemoan how much the family has already suffered (6/6 Update: CNN reported today that Edwards would not accept jail time because it would pull him away from his TWO younger children).  I cannot imagine what growing-up the "love child" under this thunder-cloud-of-scandal-and-shame is going to be like . . . especially later on, knowing that her Dad had a chance to own up and redeem himself . . . to cast off the cameras, and the prying eyes, and the very embarassing questions, and make her life just a little bit easier.

But even now, it's still all about him.

And that's why he did not cop the plea.  I might have understood (just a tiny bit) if he'd balked on the felony.  But Edwards turned down a deal on MISDEMEANORS!?!  And only 6 months of jail time!?!

(It bristles, given the even longer periods of time I've spent away from home and family because my Senator was too busy running for President to help me.  There will be no pity party for John Edwards at gatherings of the Ya.)

In closing folks, I knew what Johnny was a long time ago.  AND I TOLD YOU SO.  He did exactly what I expected he would do in choosing to fight these charges, and I hope the U.S. Department of Justice FRIES his smarmy, oily tail.

No quarter.

I also hope that this trial reveals a whole lot more about how John and Elizabeth - and their high-minded, enlightened friends (especially their friends in this blogosphere) - really operated when confronted with the injustices done to "little people" right under their up-turned noses.

Both Americas could really benefit from the lessons to be learned.

Now then.  I'm back on summer break.  As the case progresses (we can only hope it drags out until the Democratic convention in Charlotte), I'll certainly comment on the N&O's boards - and elsewhere.  But this summer, I won't be wasting any more space here at Housecalls on Johnny Reid Edwards.

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