Dr.J's HouseCalls

Steve Eblin Named CEO of Randolph Hospital . . . Just So We're Clear On Where Dr. Johnson Stands

2012-01-25T22:53:00.002-05:00

Just this morning, someone asked me if I had heard anything new about "the search" for the new CEO of Randolph Hospital (in the wake of Bob Morrison's departure). And I told them that, while I had not heard anything, I had no doubt whatsoever that the "search" was a ruse, and that Steven E. Eblin, Randolph's longtime VP of Corporate Planning & Development, and President of Randolph Medical Associates . . . the man who recruited me home to Asheboro . . . then broke every promise he ever made to me . . . and then fired me for saving a critically-ill newborn baby's life . . . would get the job.

Now, what happened to me happened back in the heady, high-flying, non-profiteering days of Bill & Hillary's village . . . and on Bob Morrison's watch as Randolph's CEO. There can be no argument/doubt that the buck stopped at Morrison's desk. And I've hammered him hard on this blog.

But make no mistake, the malevolent architect of what my hometown hospital did to me was Steven E. Eblin.

And today, my former boss got his reward for being a "world-class" (one of his favorite marketing words) corporate jackass (much like Blogsboro's leading faux-journalist. Edward Cone-of-the-Cones got his for turning a deliberately deaf ear to my story). Today, it was announced that Steven Eblin has been named CEO of Randolph Hospital, effective March 1.

Be assured dear readers, that while there may have been 140 applicants for the job, there was NO "search". That's flat out laughable.

This was a fixed game. The gang-of-yes-men on Randolph Hospital's morally-bankrupt and criminally-clueless Board-of-Directors (the "search" committee included Mike Miller - the man whose financial "genius" brought down First National Bank . . . and Robert Dough - longtime partner to Mick Irwin, the wannabe neonatologist I "rescued" from his own arrogance and clinical ineptitude on that fateful night fourteen years ago) never intended to give anyone else but Eblin the job . . . EVEN with a Titanic-sized briefcase of ugly online baggage nailed to his backside.

And of course, this is the same mill-town Board of Directors that has stood by winking and nodding . . . and smirking at "lesser" beings . . . while the over-hyped "team" of Morrison and Eblin bullied & professionally-terrorized local doctors, monopolized local resources to their own ends, manipulated and undermined independent practices/institutions, turned a blind eye to the plight of Randolph County's mentally-ill (later attempting to blame someone else for their lack of vision), and made a mockery of "non-profit" care for Asheboro's poor.

It's all about corporate planning and development, baby.

These two "world-class" jerks stand as shining examples of what hospitals should NOT DO to doctors and nurses and local competitors in the name of "independence" and self-preservation. And they've made this hospital one of the laughing-stocks of the state.

But you won't read that in the Courier Tribune's fawning article.

You WILL read that Bob & Steve built a cancer center Asheboro didn't really need (sorry Buzzy, your family's money would have been much better spent on something else). Cancer was "cool" you see (the expensive consultants told them so) and a money machine that would shore up the incentives and bonuses.

Crazy people (as my good pal, Buzz Armfield tells me, I should embrace the "crazy" and display it in my living room like a proper Steel Magnolia) and poor folk aren't.

It's some record. And from a business standpoint . . . indeed from just about ANY standpoint . . . THIS DECISION IS INSANE.

For if Randolph Hospital had truly wanted to show the world that it was ready for a fresh start and real change, far from being the leading candidate for Bob Morrison's chair, Eblin would/should have swept out with Bob's trash.

Of course, if medical or corporate ethics meant anything in Asheboro, both of them would have been fired back in 2003 for unethical/amoral/illegal conduct unbecoming the corporate officers of a North Carolina "non-profit" hospital.

That might have saved the hospital some money that could have then been spent on patient care.

But this is Asheboro, a land where a well-named LOSER, whose greed and stupidity decimated a once rock-solid local bank, can, with a wink and a nod, become a university president.

Predictably, the useless/bought-and-paid-for lap-dogs at the Courier Tribune are going to drool and slobber over Eblin's assumption of the throne. But equally predictably, this doctor will not.

So allow me, on the occasion of this glorious announcement, to re-state the FACT that Steven E. Eblin is a LIAR. He did it under Oath - in a Court proceeding . . . to get out of A MESS HE MADE on the cheap . . . and despite what Garland Yates might "believe", in North Carolina that makes Steve guilty of PERJURY. It's a felony. With NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.

Indeed, "oily" is the adjective I've heard used most often to describe Mr. Eblin in the "wrong" local circles that do not included the inbred/elite mill-town likes of Sam Cranford, Mac Pugh and Sam Rankin.

Lest anyone begrudge me my opinion about what passes for stewardship of an institution supported by taxpayer dollars (the FACT that he's a LIAR . . . and I have the proof in black and white . . . is the reason Mr. Eblin/his gang-of-mill-town-goons won't be suing me - again - for expressing it), I'll remind the Housecalls' reader that fourteen years ago, it was MUCH MORE IMPORTANT for Mr. Eblin to cover up medical malfeasance (malfeasance he and his team of doe-eyed sycophants had actually helped orchestrate with false marketing) than it was to do right by the homegrown-Pediatrician-who-did right-by-a-newborn-whose-life-was-in-danger and play by the rules . . . rules that the rest of us (well, the rest of us who do not aspire to be "right people" in Asheboro) live by and rely upon . . . rules that EVERY OVERSIGHT AGENCY IN THIS STATE/COUNTRY say are the STANDARD OF CARE everywhere.

Everywhere, apparently, except Asheboro, North Carolina.

If there are any Mommies and Daddies in Asheboro out there reading this . . . thinking about putting your trust in Randolph Hospital . . . and your child's life in their hands . . . just know that if Dr. Mary Johnson had done what Randolph Hospital's brand-new CEO wanted me to do that night . . . if I had abided by what his idiot-Practice-Director PUT IN WRITING as an EXPECTATION upon which my continued employment DEPENDED all because "right person", Cheryl Freeman, didn't get what she wanted ) . . . I would have hung up on the terrified charge nurse and rolled over/gone back to sleep.

I would have not given a second thought to the boatload of medical ugly going down in Randolph Hospital's nursery.

I would not have cared if that desperately-sick newborn baby girl lived or died.

And no matter if that child had lived or died, I would have kept my mouth shut the next day. No complaint to hospital peer review . . . or the N.C. Medical Board . . . or (much later) to then-USDHHS Secretary Donna Shalala . . . would have ever been filed. I would have been a good little doctor - very grateful to be going-along-to-get-along, and standing meekly along side the deaf, dumb and blind likes of Jim Kinlaw and Robert Dough.

And I'd be a "right person" in Asheboro now. Going to all the "right" parties. Getting my picture taken for "Thrive Magazine". The darling of the big fish in the small fetid pond.

Trouble is, I'd also be the sorry excuse for a human being that Steven Eblin is.

No heart. No soul.

Too bad for us "ordinary" folk trying to practice good medicine - or just get decent medical care, that the oversight agencies that are supposed to protect us from corporate scum like Eblin (JCAHO, DHHS, the Medical Board, the State Bar, the IRS, the American Board of Pediatrics) NEVER ENFORCE their own rules.

It's all smoke and mirrors. Dogs and ponies.

Care you most certainly cannot trust.

Just to review (for those new to this blog - or the geuninely ignorant - or just terminally stupid in our local blogosphere), my still white-hot-burning "beef" remains that, as a newly-minted Pediatrician, I came HOME, and for almost three years, GAVE EVERYTHING I HAD to Randolph Hospital . . . completing a public service obligation to "serve the underserved" . . . providing 24-7 Pediatric & Neonatal Critical Care back-up call to anyone who asked for it . . . doing child-abuse exams/testifying in Court (for the peanuts that the state threw) . . . building a Pediatric practice from nothing (only to see it all just given to someone else) . . . cleaning up other physician's messes.

That translated to ZERO personal life. But it was okay, because I was working towards a brighter future - and my own practice - once my obligation to the government was met.

But what did this home-grown doctor (as a "young professional" the gurus over at Economic Development say they covet so much) get for her dedication, hard work and service to the good ole hometown?

Why a knife in the back from Mr. Eblin after I blew the whistle on bad care. Everything I had worked for turned to ashes under a cloud of rumor and innuendo, slander and libel. Years spent living like a pauper in hotels and other people's houses . . . black-balled locally . . . working far from home as I fought off merciless legal intimidation (in what amounted to a personal vendetta funded by the public's dime). Opportunities to have my own family and children lost in the time it took to fight back.

And then, when it was all supposed to be over, and my cause vindicated, the dream was finally completely destroyed by perjury and fraud.

Top it all off with the practiced, methodical indifference demonstrated by the oh-so-noble leaders, law enforcement officers and "journalists" of our community-drenched-in-small-town-values, and you've got just another day for anyone who isn't "right people" in Asheboro.

Law and order under Garland Yate's jurisdiction is a game of "Who's who". For in "Mayberry" you can snort coke all day long . . . or beat/cheat-on your wife & children . . . or lie/cheat/steal from your neighbors . . . as long as you have a good name or a friend in the right place. Yes indeed, in Asheboro, Garland's dream team will (notice I said "will", not "can") not even properly prosecute an out-of-town cyber-stalker who boasted of his crimes online.

Better to throw the doctor whose held up your office to ridicule under the bus . . . AGAIN.

And when it comes to what passes for jounalism in Piedmont, North Carolina, in the books of the Ed Cones and John Robinsons and Ray Criscoes and Annette Jordans of this world, this story . . . my story . . . is "not relevant" to why private practice physicians are dying on the vine. Better to jump on the Obama train . . . which was originally the Clinton train . . . and then the Edwards train . . . and let the government turn all the white coats into subservient drones . . . subservient to the likes of Steven Eblin.

Move on along folks. Nothing in Asheboro/Greensboro to see. And don't you worry, sooner of later Cone Hospital (former employer of Mick Irwin - and the institution for which my career was sacrificed) can swoop down and buy it all up.

So I'd say that the rest of the 140 applicants for Bob Morrison's rotten seat don't know how lucky they are to steer clear of the "dying" town (I didn't say it, people, Forbes Magazine did) with a train wreck for a hospital.

And make NO MISTAKE, boys and girls, in this election year, where last night, this former-public-servant-badly-burned-in-said-service was forced to listen to yet another President of the United States give yet another lame lecture from his bully-pulpit on economic fairness and the government's ability to restore the dying American Dream (when, based on my horrific experience working for Mr. Eblin, right under a disinterested government's nose, I could write that book), I am SO NOT DONE with Randolph Hospital . . . or the state and Federal "oversight" agencies that let a good doctor swing.

This afternoon, I got all the motivation I ever needed to keep fighting what has always been A GOOD FIGHT.

Congratulations, Mr. Eblin. I look forward to making your tenure memorable. And I'll keep praying for a hostile take-over . . . by someone other than the Cone Healthcare System.

On that note and to that end, I'm back on blogging break.

Another Christmas Thought: Thank You For The Card

2011-12-26T09:57:00.001-05:00

You know who you are.

And I hope you know how much it means;)

A Christmas Thought: Feed The Birds

2011-12-25T00:30:00.000-05:00

There was a very good opinion piece on CNN this Christmas Eve morning entitiled, "When Bedford Falls Becomes Pottersville". Over the years, I've watched my hometown slowly turn into Pottersville and I don't like it.

I have it on very good authority that "Feed the Birds", from 1964's "Mary Poppins" was Walt Disney's favorite song/sequence out of all of the Disney films. It's also mine.

It's about charity and doing the right thing, even when charity and doing the right thing isn't easy - giving even when you don't have much yourself . . . acting for good even when it hurts.

It's not a bad message to ponder at Christmas. Alas, it's also a message that Asheboro's "non-profit" medical sector totally did not get (leaving so many of the people it was supposed to serve behind in the mill town cold) . . . a message I intend to keep hammering home on this blog . . . and (shortly, I hope) in other venues . . . until Randolph Hospital, the people running it - and the "public servants" winking and nodding at all-that's-been-done-under-their-noses-in-charity's-name-to-pervert-charity clean up their act and are held accountable.

Merry Christmas. Thanks to everyone who reads this blog. And Happy New Year.

The Last Full Measure Of Service: What Makes A Man Or Woman "Right" Enough For The Courier Tribune?

2011-12-10T09:27:00.006-05:00

Note to Readers: This Post Has Been Updated.

I had planned to let my post on the disintegration of the Merce Clinic (which speaks volumes about Randolph Hospital CEO, Bob Morrison's, true legacy . . . and the abject failure of "non-profit" medicine in Asheboro) stand for a while, and return to break.  But then . . .

Lance Corporal Jacob Levy, a native of Ramseur, graduate of Eastern Randolph High School, and of Lumbee Indian descent, was shot in the head while on patrol in Afghanistan on Wednesday. He has done prior combat tours there - and in Pakistan - and had volunteered to go back. The Marine was stabilized in the field, and has been on life support in Germany since that time.

He serves with the son of my good friend, Buzz Armfield. The Marine Moms and Dads have been rallying for days. As of this writing, the news is not good.

Both Fox 8 and the N&R have had stories asking for prayer.

But Lance Corporal Levy's "hometown" newspaper has not uttered a peep - at least not online.

Where do we find these young men? At moments like these, I often reflect upon words of Lincoln . . . words (from the Gettysburg address) that I memorized as a child and have not forgotten . . . indeed, words that I have tried to live my life (in a different kind of service) to honor:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

May God bless and comfort the family of Lance Corporal Jacob Levy during this horrible/heart-breaking time.

Semper Fi.

Sunday Morning Update:

We now have official word that Jacob Levy passed away last night at 8:50 PM. He was 21 and an organ donor (as his Stepfather said, "selfless to the end").

I am citing the News & Record, because as of my last online check (about an hour ago - at which point I resolved not to go back), the Courier Tribune had yet to post the story online.

As background to my earlier posting and what I’m about to say here, Jacob’s Mother had called Buzz Armfield (as noted above, also a Marine parent – whose stepson served with Jacob) from Germany on Saturday morning, with the news that further treatment for his head wound was deemed futile by Jacob’s doctors, and he would shortly be taken off life support.

We expected him to be gone by the end of the day.

Buzz, in turn, called me and asked me to put up a post about Jacob on Housecalls (I was running late for rounds yesterday, but decided to take the extra time and do it) . . . because, while we had read stories online at Fox 8 and WGHP and even the Greensboro N&R, we had not seen anything online at the Courier Tribune (Buzz lives in Jamestown and does not take the Courier, and I decided long ago to spare innocent trees an inglorious end). Buzz could not understand the omission, and wanted to scream Jacob’s sacrifice to the rafters.

“Jacob deserves better. The world should know.”, he said.

Buzz was so upset about it, that he subsequently sent a scathing e-mail to both the Courier and the President of its “parent company” (Stevens Media) in Nevada – asking why the story was not to be found on the Courier’s website.

Since she's spent so much time pretending that "Housecalls" (and I) do not exist, we were both very surprised when Courier Diva, Annette Jordan, sent Buzz an e-mail yesterday afternoon. This was her "terse" (as described by Buzz - I would use another descriptive term) response:

“The story ran in Friday’s paper on the front page. Sorry, you missed it.”

My response to Annette now, withheld until news of Jacob's death was officially announced, will be equally terse . . . for I am as disgusted as I have ever been with my "hometown" newspaper.

Dear sweet, Annette-of-the-small-town-values, Buzz “missed” it, and I “missed” it, and a half-dozen other people who do not pay for the privilege of being kept in the dark by your useless suck-up-to-the-right-people-rah-rah-protesting-too-much newspaper “missed” it, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT PUT THE STORY ONLINE.

And it’s the ONE story you’ve had all weekend that should have been easy to find and be read by every resident of Randolph County . . . online or off - no matter if they have a subscription or not.

For you see, Annette, it’s not about the money you might make drawing a few more gullible subscribers in. It’s not about who is first (Jacob should be), exclusivity, or petty oneupmanship between local competitors.

There’s just NO folksy spin that you can put on this story . . . or any way to dress it up . . .  that justified keeping it behind a pay-wall . . . or offering it only to those who read get the hard copy to read all of your not-so-fine print. There’s just NO excuse.

And/so, Buzz Armfield, parent of a Marine, is absolutely right. Lance Corporal Jacob Levy deserved better from his hometown paper. He sacrificed his life to preserve and protect the America’s highest ideals and opportunities.

Now, Annette, just so we’re clear, this post was not designed to use Jacob’s death as a weapon in my (or anyone else’s) war with the Courier Tribune (besides, it’s been a very one-sided war for a very long time - because you-all have held all the cards and played them in all the tightly-knit "right" circles, very close to the vest).

It went up in response to a grieving man’s plea that the sacrifice of his son’s fallen comrade-in-arms . . . his last full measure of devotion . . . not be brushed-off or easily forgotten.

But, as someone who believes in those ideals as Jacob did (and did my best to live them in a-different-kind-of service-to-my-country), if I don’t know anything else, I KNOW that Jacob Levy did not die to preserve the kind of “journalism” practiced by the Courier Tribune over the last 15-20 years.

As I alluded earlier using the immortal words of a martyred President, I KNOW in my bones that this young man’s sacrifice REQUIRES much more of the Courier Tribune than you and your “team” have delivered over the last decade or so . . . ignoring stories that don’t reflect well on the “right people”( who put Asheboro on life support in the first place) . . fawning all over Mike Miller while Community One failed . . . winking and nodding while our “non-profit” hospital pulled the strings and monopolized the resources that ultimately left Bob Morrison a rich man and the poorest in our community out in the cold . . . playing citizen against citizen for money (ala the alcohol and annexation wars) . . . turning a deaf ear as good-people-done-very-wrong PLEADED for your help in speaking truth to power . . . flat out pretending that certain people and situations did not exist . . . and now apparently thinking that elitism and racism have a place in marketing your latest offerings (clearly not realizing that this kind of approach to life and business has not already factored heavily into the “death” of our town).

NOTHING IS GOING TO "THRIVE" HERE UNTIL YOU CHANGE YOUR WAYS!!!

Now, Buzz was reluctant for me to post this response to your (insert unprintables) e-mail. He is tired and heartbroken, and wants his son's friend to now rest in peace.  So do I.

But I told my friend this morning that if I know anything about Jacob Levy - from the things Buzz has shared - and the tributes and stories I've read online (everywhere, that is, except your newspaper), I know that Jacob Levy would tell him not to be afraid . . . to stand tall and proud . . . and (most of all) not to run from a fight you believe in.

I believe in this fight. ALL of us in and from Randolph County deserve better.

Where do we find these young men and women? We find them in places like Ramseur and Asheboro. And we find them, I think, IN SPITE OF places like Asheboro and institutions like the Courier Tribune.

You’ve danced with Asheboro’s self-appointed “stars” for a long time, Annette. But I’ve got NEWS for you, lady . . .

. . . there are Lights that will shine far brighter in our skies tonight.

And the Star known as "Phoenix" puts you/the Courier Tribune to shame.

My sincere condolences to Jacob's family. My thanks for his service and sacrifice.

Semper Fi.

The Quality Of Merce In Asheboro, North Carolina

2011-12-07T22:51:00.010-05:00

12/8 Note to Readers: This post has been updated. And I'm pulling no punches.

I'm on a blogging break . . . for reasons restated in my last post (on Bob Morrison's real legacy) . . . but some recent developments scream for commentary.

Both the Courier Tribune and the Randolph Guide have "in-depth" stories on the disintegration of Asheboro's once-noble endeavor, the Merce Clinic.

The Clinic, started in 1992, by doctors with charitable intentions donating their time to the town's most indigent, is now "at death's door" (a strange choice of words for newspaper reporters otherwise desperately poo-pooing Forbes Magazine's 2008 "diagnosis" that listed Asheboro as one of the nation's "Top-Ten Dying Towns") . . . and clinic administrators/board members are begging for money . . . from a variety of sources - including Randolph Hospital, and the Randolph County Commissioners.

The history of the clinic includes at least two major "morphs" .. . first into a state-supported Rural Health Clinic . . . and then a Federal Health Center accepting Medicare and Medicaid (with one exception, every one of those I've worked for or encountered in my 14 years on the road, was a criminally-run money pit).

What's not stated in the Courier's article is that Randolph Hospital was pulling a lot of the strings behind the scenes (and if you read between the lines in the article, still is). Rest assured, Bob Morrison and his "team" of rabid-dogs-out-to-kill-or-eat-every-private-practice-in-sight had their fingers in that pie . . . for reason$ that $uited them.

I guess Randolph Medical Associates (RMA) . . . "non-profit" Randolph Hospital's wholly-owned controlled affiliate . . . did not pick up all the slack for the community's poor and under-served . . . as hospital executives originally promised it would when developing that practice was pitched to city and county leaders.

In other words, RMA was SUPPOSED to be Merce. And the practice and "mission" I was recruited to was a LIE.

For you see, RMA could not be Asheboro's "premiere" white-bread practice and Randolph Hospital's own personal money machine (always Bob Morrison's goal as he and Steve Eblin monopolized every resource in town - and bullied/manipulated every doctor) . . . if it really had to take care of people with no insurance and no money. It was better for those folks to be dumped on the Merce Clinic and the Health Department (Sorry, Dick. You've been a patsy all along - you just didn't know it.).

It was all a sick, warped game . . . with Bob Morrison walking away with over $700,000 in salary and benefits in the 2009 fiscal year. Shortly, he'll be walking away from his version of the Titanic - with nary a backwards glance . . . and the journalistic dolts at the Courier Tribune still covering his lying tail.

According to the Courier's article, Merce's problems result from "poor management in the past and issues with productivity, billing, collections and marketing" (I had to blink several times as I could not believe I was reading such an forthright admission of local incompetence in the oh-so-upbeat Courier Tribune). It is also in trouble with the IRS because of $34,000 in payroll taxes that were never paid (the funds were embezzled by the company hired to handle that aspect of the business).

The County Commissioners were dumbfounded by news of the clinic's fiscal troubles, and dismayed at the request for nearly a quarter-million dollars in emergency funding (money, I can assure you, that the Randolph County taxpayer will never, ever see again). According to the article, most of the bunch sat silently by as their comrade Stan Haywood (a local pharmacist) fired a barrage of questions at Merce (and Randolph Hospital) Board member, Mimi Cooper (you see how this all works).

The article styled the Commissioner's collective silence as "deferring to Stan's knowledge of the healthcare industry."

And I'm sorry. That's where I draw the line.

Like Dr. Jim Kinlaw (of White Oak Family Physicians - also a Randolph Hospital Board member - and like Bob Morrison, soon to retire), I once considered Commissioner Haywood a close family friend and colleague. My sainted Mother taught his children (as she taught Jim Kinlaw's) at Loflin School, and I had known him for years before I came back home to Asheboro to practice. I always thought he was a good egg.

Accordingly, I'd just like to know, exactly WHERE was Stan Haywood's vast knowledge of the healthcare industry - and his voice - when Dr. Mary Johnson . . . National Health Service Corps provider . . . state and Federal loan-repayment recipient . . . was ROYALLY SCREWED OVER by Bob Morrison, Steve Eblin and the rubber-stamping mill-town fat-cats running our local "non-profit" hospital?

In her presentation to the County Commissioners, Mimi Cooper (Director of the Randolph County Health Department and another ex-colleague), not-so-subtly trashed the Merce Board-of-Directors . . . implying that because a controlling percentage of them had to be clinic clients, that they were essentially too stupid to understand the Clinic's operating problems.

Sorting through all the crap was too much for them. They could only pray for help.

Okay, fine. But tell me, Mimi. When it came to the case of Dr. Mary Johnson . . . local homegrown Pediatrician . . . who served pro-bono on your Child Fatality Task Force . . . who slogged through the child abuse cases (that no one else in town would touch) for the paltry reimbursement the state offered (only to be routinely ABUSED by the Randolph County Court jesters) . . . who covered Pediatric criticial-care back-up call for EVERYBODY 24-7 . . . who was happy with a reasonable salary for her hard work (as opposed to selling her life for fat incentives) . . . who was fired for saving a dying newborn baby's life & blowing the whistle on bad care . . . then sued for telling the truth to the governments she served (after the hospital tried to cover it all up) . . . then swindled by PERJURY, CONTEMPT and FRAUD when she dared fight back . . . what is YOUR excuse?

What is Jim Kinlaw's excuse? And what is Stan's?

Did ANY of you really smart, ethical, knowledgeable people with your "small town values" . . . so-called "experts" in healthcare . . . ask a SINGLE question about the hundreds of thousands of state and Federal dollars poured down the drain when NOT ONE, BUT TWO Pediatricians who came to Asheboro with the intent of making it their home forever were maliciously run out of town on a rail by Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin . . . all to cover up medical badness and serve the be$t fi$cal interest$ of Randolph Medical Associates . . .

. . . as opposed to the best interests of the children of this community?

If you're not STUPID, you're GUTLESS COWARDS AND SELL-OUTS (and I'm voting for the later because YOU ALL KNEW WHAT WAS DONE TO ME WAS WRONG). Either way, you people make me sick.

"Experts" on healthcare? That's a real HOOT!

There's a reason Asheboro is "dying". And I've got news for the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation, all of the consultants and upbeat cheer-leading in the world are not going to fix it. It's a good thing John Rogers is praying for all of you, because I simply cannot bring myself do it.

With regards to your predicaments now, you could say that the quality of my mercy is strained.

12/8 Late Evening Update

I am informed that tonight Mimi Cooper & company went begging for even more money from the Asheboro City Council . . . to the tune of $40,000.

Of course, they got it. It was more or less a done deal before Mimi even asked. That's the way things are done in Asheboro.

The same, sad/sorry excuses for the clinic's predicament were presented to the City Council that were presented to the Randolph County Commissioners just days earlier . . . and they go something like this: "Yes, we've made some HUGE mistakes . . . and no, we cannot seem to manage our way out of a wet paper bag . . . and yes, the majority of our board is stupid (funny how Asheboro's "non-profits" never want to identify who sits on their boards and is legally RESPONSIBLE for the mistakes) . . . but if we adopt a new business model that pumps up the volume of paying patients (i.e. Medicare and Medicaid), and craps on the ~~doctors~~ providers (cranking up the clinic hours and working them to death is called increasing their "productivity"), we really hope we can make it work."

The holy name of Randolph Hospital was apparently thrown around tonight with gusto . . . . with Miss Mimi presenting Bob Morrison and his management "team" as a bunch of knights riding in on white horses to show Merce how it's done . . . nevermind that the Merce Clinic would not need to exist AT ALL if our "non-profit" hospital had done what it said it was going to do with Randolph Medical Associates . . . and honored the "mission" I was recruited to back in 1994.

The TRUTH is that if Randolph Hospital's leaders had kept their promises, Merce's patients, young and old, would have long ago been absorbed by RMA . . . and not now presented (by the very people who are supposed to SERVE THEM) as scallywags who would flood the already over-worked Emergency Department.

(As an aside, please don't get me started on the ER's Eric Helsabeck. He's another Randolph Hospital medical stalwart who thought it would be easier to go along with the Bobber and crush the Pediatrician who told him the truth he didn't want to hear - as opposed to fixing the problems she brought to his attention. The boys would all teach "the bitch" a lesson. How's that working out for you, Eric?)

And girls and boys, there's a REASON that the highly-coveted designation of "Federally Qualified Health Center" (FQHC), if lost by the Merce Clinic, would NEVER again be awarded to ANY entity in Randolph County.

Inasmuch as their oversight SUCKS, the Feds KNOW that the "non-profit" healthcare system in Randolph County is run by imcompetents, crooks and liars.

What goes around. And it's coming around for Asheboro in spades. Welcome to the vacuum, Jim (Kinlaw).

The Courier's uber-uesless, grinning, aging-hippie-with-a-pen-for-sale, Chip Womick, was at the Council meeting . . . so tomorrow morning I guess we'll get to see how this colossal cluster-screw of the city & county taxpayer is viewed through the rose-colored glasses of the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation's happy rah-rah crowd. Trouble is, the spinning these days needs a few cycles with heavy-duty bleach. Even then it still smells.

The sinus-wash-worthy kicker of the evening came when Mayor David Smith said tonight that City Council members are going to be engaging in online ethics training.

That's only about two decades too late, David. You might remember, Mr. Mayor, that my family and I BEGGED THE CITY COUNCIL for help getting our *&^%$#@! hospital to act ethically back in 2004. You could not be bothered. And it's biting you now. Too bad. So sad.

I guess the quality of my mercy is still strained, huh? Can't imagine why.

The Randolph Guide On Bob Morrison's Legacy: "A Small Town Doesn't Mean Slim Pickins" (Subtitled: "I Wonder What Mary Thinks?")

2011-11-17T21:00:00.015-05:00

More and more these days, I hear from Asheboro folk who, for one reason or another, have just discovered my blog.

"You GO, Girl!!!", seems to be the prevailing theme (apart from disappointment that I went on an extended break just as they found me) . . . especially from world-weary contemporaries who were raised in Asheboro, but could not count themselves amongst the mill-town's well-named, well-connected or financially-padded. Most of them left the town behind in the dust as soon as they could.

And those giving the high-fives concur that one of the biggest reasons our hometown is on life-support now has much to do with the peculiar brand of "journalism" practiced for well-over-a-decade by the Courier Tribune.

Indeed, this blog exists because the "hometown newspaper" failed to do right by a hometown girl . . . they failed to tell the truth.

Asheboro's "free press" sold its soul long ago.  David Renfro, the Courier's publisher until a year or so ago, was nothing if not a Rotarian, and (being married to Miss Bonnie over at the Economic Development Corporation) he couldn't report anything bad about the town or its VIP occupants/institutions. The theory seems to have been that a local newspaper reporting bad news might scare new businesses away. Any criticism was "destructive". Better to sweep all of Mayberry's ugly under the rug.

Nobody ever really talked back to power . . . dissent was squelched. And/so a tightly-circled small group of "right people" controlled the town.

Now it's just the "ordinary" townsfolk who are scared . . . for their town.

Here's the scenario spelled out in a little more detail: If beloved doctors were caught driving drunk or were just flat out clinically dangerous . . . if respected lawyers (key word lawyers) were raving alcoholics and/or snorting cocaine and/or beating their wives & children (when they weren't cheating on them) . . . if hot-shot executives and local politicians and preachers were chasing skirt while professing their conservative values. . . if the local mill owners never met a Hispanic man they couldn't exploit for money (dumping the medical care and education of the families that followed on public services poorly-equipped to handle them)   . . . if local developers were allowed to run roughshod over anything and anyone in their path to profit . . . if our hospital was monopolizing public resources and chewing up/spitting out doctors under the pretense of charity . . . if the fortunes of once rock-solid banks were stupidly pissed away by lawyers-pretending-to-be-businessmen . . .  you were not going to read about it in the "upbeat" Courier until after the whole world knew it anyway - and it was too late to do anything but cry (whilst drying your tears with the pages of Forbes magazine).

But hey, cheer up people. If Randolph County Manager, Dick Wells, has his way, pretty soon, we'll be Greensboro's new landfill.

There's been NO LIGHT and NO AIR in Asheboro for a very long time.

And that brings me back to the retirement of Randolph Hospital CEO, Robert Morrison. Predictably, the Courier's article on the blessed event (which I will not bother to link because it's behind a paywall) was fawning, and the Randolph Guide's initial piece was even worse . . . singing Morrison's praises and accomplishments . . . particularly as it pertained to keeping Randolph Hospital "independent" (translation: incestuously insulated) all these years.

But the "piece-de-resistance" came when another friend called up last week, alerting me to (and lambasting) yet another article in the Guide in which Morrison's life history (seemingly filled with happy fortuitous accidents) was chronicled.

I quote the opening line in this example of "in-depth" local journalism (I'll link the article if and when the Guide puts it online), "For Bob Morrison, small town doesn't mean slim pickins."

And I mean really. When I finally got my hands on the article, it was worth a coffee sinus wash. How in God's Holy Name did reporter Larry Penkava, if he had done any research at all on Bob Morrison, write that line with a straight face?

For it is, boys and girls, the understatement of the decade . . . the $700,000/year man being living, laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank proof of how easy it was to snow and ultimately rip-off the under-informed, and largely apathetic residents of one small town.

Bob milked the fat backwoods cow for all it was worth.

We'll get to picking apart that article in a minute. (I do have to say, I'm disappointed that the Guide, like Asheboro Magazine, now appears to be playing the Courier's "upbeat-no-matter-what" game . . . Asheboro Magazine and the Courier going so far as to selectively distribute their products only to neighborhoods and people they deem "worthy" . . . it's elitist . . . and racist . . . of coruse, WHO CARES as long as we're thinking positively?). But let's talk, for a minute, about why I stepped away from the legal files and emerged from my break to write it.

This post was actually born a few weeks ago, in the wake of Bob's announcement, when another friend told me about a conversation she had with ex-Hospice-of-Randolph Director, Billie Vuncannon, in a local market. My relationship with Billie (to my great regret) has devolved over the years . . . from the time she was a benevolent mentor to a starry-eyed-doctor-wannabe-not-quite-"right"-enough-to-get-a-job-at-the-hospital Hospice volunteer (back in the day when Hospice was still a kitchen-sized operation) . . . to the time that I loved & trusted her enough for her to be the first person (after my Mother) that I called on the day I got fired . . . to the time that I respected her enough to accept her wisdom and immediately forgive her for what-anyone-else-would-see-as-a-betrayal when she told me that Bob was going to be on her Board-of-Directors - because, "You have to keep your friends close and your enemies closer" (Morrison and his money-grubbing "team" spent years trying to get Hospice totally under Randolph's thumb - often trashing/undermining Billie in the process) . . . to the present day - where I now feel my life-long friend and compatriot got a little too friendly with our once mutual enemy for my comfort, and I no longer confide.

But hey, that's all about life and charity in small town. Billie had to survive.  She had a husband and children to consider, and at one point she was fighting a life-threatening illness. She simply could not have endured what I have over the years. I do not blame her and feel no animosity.  It is what it is.

Anyway, in the store, after the announcement, Billie, chatting up my other pal (and appearing to be fishing), announced that "It's all over" . . . implying that there was nothing that could be done about Bob's evil deeds now that he is preparing to ride off into the sunset.

"I wonder what Mary thinks?", she asked.

(Insert various friends offering sarcastic, unprintable answers.)

I'm sorry, Billie, that's just a silly question at this point, because Mary's been blogging since 2005 about what she thinks.  That, and YOU KNOW FULL WELL how she feels . . . how her heart was broken, and her dreams were crushed, and her soul cried for justice. You KNOW how she BEGGED for help from colleagues who KNEW she'd been done wrong . . . colleagues whose EVERY phone call and request-for-help she had answered . . . colleagues who nevertheless turned a deaf ear and a blind eye - all the while boasting about their "small town values" (in essence, bold-faced lying to the public how much they cared about clinical excellence and high standards of care).

And if you're not a perpetually-grinning-mill-town-suck-ups like the Courier's Ray Criscoe and Annette Jordan and Chip Womick . . . or faux "citizen journalists" like Edward-"I-played-the-game-well-enough-to-win-a-seat-on-the-Board-of-the-Cone-Healthcare-System"-Cone, or John-"I'm-jumping-the-N&R's-sinking-ship-before-Landmark-fires-me-too" Robinson . . . and you really want to spend a few moments in Mary's shoes, all you have to do is hit highlights/links on the Housecalls sidebar.

Mary stopped pulling punches long ago.

(I will pause here to say . . . as I have said over on other blogs since the happy announcement . . . . that Edward Cone, "journalist", blogger, and scion-of-the-Cone-family got exactly what he wanted by doing newbie-blogger, Dr. Mary Johnson, uber-dirty when she brought him a sordid story that did not exactly reflect sunnily on the institution bearing his family name.)

Now all of this coincides with the opening of the new outpatient Piedmont Surgical Center off Highway 42 . . . a facility across town from Randolph Hospital's main campus, owned by a coalition of local doctors & surgeons - with Randolph Hospital as a non-controlling partner.

Happy faces were put by the hospital's brass at the opening, but it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that the building of that center is something that Bob Morrison & Randolph Hospital did NOT want to happen. It takes business - and lots & lots of money - away from the hospital's own surgical suites - to the tune of an estimated 2,000 procedures a year.

(Now Randolph Hospital will only get a cut of the action - like some red-neck godfather.)

But given medical trends, it was going to happen one way or the other. For once, in a career ripe with bullying everyone around him into doing his bidding - or else, Bob Morrison did not have a choice.

You see the world is much bigger and more diverse than Bob Morrison ever wanted it to be. And he's getting out while the getting is good.

I personally think it was a mistake for the surgical center to "partner" with Randolph - as opposed to Cone or even Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem (Baptist swooping down to Asheboro and cleaning the place up is something I've literally dreamed about). But such partnerships are subject to certificates-of-need and turf-wars-over-county-lines, and I'm suspecting that the docs involved in the project, if they really wanted to do it, didn't have a lot of choice either.

They were stuck with the ugly/big step-sister whose thumb they're trying to step out from under. . . in an effort to keep patients in Asheboro.

Of course, not keeping those patients in Asheboro previously is, as they say, is a matter of public relations . . . a battle that despite Bob's best efforts to paint otherwise, he has decidedly LOST.

I say this not only as a patient who has endured the ongoing consequences of not-one-but-two botched surgeries at Randolph Hospital (both requiring surgical revision - one before Bob's tenure, one during) . . . or even as a badly-burned, once-hospital-owned Pediatrician who was threatened-on-a-pile-of-unsubstantiated-allegations, then fired-for-doing-her-job-the-way-it-was-supposed-to-be-done, and then sued-for-telling-the-truth . . . but also as a home-girl who is regularly contacted by locals who want me to blog their bad experiences at Randolph (for the most part, I've resolved to let others fight their own battles and stick to the case I know inside and out) . . . as a traveling-doctor who regularly encounters less-than-enchanted colleagues who've substituted in and/or just passed through Asheboro . . . and as a daughter who still has an elderly Mother living in Asheboro (a deacon at FBC who has made the rounds of all the hospitals and nursing homes in the area) - and a daughter who worries about her Mother's care when and if she gets seriously ill.

Do I really want my Mother in the hospital whose CEO "visited" my ex-lawyer in the middle-of-the-night (a heart-attack scare while the lawsuits were raging), and silently/menacingly stood over his bed?

Wanna talk about privacy violations, Bob?

This concern was accentuated over the past month, as I watched my my old-friend-from-AHS, Buzz Armfield-of-the-Armfields-who-donated-one-million-dollars-to-the-Cancer-Center, cope with the final illness and death of his Mother.  Audrey Armfield spent about a week at Randolph prior to being transferred to a nursing home - so Buzzy got to experience the hospital first hand for the first time in a long while. Mercifully, neither Bob nor his left-hand-man, Steve Eblin, showed up in her hospital room uninvited (as administrators are prone to do) to thank the grey-sheep of the Armfield clan for his family's largess. Based on impressions Buzz shared during the experience (he was actually very complimentary of the nursing and ancillary staff), not a lot has changed in the nearly fourteen years since I was unceremoniously shown the door.

In short, I hear LOTS of things from the small-town trenches, and I think I'm fairly in-tune with the word-on-the-street.  As a home-girl, I always was. But Bob and his "team" of positive-thinking sycophants did not want to hear it.

The FACT is that the perception of the community concerning the quality of healthcare care available in Asheboro is most certainly very different than what the medical community, under Bob's head-in-the-clouds leadership, thinks it is . . . or what Bob/the newspaper/the economic development corporation wants it to be.

The doctors really are in a self-induced fog compared to many communities in which I have lived and worked since being tossed out into Asheboro's gutters by the Bob and his upbeat team.

The physicians in Asheboro have run in a closed pack for so long that they have no clue what the-ordinary-people-with-good-insurance (who continue to flock to Greensboro and W-S and Raleigh-Durham and Pinehurst for their care) really think. Moreover, they never really wanted to know as they marched behind the hospital's administrative Pied Pipers who were all about style & appearance over substance . . . thinking oh-so-positively . . . yet somehow always managing to pander to our mill town's lowest common denominators for money.

I mean, there is something just fundamentally morally/ethically WRONG with a hospital CEO telling the general populace that bringing alcohol to town will help recruit doctors and enhance the community's quality-of-life. It was a time for a healthcare executive to sit down and shut up . . . not post a video on You Tube giving the impression that drenching a previously-dry town in booze - and making it easier for people to get their hands on alcohol - would not have dire medical/social consequences for some in our community.

Of course, Randolph Hospital would be there to pick of the pieces of those broken lives . . . and bill Medicaid/Medicare.

(I'm thinking that maybe if Bob had not treated so many of the doctors he recruited with utter contempt . . . like pawns on his chessboard . . . he wouldn't need booze to recruit so many new ones . . . and the ones who stayed would not be driven to drink.)

When I worked at Randolph Medical Associates, I heard it EVERY DAY. A HUGE part of my problem with regards to inpatient Pediatrics was that parents did not want to go NEAR that hospital - even if I was there 24/7 to protect their child. Many refused to set foot in the ED. EVERY SINGLE DAMNED DAY. Morrison and Eblin visibly cringed whenever the subject came up.

Meanwhile, I was supposed to quietly cover the asses of the Mick Irwins of this world - clean up their messes - AND put up with the petty back-stabbing CRAP going on in the office - and hope I did not get caught in the malpractice crossfire.

It's warmed my heart over the years to hear that the hospital brass lost ALL credibility with a lot of people when they fired the home-girl for intervening to STOP world-class-care-that-no-one-could-trust. The people in this county have amazingly long memories . . . memories that withstand all of April Thornton's PR pizazz and the Courier's determined blind eye.

It's amazed even me how long they are.

If (heavy sigh) I only had a nickel for every time I've heard, "I will never set foot in that hospital", I would have never had to have sue their controlled affiliate after it turned most of the dreams I ever had to ash.

And that brings me back to the Guide's "life of Bob Morrison" story - which we shall now dissect (again, I will link the story whenever the Guide has the guts to put it online).

According to the article, Bob grew up in a small town (New Albany, Indiana).  Bob loves small towns, you see. And well he should. The sleepy hollow of Asheboro, snuggled on the edge of the Uwharries, with its mill-town mindset, was perfect "pickins" for the man who wanted to rule a landscape with an iron hand and no oversight from above. Once entrenched in his lair, no one would stop him.

In the article, Bob talks a lot about his work to change the staff's perception of itself:

"We had to believe we provide excellent quality and service . . . if you expect more that's what you'll get."

Not necessarily, Bob. Thinking your poop doesn't stink does not make for the scent of roses coming out of the bathroom stall. Creative visualization is nice, but the thing that Bob never seemed to get is that it's about so much more than just BELIEVING what you're doing is good.

You actually have to BE good.

And when the services you provide are not good - for whatever reason and no matter whose toes you step on, you have to be willing to look at what you did wrong and fix it.  The messenger who delivers the bad news should be SAFE.

As a freshly-minted Pediatrician, that 's what I expected and believed when I arrived in Asheboro. I wanted to help change a medical landscape that had allowed a locally-beloved quack to surgically mutilate my throat (and forever alter my voice/heatlh) as a five-year-old. Bob and his "team" promised real change for the children of Asheboro and Randolph County.

But they did not deliver.

Moving on along in the article, Bob tells the story that healthcare was not his original list of things-to-do.  As Bob tells it, he was just another mill worker who got fired before Christmas (shades of John Edwards feeling our pain . . . choke, sob) during the recession in the 70's. Manufacturing jobs were a bust (sound familiar?), so fairly desperate, he applied for a job at St. Francis Hospital in Cincinnati in public relations (something he says he knew nothing about when he applied - see how creative visualization works?). And this is where Bob discovered that he liked "strategy" and managing healthcare in small towns - (if you're reading between the lines) particularly in small town institutions that were run autocratically (as Catholic hospitals usually are) - i.e. by a small group of people in total control of everything and everyone.

And/so he went back to school and got his (evil) MBA.

I have to pause for a moment and tell readers about my brother's recent experience in a Catholic hospital. Tommie, an airline pilot and Father of two, fell desperately-ill after flying one night. He called me while on a layover in Cincinnati - and could barely speak he was in so much pain. He had recently had an outpatient surgical procedure, and from what he told me between gasps for air, I was concerned about infectious complications, and a potential surgical emergency. His crew called an ambulance and he was taken to the closet hospital, which happened to be a Catholic hospital in Kentucky (just over a bridge/the state line). He got a cursory (I think grossly inadequate) evaluation in the ED, and was admitted on antibiotics. Over the course of his admission, it quickly became clear to me that my (heavily doped-up-on-morphine) brother was suffering from MRSA, he was on the wrong antibiotics, and he was getting worse/septic. But the nurses would not call the doctors for anything and only spoke to them on rounds in the morning.  For the rest of the day, doctors were treated like unapproachable gods - the nurses would not even put me through when I called the hospital to question his medical management (pseudo-septic Tommie literally handed the phone to a nurse and said, "This is my sister. She's a doctor. Explain what you're not doing to her."). Messages were given to nursing administrators who never called back. Meanwhile Tommie was alone and getting sicker . . . his only advocates were hundreds of miles away . . and he wasn't going anywhere because of a raging snowstorm. It took two days for the doctors to come in out of the fog and get my brother on the proper antibiotics to treat MRSA. He was hospitalized for two weeks. We got him out of that &^%$#@! hospital as fast as the snow thawed - and had him re-admitted to a facility in North Carolina. He could have died.

This is the kind of working environment in which Bob Morrison cut his teeth. And he apparently liked it.

With his (evil) MBA in hand, Bob took a job with another Catholic system (Mercy) and wound up being the boss of a small hospital in Urbana, Ohio. But the hospital was part of a much larger conglomerate, and the trend at the time (which is actually even more of a trend now) was for multi-hospital systems to centralize their management . . . and to eliminate the local figurehead executives & Boards which were often expensive dead weight in the organization. Bob was out of a job again.

(I actually contacted Urbana years ago, to try and elicit the details of his departure. But that file was locked up tight.)

That's when Bob found Asheboro. At the time, Randolph Hospital was looking for someone to replace John Ellis, their longtime uber-autocratic hospital administrator. It was 1993. The hospital had just finished a multi-million-dollar facilities expansion. But it had a horrible reputation, and was next-to-broke.

They had built it, but people still weren't coming.

Bob got a new title: President and CEO. Shored up by a Board-of-Directors composed of farily-desperate mill-town-kings-who-asked-no-questions, he was given a free hand. He was a captain of local industry. He was "in". And if he played his cards right, he would never be fired again.

Now Bob likes to brag about the creation of Randolph Medical Associates, and this article is no exception. The hospital needed in-coming patients to survive (duh), and the intent was to create a "designer" or "premiere" practice to bring in local physicians to feed the monster. And/so the hospital's "wholly-owned controlled affiliate" was born.  Despite what Bob would like you to believe, it was not some genius idea exclusive/unique to Morrison or Eblin, but a developing trend in hospital management - one that was able to dance all around Federal STARK (anti-kickback) laws.

The Guide's article states that Morrison hired a full-time recruiter for physicians soon after arrival. It also regurgitates the party line that the RMA model allowed physicians to come to the community, establish their practices as employees of a benevolent parent-company, and then break-off to hang-out their own shingles.

Penkava's story conveniently leaves out the part about Randolph Hospital not even considering physicians educated & trained out of the U.S. in its initial RMA recruitment efforts. Nope. Morrison and his team wanted white-bread-doctors . . . in order to attract the better-paying insured patients who were flocking to other counties in droves.

Foreign-medical-grads would only come much later . . . after Morrison's "team" developed a reputation for doing doctors way-beyond dirty.

Pursuing the concept of RMA as the "premiere" practice in Asheboro (never mind the grumbling/resentful/private/established doctors in the community whose efforts to run a business and make a living were not cushioned by taxpayer dollars) Morrison and his team also didn't want to actively market the "non-profit" practice to parents and children on the East side of town. Those patients had the health department, and we couldn't interfere with that business. That might interfere with the Department's funding.

(It's the same part of town where Dick Wells wants to dump a landfill now. See how things in good ole Asheboro work?)

And it was Randolph Hospital's physician recruiter who (according to several recruiters I was working with after I got fired), would later black-ball me (and Dr. Anderson) for miles around Asheboro. But when Jim Kinlaw (a partner at White Oak Family Practice and perpetual RH Board member) asked Morrison if this was true, and Morrison denied it, that denial alone made Mary (and Laurie Anderson and all those pesky physician recruiters trying to help us) a liar.

That's what passes for "oversight" in a small town. But I'm skipping ahead of myself.

Yours truly was the first doctor recruited under the new practice model.  I was doing Locum Tenens work in New Orleans at the time . . . Jim Kinlaw knew I was freshly-minted and "out-there" . . . and contact was made through my Mother.

Well-versed in Asheboro's awful reputation - particularly in Pediatrics (the town had a recent history of chewing up and spitting out Brenners-educated Pediatricians - who are decidedly NOT "a dime a dozen"), I was intrigued by the opportunity, yet initially somewhat reluctant to take the job (and warned by others against it). But Morrison and Eblin offered a sweet deal at a practice site that offered full state & Federal loan repayment within two years. I would be the "valued employee" (billed as no stress/no administrative hassle) of a "non-profit" . . . fulfilling my personal desire to serve all comers and make a real difference in my hometown.

To coin one of Bob's phrases, "It was home. My family and my friends were there. It was where I planned to stay."

I arrived in 1994, with much fanfare and an ad campaign in the Courier Tribune. Mama still has the ads in a photobook. She and Pops were so proud.

And for almost three years, providing back-up call for critical care Pediatrics 24-7 (actually very good training for my current job in the middle of far-Eastern nowhere) . . . much of that time coping with with THE MOST INCOMPETENT PRACTICE MANAGEMENT THAT I HAVE, TO THIS DAY, EVER ENCOUNTERED . . . insisting upon the excellence that Bob swears he cared so much about . . . doing everything I knew how to do to wade through the crap - to make it all work - and to make things in Asheboro better for kids, I labored under the lie that there was light at the end of the tunnel, and that someday, somehow, when my loans were paid off, the practice I had built from nothing would be mine to transition - if that's what I wanted.

But the thing is, I really wanted to remain an employee. I saw the writing-on-the-wall before many other private docs did, and I did not want the hassles of running a practice. I expected to fairly reimbursed for my services, but exotic monster compensation plans based on "incentives' and "production" (what Bob wanted to impose after he hooked the first doctors in . . . to the extent of firing everybody at RMA all at once so he/Steve Eblin could "renegotiate" their contracts . . . another genius move that totally back-fired) did not interest me. And my personal life simply was not for sale.

I had an excellent local reputation (for all of Bob's later attempts to destroy it), and great rapport with the Pediatric institutions/sub-specialists to which I referred patients when Randolph's services were not enough .. . . one of them my alma mater (Bowman Gray/Baptist Hospital/Brenners) . . . another the hospital where I was born (Cone).

For all that Bob says that he's proud of Randolph Hospital being "independent", back in late 1997, his practice Director was telling the Pediatricians that we needed to be sending our referrals preferentially to Cone (not always my first choice). He causally told us that it was in our best interests to foster the "cooperative relationship" between the institutions (rumors persist to this day that there is some kind of "secret ownership" of Randolph by Cone).

The Director was immediately informed (by Dr. Anderson and Dr. Johnson) that Randolph Hospital attempting to direct our Pediatric referrals as a condition of employment was illegal (those pesky STARK laws) and he needed to back WAY off. We would send children where we - and their parents - thought they needed to go.

Of course, Cone Hospital owned the practice that employed the family practitioner I later rescued (at the nurses' request) that fateful night in 1998 . . . a doctor whose skills in Neonatology Bob's team grossly exaggerated and falsely advertised to an unsuspecting public.

On that particular night, the doctor, way-out-of-his-element, did not know what he was doing, and refused to ask for help that was available. His arrogance and ignorance could have killed a newborn baby girl. Quality and excellence did not factor into the equation AT ALL.

And on that night, I did what I was supposed to do.

The next morning, pretty much at the end of my rope, I reported the case to Peer Review.

And if you ask ANYONE on any hospital or Medical Board, or the gurus at JCAHO (Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hosptial Organizations) or the bureaucrats at DHHS (Department of Health & Human Services), or even the hoity-toids in the towers at the American Board of Pediatrics now . . . I PLAYED BY THE RULES LONG BEFORE ANY OF THEM BOTHERED TO CARVE THE RULES IN STONE.

IN SHORT, WHAT I DID AT RANDOLPH HOSPITAL IN 1998 IS POLICY AND PROCEDURE IN 2011 IN ANY HOSPITAL IN THIS COUNTRY.

After I did what I was supposed to do, the FACT is that Bob Morrison, as the leader of a "non-profit" hospital . . . the man everyone else looked to for moral/ethical guidance . . . DID NOT.

What happened that night had to be covered up. It didn't look good. Why, it was EMBARRASSING! Dr. Johnson had to be silenced.

And/so, within two weeks of the incident . . . without ANYONE from the hospital's "Quality Assurance" or peer review Committees speaking to me about what happened . . . without practice management saying, "Hey Mary, we probably took things a little too far when we threatened you IN WRITING without just cause", I was fired.

I was unceremoniously given five days to wrap up my work and get out of RMA's office - yet at the same time held exclusively to my contract for the rest of a six-month "notice" . . . my silence ensured by the practice doling out a paycheck every two weeks (instead of paying me what I was contractually owed in a lump sum and setting me free).

I was given no input into a letter that was immediately sent out to my patients - a letter that intially gave many parents the impression I had abandoned their children. And despite what the Randolph Hospital Board-of-Directors were telling angry parents in carefully-crafted letters (about my freedom to set up shop in the community), the FACTS were that I unable to protest to anyone (including and especially the Boards of Directors) other than Bob/his minions without being FIRED FOR CAUSE . . . I was unable to see "RMA" patients anywhere (including the hospital), or work on transitioning my practice without being FIRED FOR CAUSE . . . I was unable to work anywhere else without permission without being FIRED FOR CAUSE . . . and (denied a patient list) I was unable to tell parents/patients the real reason I was fired without being FIRED FOR CAUSE.

Just to make sure I couldn't practice at the hospital (because my hospital privileges were mine to keep or resign), Bob's practice Director immediately cancelled my malpractice insurance - even though I was still employed. It was a move that would later backfire in a bad way.

In doing these things, Bob Morrison and his lawyers kept me in a tight little windowless box for six months. Meanwhile, my patients (at least the ones who didn't flock back to White Oak or Greensboro) could be shifted to the rolls of other RMA doctors.  The fact IS that employment laws in North Carolina (a "right-to-work" state) equate doctors to janitors. And again, anything I did to set up my own show during the notice period - or move on to work for a local competitor (or move on, period) - or in any way incite parent's outrage about what had really happened - would have been in direct contradiction to Randolph Medical Associate's "best interests" - "justification" to be FIRED FOR CAUSE.

Like everybody else except the over-paid, Teflon-coated demon-triplets (Morrison, Eblin, Bridges) who did this to me, I am human. I had a mortgage and bills to pay. And, in terms of "moving on", getting FIRED FOR CAUSE just doesn't look good on your CV ("curriculum vitae" . . . doctor-speak for "resume").

So tell me again, Larry Penkava, after your extensive research on the tall tale Bob Morrison was spoon-feeding you, that the goal of Randolph Medical Associates was to mentor and foster new physicians in the hope they would stay in the community.

Tell me again that Bob Morrison cared one bit about "quality of care".

It's not just a lie, it's a damned lie.

I was the first doctor hired at RMA, and the first one who should have been given the unencumbered (according to my National Health Service Corps agreement) opportunity to fly solo (or in may case, set up shop with Dr. Laurie Anderson - who also got loan repayment and also left Asheboro behind in the dust because she could not stand what was going on at RMA).

The FACT is that Bob wanted to keep the patient base I had built (of the three Pediatricians, the one most composed of the "white bread" patients he craved) for himself.  Likewise, the boys over at Jim Kinlaw's White Oak Family Practice liked getting my patients back on their roles - and didn't want Mary Johnson practicing Pediatrics anywhere but at RMA.

No one wanted the popular homegirl as a competitor in their market.

So much for the "mission" of the Federal program that repaid my student loans to recruit and RETAIN.

In the article, Bob boasts about his recipe for success:

"If I'm in business and (a competitor) is getting results that are equal or better, I would try to copy or beat it."

The thing is, Bob, never had to compete on an even playing field. His modus operandi was to crush or absorb competitors in the community - using the bully pulpit of his non-profit. His "industry" was shored up with taxpayer support - there was always a net. In stark contrast, ordinary physicians, trying to make a living in "his" town were out of luck unless they played Bob's game. And don't even get me started on the unnecessary duplication of services . . . by ALL accounts one of the biggest factors in increasing healthcare costs in this country.

In other words, every tiny town doesn't need a "world-class" Cancer Center.

(OBTW, the Cancer Center became a gleam in Bob's eye when he realized how generous the citizens of Asheboro were when it came to supporting organizations like Hospice and events like Relay-for-Life. It wasn't altruism. He saw dollar signs.)

Bob's "team" acted with pure malice in what they did to me and the way they did it . . . destroying any chance I had to transition into my own practice in Asheboro . . . or find employment with another practice in the surrounding area . . . or (in the alternative) land a Pediatric sub-specialty fellowship (the "neutral references" Bob's minions offered were worse-than-useless).

Try explaining getting fired for saving a baby's life in a fellowship interview. Watch all the leads for local jobs suddenly go deader-than-dead (remember, this is way back before I discovered blogging).

And then talk to me about "getting over it" and "moving on".

Things were bad enough as I took to the road to pay my mortgage (bouncing all over the place - getting lousy reimbursement and staying in roach-motels that Bob & Peggy Morrison wouldn't be caught dead in). But when I sued Bob's "controlled affiliate" . . . in an effort to get back what was mine . . . that's when the knives really came out. My hospital privileges (a protected property right) were immediately rescended - based on a RESIGNATION I HAD WITHDRAWN - without notifying me that the action was being considered by the Medical Executive Committee.

I mean, these guys . . . who put on a great show of being benevolent community stalwarts acted like a bunch of Fascists!

And let me just say, there's really nothing like being SLAPP-sued for telling the government-you-served the TRUTH about what you endured at the hands of a corporate sadist . . . with his buddy-running-your-local-hometown-newspaper splashing the headline that you are a liar front-page-above-the-fold . . . for all of your friends and family to read.

Mom and Dad saved that clipping too. They were horrified (I mean, can you try to put yourself in their shoes?). But they were even prouder of their girl - who they knew was not going to take it lying down.

And that leads us to the reason I am in the blogosphere . . . the FACT that Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin repeatedly lied under Oath during the discovery phase of their own despicable "libel" lawsuit (a lawsuit they eventually ran from - their tucked tails neatly covered by the Courier Tribune) . . . withholding far-from-confidential fiscal information that was absolutely VITAL to determining the true damages I had suffered as a physician wrongfully crushed under their thumbs.

Lying under Oath about matters relevant to a damages claim is PERJURY.  Perjury is a FELONY. It has no statute-of-limitations. And I reported the CRIME to Garland Yates back in 2003.

But since that time, the Randolph County DA has refused to even meet with me - or refer the case to the N.C. and/or U.S. Attorney Generals for a proper investigation. The small-town wagons have been tightly circled around Bob Morrison since day one.

There's a REASON Randolph Hospital put a clause in its employment contracts requiring any legal action over disputes to be filed in Randolph County.

"There are things we can do to make our hospital better. It's that attitude, willingness to take responsibility, is what I'm most proud of."

Yeah, right Bob. Do you EVER plan to TAKE responsibility . . . to BE accountable . . . for the LIES you swore to God in a Court proceeding . .  . before you ride off into the sunset (if I have to guess, in order to pursue your next career opportunity as a blood-sucking healthcare consultant)?

And there you have it boys and girls, just one physician's take on the story behind the "hundreds of accomplishments" that Bob Morrison is now peddling as his legacy. I can assure you there are more stories. From more doctors. And nurses.

But I was pretty much the only one to really roll up my sleeves and openly fight back. And just because the oily SOB is retiring doesn't mean I'm going away.

With regards to Randolph Hospital's future, I don't see it as remaining independent for very much longer. The town is in economic freefall, demographics have changed considerably in the last 15 years, the paying-to-nonpaying patient ratios are eroding into scary numbers, and money is very tight (you can tell by looking at the infrastructure of things other than the Cancer Center). Looking in my crystal ball, I see a bigger hospital - most likely Cone or Baptist - coming down and cleaning house . . .

. . . which is pretty much what Bob was running from when he came here.

You can be for damned sure that no one coming in is going to approve of paying Bob Morrison $500,000-700,000/year.

As for how I "feel" (Billie) about Bob riding off into the sunset while the newspapers slobber and the right people fawn, here goes . . .

I'm disgusted. Very angry. And more determined than ever to be vindicated . . . to see transparency and accountability become a reality in Asheboro.

And here's today's reality-sans-spin: For all of the building-of-fancy-buildings and endless upbeat spinning, not a whole lot about Randolph's reputation has really improved since I first arrived on the scene in 1998 to help change it.

The things that happened on Bob Morrison's watch (new ED and ambulatory/outpatient services) were going to happen under anybody's competent leadership - indeed, these things had to happen for Randolph to survive.

Based on my experience with administrators and executives over almost 40 locums assignments on the road, just about anyone else would have been more benevolent doing it than our positive-thinking Bob.

Sadly, it doesn't really matter how hard the ordinary minions there work, the rot at the top is still bringing them down. And I don't think that there's much to be done about that unless someone in the medical community finally grows a set, throws off the mill-town chains, and demands real change . . . and (most importantly) makes a BIG SHOW of it.

If anyone wants a SHOW, I've got one ready-made.

With the evidence (of bad faith & perjury) I presented to the Garland Yates back in 2003, as non-profit officers who acted amorally, unethically and ILLEGALLY, Bob Morrison AND Steven Eblin could have been FIRED FOR CAUSE on the spot . . that is, IF their Board of Directors actually had possessed any of those small-town values they boast about . . . and IF the medical staff had ever stopped being AFRAID of their shadows long enough to organize against a tyrant.

Indeed, these two corporate vampires could STILL be fired-for-cause now . . . it's certainly reason enough not to hand the CEO job to Steve Eblin (who was the true architect behind what was done to me).

But I labor under no illusion that anyone in this town is capable of doing the right thing unless someone is holding a gun to their head (we are speaking figuratively here, lest Bob & company try to float the notion that not-so-crazy Mary is capable of physical violence).

It's been a true conspiracy of dunces.

Many people on the outside looking in, have commented to me that it is SIMPLY UNFRICKINGBELIEVABLE that Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors has continued to ALLOW Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin to pretend that they did not lie and cheat and steal . . . to just ignore the accusations made on this blog . . . to let them stand and waft all over the Internet for years without doing something - anything to "fix it" and "make peace with Mary".

Because suing her kind of back-fired in a BIG way.  To coin a phrase, every hit on this blog is one more person . . . who will tell a few more people . . . who will all tell a few more people . . . and so on and so on.

Any way you look at it, they're BUSTED.

Moving on along, Morrison said in the article that he "looked for a time when it would be a clean place to start for my replacement. There is none."

Again, in terms of what I hope to do soon in a Courtroom, that's another colossal understatement. There is NOTHING "clean" about this situation. Several in my circle of friend have wondered aloud what potential CEO in his right mind would take the job with this PR nightmare hanging over his head?

I operate in the light, so I'll share. What happened to me could have been stopped with one phone call from the Feds when it started. The crux of the case I hope to make is this: Federal healthcare reform and tort-reform in North Carolina have come and gone. My ordeal spans the tenures of Clinton (disbarred in Arkansas for perjury), Hunt, Sleazely (convicted felon), Edwards (if-there-is-a-God-soon-to-be-convicted-felon), Bush and Obama. The only politco who ever did anything substantive to help in nearly fourteen years was Howard Coble, and it simply wasn't enough. And in that time, despite begging every regulatory body under-the-sun for help, NOTHING has been done to plug the black-holes of medical and legal oversight I fell through. As a medical whistle-blower, my civil and property rights were trampled, and the state & Federal governments simply could not be bothered (the logic seems to be that it was neither rape nor murder, so it's just not an important enough case to pursue).

While a good doctor was criminally-battered by the liars and thieves-posing-as-captains-of-industry-at-a-non-profit-hospital (all because she did not hang up the phone on a terrified nurse and go back to sleep - because she stepped up to keep a baby girl from dying in front of her eyes), the pencil-pushing, dive-under-their-desks bureaucrats at the US & NC Departments of Health and Human Services might as well have been the bigshots at Penn State when Sandusky was raping boys in the shower (insert hypocritical, self-righteous rant featured by well-named hyper-local blogger-turned-healthcare-system-board member).  Likewise, there must not be a lot of oxygen high in the ivory towers occupied by the Medical Board or American Board of Pediatrics. And JCAHO wouldn't recognize a sentinel event if on jumped up and bit one of their useless reviewers in the tuckus.

Indeed, Obama just threw more money after bad at the National Health Services Corps. Hope and change was a joke.

Since the state and Federal regulatory agencies - and medical oversight bodies - that were supposed to protect me (and by extension, my patients) never lifted so much as a finger to do so (despite all the blather about "transparency" and accountability and high standards of care . . . despite the position and policy statements they now present to the public as being God's holy word on the subject), I am working on crafting something that holds their feet to the fire.

And call me crazy (a lot of people have because they cannot otherwise make a coherent counter-argument), but I don't really think these regulatory agencies and oversight bodies are going to want to answer for Bob Morrison's crimes . . . or fight a case that showcases their methodical indifference and gross negligence . . . especially in an election year.

There is legal precedent in North Carolina. It's a matter of melding with the right lawyer (someone recently told me that they are "a dime a dozen" these days . . . and I burst out laughing), so I am doing the rounds now. I'm a patient woman. Not in a hurry. And even if the legal arena ultimately doesn't work out, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

The Internet is forever. Cold dishes and all that.

But sooner or later, I think Bob Morrison will have some splainin to do.

Jim Kinlaw, someone I once held on a fairly high pedestal and now hold in utter contempt, once self-righteously pontificated to me that, "We do not live or practice in a vacuum" . . . implying that I should have done more to go along to get along with the powers-that-be at Randolph Hospital. I should have looked the other way. I should have kept quiet.

As Asheboro circles the drain, I could say the very same thing to him now. We don't live in a vacuum, Jim. There is right and there is wrong. You and your man were DEAD WRONG. This isn't going away. I am not going away.

So, DOCTOR, as the air in you vaccum gets thinner and thinner, if you don't want this to ultimately blow up in your face, MAYBE, just MAYBE it's time you and the rest of that Board-of-Directors told Bob Morrison and Steve Eblin, "Wait one minute fellas. Bob doesn't walk out the door just yet, and Steve doesn't get his chair. YOU MADE THIS MESS. BEFORE YOU LEAVE, YOU CLEAN IT UP!"

And just so you know, DOCTOR, every time I even try to entertain the idea of giving up and letting go . . . of cosigning what was done to me in Asheboro to the ashes . . . I immediately flash back to a memory. It's one of my Pops, Jim. You knew him. Once up a time, like my Mother, like me, he was YOUR PATIENT. And one day, in the spring of 2004 (the year before he died), my Father stood across Fayetteville street, and silently kept watch over his daughter, the Pediatrician. In desperation, trying to get someone/anyone in your mill-town-brimming-with-small-town-values to CARE about the nasty things that were done to her, she had strapped a sign to her back and was protesting all by herself in front of your hospital's old "front door".

The Courier Tribune (typically) didn't think it was news. Neither did the N&R.

That image of my Dad is BURNED into my soul, Jimbo. Mostly because I KNOW many of the old-guard doctors and Board members of Randolph Hospital thought it was hysterical - just like SUING ME for "libel" was funny (well, at least until your bullies-in-suits had to eat it).

I also think of my sainted Mother - who taught your kids - and Ray Criscoe's - at Loflin school.  Mama DID RIGHT by you - and by Ray - and your children.

But you-all let Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin CRAP all over her daughter. Now you're letting Bob walk away.

Giving up is just NOT an option.

So there you have it, Billie That's what Mary thinks. That's how Mary feels. That's what she's working on. It's so NOT over.

Bob Morrison can retire. He can run. But the hospital he leaves behind (after sucking it dry) cannot hide.

Audrey Armfield

2011-11-08T12:17:00.001-05:00

My pal-from-high-school and online-knight-in-shining-armor, Buzz-Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields-who-gave-one-million-dollars-to-the-Randolph-Hospital-Cancer-Center lost his Mother on Sunday morning. She had suffered a massive stroke two weeks prior.

I never met Mrs. Armfield, Sr. But, based on her son's vivid descriptions (Buzz is nothing if not a gifted story-teller), I imagined her to be a feisty, independent, albeit old-school Southern dame. Like many of Asheboro's "right people", she referred to me as "that woman" (Buzzy was apologetic), and it made me smile.

I took no offense. Many older folk in Asheboro are a product of the mill-town environment and their time.

Audrey Seltz Armfield's obituary can be found here. A worn-out/world-weary (after two weeks of dealing with end-of-life issues - part of that time spent in an institution whose senior management he does not trust/has no use for) Buzz wryly commented that one could not read it Monday morning in Asheboro's Courier-Tribune.

Indeed, the good citizens of Asheboro cannot read it at all online unless they PAY for the privilege. It's just my opinion that, as a matter of public record and community service, some things at a newspaper are NOT "proprietary", and should not be hidden behind a paywall. Bereaved families have enough to cope with and worry about without their local newspaper making it harder to get the word out.

More later, I think. But not now.

The Murray Verdict

2011-11-07T17:58:00.004-05:00

There is no question - NONE - that Conrad Murray was guilty of malpractice in the death of Michael Jackson. Medically speaking, the things he admitted to doing were imcomprehensibly reckless and stupid - truly inexcusable. He deserves to loose his medical license (what many of the fans-prancing-around-the-Courthouse-declaring-the-world-is-safer-because-it's-minus-another-bad-doctor don't seem to understand, is that he can probably, at some point in the not too distant future, get it back).

But for a while, after more & more evidence surfaced showcasing Jackson's addictions (that made Elvis look like a rank amateur), I struggled with the notion that Murray was criminally negligent . . . given that Jackson's beyond-wacked-out world was not your world or mine.

The biggest problem I had with zeroing in on Murray as "the man who killed Michael Jackson" was that all of the other $oul-$ucking $ychophant$ in Jackson's life . . . including the other "doctor$" who $lowly carved his face into a macabre ma$k AND who turned the King-of-Pop into just another pathetic drug addict . . . including the never-ending parade of intimate parasite$ - and yes$ men & women - who looked the other way no matter what Jackson did (or who he did it with) . . . including the mercile$$ concert promoter$ . . . and including his own almost deliberately obliviou$ family (Mother/abu$ive Father/$hamele$$ly-attention-$eeking $ibling$) . . . will self-righteously walk away from this mess chanting that justice has been served.

All that being said, in the end, Murray was a doctor, not a scapegoat. He was held to a higher standard (of care) because he should be.

Murray had a duty - and the responsibility - to say to his "friend" and (at the time) only patient, "Not NO, Michael, but HELL NO". He could have stood up to the promoters and demanded more/better medical AND psychiatric care for his patient - in appropriate facilities. In the alternative, he could have walked away from the glitz-by-association and all of that lovely money . . . and gone back to serve the many ordinary patients he left behind . . . patients he/his lawyers later used to try and defend the indefensible.

Conrad Murray fell into the trap of doing what the patient wanted - instead of what was best for the patient. In theory, it's actually not a lot different from prescribing an antibiotic/other drug that you don't think the patient really needs - but that the patent's Mama (or Gandmama) wants or she'll cause a very ugly scene in your waiting room and slow down your patient flow - or write your boss, telling him/her you're a terrible doctor.

Been there, done that. I've said yes (any doctor who says they haven't is lying). I've also said no. And saying no is much harder/more likely to HURT you.

I've digressed. I think the verdict was appropriate (involuntary manslaughter is actually a perfect description). The jury got it right. It was the doctor. In the bedroom. With a needle. Not a great day for medicine.

But it's not a great day for "justice" either. Real justice is an illusion. Too many guilty parties - accomplices - are walking away from this one - and writing books.. There just isn't anything to cheer/dance/sing about.

And if Michael Jackson was in the Courtroom - if he was the man all his fans say he was - if going into the light really releases the demons and imparts wisdom/truth - I think he might have been rooting for the defense.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I feel sorry for Conrad Murray. He is in a hell of his own making.

But he had LOT$ of help getting there.

Looking For Some Puss This Weekend . . .

2011-10-28T10:27:00.000-04:00

LOL! Made you look.

Puss-In-Boots, silly. Where is your mind?

Why "That Woman" Loves Mr. Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields . . . and Jeff Sykes

2011-10-23T11:45:00.006-04:00

This post was composed a month ago. I forgot about it, and almost deleted it. But then, President Obama, in the wake of Quaddafi's demise, announced that the war in Iraq is "over".

I'm not so civilized as to pretend that my more bloodthirsty human instincts were very satisfied by actually seeing a picture of the dying/dead despot (as I would have liked to have seen Osama Bin Laden). And I have no problem with the way he went out.

As for the "end" of the war, I had the same initial reaction/thoughts as Billy Jones. The next step is to down-scale the military. What are all of those out-of-work soldiers going to do in this economy?

(You'll forgive me if I have no more faith in Obama's "jobs bill" than I had in his notions of healthcare "reform".)

Moving on along . . .

I'm still on break, working on doing (more on that in a future post), but I wanted to share: My well-named friend, Buzz-Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields-who-gave-one-million-dollars-to-the-Randolph-Hospital-Center, and his wife, Becky, have a son.

And their son is a Marine. And the Marine just got back from a tour of duty on the front-of-the-front in Afghanistan.

Buzz chronicled the homecoming of his son's unit in e-mails.

The following is one of the many reasons why I love Buzz:

They are a brave bunch, but the bravest one I saw on Tuesday was a small blonde girl, about 25 years old. Her husband of two months, a Marine Sergeant, was the only KIA in the group. She made it a point to come to every return of the various companies of the *****.

That woman has guts.

I've crossed paths with such women . . . working as a Pediatrician in Jacksonville . . . and burying my Aunt in Arlington. These women will break your heart.

My very best to Buzz and Becky. I'm very glad their boy made it home safe.

Totally switching gears, I also love local blogger, Jeff Sykes. Because he writes stuff like this. Because, as an expatriate journalist, he makes you think . . . really think . . . about positions you've held all your life. But here's what really caught my eye:

It was the sudden death of a loved one a short year later that opened the floodgates of compassion that I had never before experienced. It is the knowledge that even the most stoic and religious person arrived at that affect more times than not after experiencing failure and defeat and searching for a place of comfort and rest.

Jeff is taking about the death of his Mother. And I remember the same kind of feeling.

I was worried about Jeff for a long time. I'm not any more. Jeff is a lot stronger for having walked through the fire . . . some of the coals scattered by local bloggers.

Speaking of, several of Blogsboro's most prominent names applauded Jeff's post in the comments - which are now closed. And that made me think too.

In my last post, I commented that, in the wake of the professional and legal ass-kicking dished out (for all of the wrong reasons) by my "hometown" hospital, it had taken a very long time for me to get back to being me - the real me - the me that was actually accepted to medical school . . . a much more "happy-go-lucky, live-and-let-live" sort than I am now.

As most Housecalls' readers know, I discovered blogging in February 2005 . . . quite literally the day after my Father died (like Jeff's Mother, very suddenly and unexpectedly).

With my very soul wounded, raw, bleeding and grieving, I saw hope in the invitation offered by local "journalists", who promised a fair shake, and light and air ("citizen journalism", as they called it) . . . in terms of telling stories that might not have otherwise seen the light of day . . . or were not given a fair shake or good investigative turn the first time around.

They sounded so earnest and sincere. They seemed to want to ramp what-had-passed-for-local-journalism-for-so-long up, and actually BE relevant. They would do the right thing. I felt it in my bones. I thought I might finally be on my way to vindication, real justice, comfort and rest.

But these people, didn't live up to their own hype. And they got REALLY angry when you pointed that out. And/so, my hide, already badly-burned & scarred-down by the afore-mentioned hometown ass-kicking, was blistered and thickened by the insults and barbs of Greensboro's "progressive" do-gooders (much of it fueled by partisanship) - several of whom who reveled in attacking/libeling me.

But somehow they could NEVER ask a SINGLE objective question of the so-called "public servants" I accused of very bad things.

Black and white evidence of "non-profit" hospital executives swearing a false Oath to the Court (and to God) were of no consequence to anyone but me. Everybody lies in Court. Bad faith is to be expected. Get over it. Move on. If you don't, you're "crazy".

One of those "public servants" will be retiring soon . . . taking wheel-barrows full of public money with him . . . all rubber-stamped by a mill-town Board-of-Directors that treats him as some kind of captain-of-industry . . still under the cover of wholesale public ignorance as fostered by my hometown "newspaper" . . . and with no one from the N.C. Secretary of State's office - or even the IRS even batting an eye.

(As a matter of update for curious readers, it's been over a week, but I've yet to hear from Randolph Hospital's public relations queen, April Thornton, on the status of my last public records request for IRS 990's for 2009 and 2010. I expect her boss is trying to get out before anyone can ask any questions about the massive spike in his deferred benefits, beginning in the 2008 fiscal year - a year when the rest of the world went to hell.)

And, over time, my heart hardened. Six years later, comfort and rest remain illusions. And the floodgates remain somewhat jammed.

So Jeff, I'm thinking it's all in where you land.

Regardless, I am glad there are people like you . . . and Buzz . . . out there.

Horse-sh*t, Mr. President!

2011-10-18T16:09:00.003-04:00

From The Weekly Standard, our President, on the "Occupy Wall Street" movement:

The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded . . . and that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded.

Honestly, after fourteen years trying to get the corporate bullies running Randolph Hospital to play fair (and now watching Bob Morrison ride off into the sunset with his pockets full of non-profit dollars - and without answering for anything that he did) . . . or, in the alternative, pleading with the government & oversight agencies that-were-supposed-to-see-that-Randolph-played-fair to MAKE them play fair . . . I've never heard such a load of hypocritical horse-sh*t in my life.

I was IN your "system" Mr. President. I got the education and the degrees that you say value so much. I busted my tail in Asheboro. I did MY JOB. I did what I was supposed to do.

I believed. I bought that farm in your Secretary-of-State's "village".

Look what happened. Hard work, merit, ethics, truth . . . it meant NOTHING.

You and others like you/before you were NEVER on my side. Clinton, Hunt, Sleazely, Edwards, Perdue . . . it's been a parade of two-faced opportunisitc, self-serving dunces.

You do NOT have to set up a new "system". Your job is to make the one we've got work. To make everyone play by the rules.

Go back to D.C. Cuz I'm thinking North Carolina is gonna be a bust for you this time around.

"Yes, we can.". More like, "No, we didn't".

On The Retirement Of Randolph Hospital's Bob Morrison

2011-10-14T09:45:00.006-04:00

Confirming rumors that have been swirling for a while now, Randolph Hospital's $700,000 man, Bob Morrison (Questions? Check the hospital's IRS "2008" 990's as posted at Guidestar - page 30 - the link takes several moments to load), has announced his retirement. No effective date was given.

I'd say it cannot come soon enough, but given what I'm working on, I'd be lying.

And I don't lie nearly as well as Bob.

In the part of the press release that one can actually read online in Bob's own personal local newsletter (excuse me, Asheboro's always fawning, slobbering Courier Tribune) . . . right before the article dives below a paywall . . . Morrison states his part in was "small" and "the heavy lifting done by others".

Ergo, the massive paycheck from the small mill town hospital, eh, Bob?   I certainly won't argue that yours was the best job anyone could have ever had. It's nice to be king and coated in Teflon.

Let those you "serve" eat cake.

I would be very surprised if Bob's successor is not his left-hand-man, Steven Eblin. One can only hope that the (what I hear from the grapes is a largely disgusted) Medical Staff will finally rise up and condemn that kind of "transition" . . . which really isn't a transition at all. But I'm not holding my breath . . .

. . . because, you see, Asheboro's medical "community" has a long history of not standing for anything but what will not upset their apple carts. Ethics, smethics. Go along to get along. Ignore the guts of your colleagues splattered on Bob's walls. The big guns on Randolph's medical staff and mill-town BOD stood by deaf, dumb and blind while this home-grown Pediatrician got professionally eviscerated for defying the threats of Bob's Cone-loving minions and saving a newborn baby's life.

Any stupid, amoral thing Bob wanted, Bob got. Rubber-stamped all the way. No questions asked.

Quite the "family", that crowd.  What they did to Dr. Mary Johnson is something they can all be very proud of. And while I had no choice but to move on, I've never gotten over it.

If you believe the always-slick marketing proffered by the "team" of Morrison and Eblin, their stewardship has always been about delivering "world class", "award-winning", "care you can trust". Unless you were that baby that night . . . or her parents . . . or any of the rest of my patients/parents who, in the aftermath of a fiasco brought about by false marketing, arrogance and greed, found themselves suddenly without a Pediatrician - with no reason/explanation forthcoming from the collection of wagons circled around Bob & his "team" of corporate bullies but a pile of bold-faced, self-serving lies.

And then there was the farce of what passes for "justice" in Randolph County and North Carolina.  In-your-face BAD FAITH and PERJURY is a-okay with Garland Yates. Mary Johnson wasn't "right people", you see.

It's all in the sidebar folks. As I said before, I'm done jumping through the blogging hoops.

Dr. Mary remains on break - working on a little project that, if it flies, will showcase some of Bob Morrison's "good works" while at the helm of Randolph Hospital.

You could call it "heavy lifting". I'm used to it.

Evening Update: Shortly after this post went up this morning, I sent an e-mail to April Thronton, Randolph Hospital's PR queen. I requested copies of Randolph Hospital's latest IRS 990 returns - specifically, the fiscal years 2009 and 2010 (which ended last month). I had already requested 2009, but never got it.

It will be interesting to see how much money this "non-profit" hospital's Board of Directors has poured into Bob's benefit package (in anticipation of his retirement) since that last mind-blowing return (2008) posted on Guidestar.

Of course, once again, I do not expect anyone to "occupy Asheboro" and protest our own version of Wall Street-style greed at the public's expense.

"Mill-town mentality" runs deep. You have to know your place.

Sunday Morning Update:

In the spirit of "Occupying" (which has apparently replaced Tea-Partying as the in thing to do), I was informed yesterday, that Lynwood White, Randolph's Chief Financial Officer, is also leaving/retiring - also with a very nice bye-bye package.

Running Randolph Hospital has been very good to the people who don't actually see patients.

And, despite my suspicion that the "search" to replace Bob will only lead back to his trusted flunky, Steve Eblin, I cannot help but smell yet another young Schmidly in the distance.

As I vaguely recall, my ex-lawyer (the one I trusted with my future who totally sold me out), spawned a hospital executive. A simple Google search produced this tidbit which certainly fits my recollection (if I've accidentally ascribed familial bonds which do not exist, I certain apologize to the younger Schmidly in Texas).

I'm wondering about conflicts-of-interest (not that conflicts-of-interest have EVER mattered to the crew running this hospital) if the hospital recruited the son while being represented (in any capacity) by the daughter.

I also recall being told that this fine young man wouldn't touch Randolph Hospital with a ten-foot-pole. I'm not losing much sleep over this possibility because a quick scan of the services provided by the hospital he operates would indicate that it would be a backward career trajectory. As someone-more-astute-than-I-when-it-comes-to-business-matters commented: The only reason to enterain that kind of less-than-lateral move would be the opportunity to indiscriminately pillage and plunder the hospital's coffers without anyone on the Board of Directors so much as saying, "Boo!".

But times and fortunes do change. I've come to understand that people don't. Not really. Steve Schmidly was always a lying, opportunistic rat - a "right person" wannabe who finally found his way into Asheboro's top tiers via booze. My mistake was in trusting and believing him - just as I once trusted Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin.

It's my opinion, and I've more than earned it.

On "Occupying Asheboro" . . . And Rumors Of My Death

2011-10-11T14:13:00.006-04:00

Still on an extended break (which will continue indefinitely) and still working on a project that, if I can make it happen, will (before it's all said and done) ruffle more than a few "right" feathers in Asheboro, North Carolina.

In the meantime, thought I'd comment on something I got in my Inbox last week - from Mary Kay Henry, President of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union).

I'm not exactly sure how I got on Ms. Henry's e-mail list, but I'm certain it has something to with leaving no stone unturned as one ex-public service Pediatrician fought tooth-and-nail for going-on fourteen years for some small resemblance of fair play and justice in North Carolina . . . after getting fired for saving a newborn baby's life . . . by the good-ole-boys running Randolph Hospital (as I hear it lately, into the ground).

My hard-won education and board-certification, you see, did not count for anything with the fine, upstanding, God-fearing men who run the mills - and who sit on the Board-of-Directors that runs Randolph Hospital. Nor did the fact that I was in the right.

Of course, years later, it's not like Obama's hallowed healthcare "Reform" (heavily plugged by the SEIU on their website) has gotten around to plugging all the holes I fell through on the yellow-brick-road to the American Dream.

(Why yes, boys and girls, I'm UBER-bitter about that. And the only "therapy" I've ever needed is the American justice system doing something besides pandering to the "right people" of this messed-up country.)

Dear Dr. Mary,

By now you've seen the thousands of brave students, workers and the unemployed occupying Wall Street.

But did you know that as of yesterday, there are over 300 solidarity "occupy events" happening across the country and around the clock?

In Philadelphia, 1,000+ individuals took to City Hall on Tuesday night.

In Washington, D.C., people have camped out in McPherson Square, symbolically located on K Street, since last week.

In L.A., citizens have spent six straight days and nights outside City Hall protesting against income inequality and joblessness.

The crowds and peaceful demonstrations will only get larger and louder as more Americans find the courage to stand up and demand Wall Street, CEOs and millionaires pay their fair share to create good jobs now.

This is the moment that determines whether this movement succeeds or falls flat. Will you pledge to help the movement spread by visiting an Occupy event in Asheboro? You can sign up and find a comprehensive list of events here:

http://www.seiu.org/2011/10/seiu-supports-occupywallstreet.php

Over the last few weeks we've seen crowds of "Occupy Wall Street" protesters capture the nation's attention as they stood their ground despite aggressive police behavior and hundreds of arrests.

These courageous young activists have given us all a shot of inspiration and hope that we can indeed turn this country around.

We are proud of the actions taken by 1199 United Healthcare Workers East, SEIU 32BJ and other SEIU local unions to support the Wall Street protests.

But as we talk to other "Occupy" participants across the country, they tell us their first need is people.

So we're working with our friends at Daily Kos to see if we can help.

Find an Occupy event happening in your city and pledge to sign up to get involved. You can do that here:

As part of a peaceful, united movement we can do so much more to demonstrate the increasing urgency of the crisis our country faces and shine a light on those responsible.

Let's go for it!

In solidarity,

Mary Kay Henry
President, SEIU

Now, for the record, I do not like being called, "Dr. Mary", and if I had the opportunity to sit down and discuss life with Ms. Henry, I'd tell her that once-upon-a-time I was young and idealistic and had stars in my eyes . . . believing that I could come home to the little mill town where I was raised and make a real difference for the children there.

And I did come home. And I was making a difference. Until the rug was pulled out from under me by a trio of opportunistic liars on a power trip.  Since then, NO ONE has held them accountable for their despicable and ultimately ILLEGAL actions . . .

. . . as they, (much like the boys on Wall Street), draped themselves in their MBA's and the pretense of the public good, and stuffed their own pockets.

(If the above link does not work, Google Guidestar.org. Register - FOR FREE - and then look up Randolph Hospital, Inc. Then check out the hospital's latest IRS 990 reports - particularly the CEO's compensation in 2009.)

Welcome to "corporate America", non-profit/small-town style. Wall street greed on display in our own backyard. And then tell me (again) that I'm "crazy" for being as angry as I am about the extra-special-hell I was put through as one of this over-paid, over-rated carpet-bagger's "valued employees".

I think it was both "brave" and "courageous" to fight back against these thugs-in-suits . . . given that every card in the deck was stacked against me from day one.

The thing is, at day one, I did not know it.

In short, people, (despite what Ed Cone-of-the-Cones says) it's NOT just about Wall Street. And if you believe that, at this point in the game, you're just plain stupid and DESERVE whatever you get.

It's about what has been going on in our own small corners of the world . . . right under the masses' mostly up-turned/disinterested-unless-it-directly-affected-them/largely ignorant noses.

And the ignorance is mostly because ALL of the local ugly was methodically, deliberately ignored by the so-called "journalists" of the world . . . who sold their souls (and ours) to the highest bidders (their advertisers) . . . who could not say anything bad about the leadership of the towns they were simultaneously trying to "market" . . . and who cannot now understand why they have no credibility with the public - or why their circulations are in the toilet.

As for this home-girl who once drank the Koolaid, the very ugly story is all in the Housecall's sidebar folks.

READ the links there. Because in terms of spoon-feeding, I'm DONE jumping through the hoops for the likes of Greensboro's Edward Cone and his gang of online bullies disguised as enlightened & progressive do-gooders . . . holier-than-thous who have no agenda but a warped "social justice" which always seems to amount to robbing hard-working Peter & Penny in order to pay for Paul & Paulina's every whim and vice . . . while winking and nodding (in Clintonesque fashion) at the ugly swirling about in the rarefied air of their own ivory towers.

In the comments of Ed's post, I think Jerry Bledsoe's response to The Poet (Billy Jones) hit the nail squarely on the head of hypocrisy:

Billy, as Ed likes to say, here’s the real question: Why don’t you guys occupy Ed’s house? His family obviously exploited the poor people of this state for decade upon decade, and he benefited from it immensely. Now that he’s on the side of the exploited, he couldn’t possibly object.

Jerry's re-telling of history was a hoot. But here's another little history lesson for those new to Housecalls and the Greensboro blogosphere: Once upon a time, Ed Cone, blogging journalist and high-profile scion of the Cone family, had a chance to BE relevant and help right a wrong . . . a wrong actually worked by the non-profiteers-fancying-themselves-captains-of-industry running Randolph Hospital - in order to pander to the good graces of the healthcare system that bears Ed's family name . . . a wrong offered up to him on a silver platter by a newbie blogger he invited into his online backyard for the reporting.

It was a very ugly, (you could say, "hyper-local") story of how corporate medicine, often cloaked in charity, is eating the young and idealistic of the medical profession.

(You could also say it's very relevant to the news of the day.)

But Ed and his do-gooding, justice-seeking pals could not be bothered. People lie in Court every day, you see. And when they're caught doing it . . . and the justice system does absolutely NOTHING about it, we-the-people-screwed-by-the-lie-documented-in-the-black-and-white-of-sworn-Court-documents are supposed to just get over it and move on . . .

. . . just like all the folks hosed by the lying, cheating fat cats on Wall Street - and in Washington - are supposed pick up their shattered lives and keep buying the made-in-China merchandise with what's left of their retirement plans . . .

. . . just like all the folks in Asheboro hosed by the Miller Millers of our community are supposed to suck it up and silently smile, as our useless daily newspaper softens the sideways-slide of failed bankers into university presidencies (so they can teach the next generation of newbies how to screw over their fellow man) . . . or tells us that a few bars downtown will "revitalize" a town decimated by mill-town right folk embracing the global economy for a fast profit.

After busting our asses all of our lives to get where we are, we're "crazy" you see . . . "tea-baggers" and "racists" and "bigots" to think that some of that "social justice" that nobel, well-named Ed keeps lecturing about should apply to us.

Alas for Ed, Dr. Mary's story-of-mill-town-woe did not exactly reflect well on Hillary's village, or John Edwards' sorry, self-serving job performance, or the noble, way-over-sold goals of Obamacare. You just cannot blame this one on Bush.

That, and she did not fit a standard "victim" subclass as appoved and pandered to by fair and imparital Ed's beloved Democratic party.

So Dr. Mary had to be publicly eviscerated for having the balls to telling the truth about what happened to her in public service in her hometown of Asheboro - where "small town values" rule . . . on a Democrat's watch no less. And, as time went by in "Blogsboro", she was delinked, banned, and even cyber-stalked by one of Ed's fawning lackeys who thought he was somehow justified in hurling vicous insults and threats into a woman's personal Inbox . . . and brazenly libeling her online.

His "reasoning" for the abuse (inasmuch as what went on can be likened to "reason") was that I broke Ed Cone's heart. How lame. How PATHETIC.

Of course, that didn't cross any lines with Blogfather Cone because, well, it was Mary . . . and, as a thorn in the side of his perfect life walking his dog and raising his children and pushing his left-of-center utopian visions in a "revitalized" Greensboro, the good-doctor-done-very-wrong-by-just-about-everybody-in-the-right-circles-to-which-his-name-allows-immediate-access DESERVED to have "brave" Jeff Martin shoot more even more holes through her soul . . . and then hide his despicable deeds behind a lawyer like a little girl . . . and then boast of a Courtroom victory where the Randolph County District Attorney's office once again threw Dr. Mary Johnson under the bus.

It was all in good "fun". Reality almost as good as reality TV. HaHa.

So from my perch in the blogging slums south of Blogsboro's city limits, part of Edward Cone's "legacy" as a hyper-local blogger and well-named journalist, is that, in the "brave" and "courageous" department, he is sadly lacking.

I was just one more plebe to be exploited - this time for entertainment value and hits on his blog.

Wishing me well doesn't make well happen, you see. Robert Kennedy was actually right about it taking one person to make the difference. That person just has to step up.

Once upon a time, in my chosen profession, I did. No one had to beg me to do it. It was the right thing to do. But Edward Cone didn't.  The son-of-a . . . physician turned a deaf ear. It's as simple as that. And after the way he/his pals treated me when I begged him for help, I'm not going to let him forget it.

The thing that Edward doesn't seem to get now - as he lectures the world on strategy and proportionality and priorities in restucturing our broken world  . . . the thing that most of the progressive left doesn't yet get as it denigrates about half the population in order to serve its pseudo-socialist agenda. . . is that what we need most . . . from over-indulged, hedonistic top to uber-entitled bottom . . . is to get back to the notions of personal responsibility and accountability . . . of personal ethics and of simple right and wrong . . . of the rule of law applying equally to everybody . . . to understanding that freedom is NOT free, and your fellow Americans should not have to pay for your pursuit of happiness . . . and that NO, we-on-the-wrong-end-of-a-screw-turn-by-people-charged-with-the-public-good DO NOT NEED TO GET OVER IT.

So, dear readers (and my dear Billy Jones), you'll forgive me if I didn't pick up a sign and march for "Occupy Asheboro" on Saturday. I'm not French. And I had better things to do.  Moreover, there would be no point.

You see, I've been there done that - several years ago. The daily newspapers and TV stations did not show up. And the Asheboro police were not there to "protect" me, but to arrest me if I stepped one foot off their script.

To close this post, and on a side note before I dive back into my break, this was in my Inbox . . . from another well-named friend . . . over the weekend:

For those detractors of yours who only read the print edition of the News & Record, there will be a brief moment of euphoria, but only brief. You see Doctor, in the print edition of today's N&R under the obituary listings by city and county, there is a "Mary Johnson" listed under Randolph County, and only if you read the actual obituary on the following page is one made aware that it is not "that woman"......

ASHEBORO — Mary Ella Geddie Johnson, 96, died October 6, 2011. A memorial service will be held Sunday at 2 p.m. at First United Methodist Church. Arrangements by Pugh Funeral Home, Asheboro.

I hope Mary Johnson rests in peace. For if she lived in Randolph County for all of her 96 years, she most certainly deserves the rest.

And I'll take one Buzz Armfield over an army of Ed Cones any day.

Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Can't, Blog.

2011-09-16T19:50:00.002-04:00

9/17 Author's note: This post has been edited/expanded upon after a Flu shot and a good night's sleep.

A number of people have asked me when I'm planning to resume regular blogging. A few are a tad torqued-off that I've been gone for so long.

The simple answer is that what was originally conceived as an ordinary summer break will likely extend well into October. Paraphrasing an old adage I despise (about teaching):

Those who can, do. Those who can't blog.

Watching what's been going on the Greensboro blogosphere over the last several months . . . this after being cyber-stalked-and-brazenly-libeled online (with some of Blogsboro's "finest" sneering, spitting and snickering as it was being done) . . . I am more convinced of that than ever.

If you want to be relevant, BE RELEVANT (this is aimed mostly at the so-called "journalists" in the crowd . . . knowing full well that it falls on smug, deaf ears).

I've been bitching/begging in this ether long enough, and I've decided to DO something about what was done to me (it's all the the sidebar, folks). A page was turned a few weeks ago. I don't feel like getting into the details online. But a page was turned.

It's taken a lot of time to get back to me. I cannot believe how far away from me I got - just trying to survive.

As I write this, I'm watching the talking heads on the CBS Evening News wail and gnash their teeth about latest polls indicating that the American public is fed up with President Obama and Congress.

And I'm thinking that the American public just needs to get in line.

To explain, I reference excerpts from the President's September 8th speech to Congress pushing his latest "throw more money at it" plan to revamp the economy (like he re-vamped healthcare) and "create" more jobs:

These men and women grew up with faith in an America where hard work and responsibility paid off. They believed in a country where everyone gets a fair shake and does their fair share - where if you stepped up, did your job, and were loyal to your company, that loyalty would be rewarded with a decent salary and good benefits; maybe a raise once in awhile.

If you did the right thing, you could make it in America.

But for decades now, Americans . . . have seen the deck too often stacked against them. And they know that Washington hasn’t always put their interests first . . .

The people of this country work hard to meet their responsibilities. The question tonight is whether we’ll meet ours . . .

But know this: the next election is fourteen months away. And the people who sent us here — the people who hired us to work for them — they don’t have the luxury of waiting fourteen months. Some of them are living week to week; paycheck to paycheck; even day to day. They need help, and they need it now.

Now I could pick that speech apart for hours. Suffice it to say that in my own case, it's actually been thirteen years - long before any of the bubbles burst for the rest of the world.

The National Health Servce Corps recruited me to a job that wasn't previously there . . . my medical school loans would be paid - with taxpayer dollars - in return for service.  And I did EVERYTHING I was supposed to do . . . and then some . . . trying to "make it work" (when I look back on some of it now, it does seem like a bad episode of Project Runway). I met my obligations, and went far above & beyond in terms of my responsibilities as a physician.

Yet for my trouble, I was professionally crucified. When I needed the Feds to enforce the terms of their own service agreements, they took a dive, and let all of the lovely taxpayer dollars "invested" in my recruitment be flushed right down the toilet with nary a second glance.

It wasn't just a job. It was my life. My career was totally derailed. I didn't really have the luxury of waiting that long on the state and Federal governments I served - or the politicians in Raleigh/Washington (some of whom I voted for) to do right by me.

I know ALL about serving a company loyally and well only to be stabbed in the back. I know ALL about living from week-to-week, paycheck-to-paycheck, even day-to-day.

I needed HELP, and I needed it the FIRST time I placed a phone call to Tom Tucker in the N.C. Office of Rural Health back in March 1998 . . . after the WAY-over-rated, now-WAY-overpaid corporate bullies running Randolph Hospital, cast me to the curb/gutters of my own hometown for doing my job the way it was supposed to be done . . .

. . . for, one-night-in-the-middle-of-the-night, answering a nurse's frantic call and taking on a Cone-owned (Hi Ed, feeling relevant yet?) doctor . . . his abilities falsely advertised to the public, and WAY out of his element.

Mine is no odinary job, you see. I am a doctor. I have unique duties and special responsibilities - specifically defined by Oath and the North Carolina Medial Board. I could have been sued into oblivion - or been disciplined by the Board - if I had not done what I did.

Much more disturbing than that, a child might have died.

But in North Carolina, a "right-to-work" state, I might as well be Bev Perdue's limo driver.

Now Roch Smith, Jr, Googling the old news reports almost worthy of Ethan Feinsilver (hello Mr. Robinson, forgive me if I don't think we've come very far), will tell you that I was fired "without cause".  But that was just a damned lie that a "non-profit's" Board of Directors used to distance themselves from their own responsibitilies both to me - and to the citizens of Asheboro & Randolph County.

I was fired for saving a life. For reporting medical badness/blowing the whistle.

What was done to me - under the cover of charity - was just WRONG.

But the deck was stacked from even before that awful night. And what the North Carolina legal profession would subsequently do to me would be far worse. No one played fair or met their responsibilities to me (especially not the local newspapers). As Sam Spagnola will tell you, everybody lies in Court.

Bad faith and perjury are no biggies. Get over it. Move on.

These days, I'm supposed to sit down and shut up (it's the progressive thing to do) as the Federal government gears up to throw more money at creating jobs . . . when it didn't do what it was supposed to do . . . what it very easily could have done all those years ago . . . to save mine.

Last but certainly not least, Jeff Martin (aka "Fec" the cyberstalker) thinks that me being PISSED OFF about everything that's gone down since I took a "non-profit" and the government at its word merits ridicule and a psychiatric diagnosis.

His premise on the latter seems to be that he would know.

Reform has come and reform has gone, yet the holes I fell through as a doctor in public service have yet to be plugged. I look at President Obama and I all I see is a tired, old recycled joke . . . because I've been hearing the same promises since the days of Hillary's village . . . since a good portion of the local blogging universe thought John Edwards was an up-and-coming superstar who would pave their way to a night in the Lincoln. But nothing EVER changes.

It's not about the President's color, people. It's about his policies. Some of us and been there and done that. It's like a never-ending Groundhog day. Wake up. Grow up.

(PLEASE. I'm begging you. Report me to "attackwatch.com". Maybe then the White House will answer a letter.)

So. I'm still working on doing . . . not blogging. I spent way to much time on that.  It's not about politics. It's about simple right and wrong. And if I don't at least try, I will not be able to live with myself or continue in this profession.

Bottom line: I'll be back when I get back. My sincere thanks to those who care.

(You progressive Greensboro bloggers keep talking amongst yourselves. I've decided it's just talk.)

Craving Quiet

2011-09-10T21:11:00.006-04:00

Apart from a PBS Frontline piece entitled "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero", I've deliberately avoided the 9/11 memorial programs and retrospectives that have flooded the airways and the ether over the last several days.

To be sure, one day . . . someday, I will make the pilgrimages to New York and Pennsylvania. Respect will be paid. But tomorrow, I think the TV will be off.

We all have our memories of that day. We all process them differently. For my own part, I'm not entirely sure what makes 9/11/2011 any different from 9/10, or 9/12, or any other day since that awful, surreal morning.

For 9/11/2001 still affects the lives of every American on a daily basis . . . and will continue to do so until long after all of our lives, and our children's lives, and our childrens' children's lives are over.

It changed everything. Evil is real and walks/lives among us. Safety and security are illusions. We knew it all along. But we didn't.

On the flip side, ordinary people can act with amazing grace . . . and make extraordinary sacrifices for their fellow man/woman and the common good.

The Frontline documetary was basically about how different people process grief - and how their faith was challenged, strengthened, or died altogether on that horrible day . . . when many people wondered where God was.

PBS being PBS, the atheists also had their say. Too much say, I thought.

A focal talking point towards the end of the documentary pondered the image of an unknown man and an unknown woman reaching out to one another and holding hands as they jumped to their deaths from one of the Tower's melting windows.

A choice. But love and humanity triumphing, in its way, over unimaginable horror.

Which takes me back to a post from 2006, in which I tried to imagine being in their place:

Have you ever been in the middle of a crowded, noisy somewhere and ever looked out beyond it . . . into a blue sky . . . or a lush green field or forest . . . or out over perfectly still/clear aqua water . . . and wondered (1) how you found yourself in the middle of the crowded/noisy somewhere and (2) why couldn’t you be OVER THERE . . . enjoying the quiet . . . basking in the light of a clear blue sky . . . or lost in fresh green fields & forests . . . or bathed in perfect aqua water?

That has always been my question when I look upon the images of 9/11 . . . especially of the people who were crowded in smoke-choked windows, and clinging to hope in the Towers before they fell. After the phone calls were made and the goodbyes were shared, what could these people see and what were they thinking in those last moments when they looked out . . . beyond the heat and the smoke and the terror . . . into a cool, clear blue autumn sky . . . the same unmarred blue sky that I vividly remember looking up to that day, my eyes swimming in tears?

I wonder if their hearts and souls craved the unreachable, perfect quiet? Were their final thoughts a silent scream pleading, "Please God, get me out of here . . . PLEASE let me be OVER THERE!"?

And then the prayer was answered.

Tomorrow morning, a Sunday morning, I will be craving quiet. Remembering my countrymen and women. Pondering the mystery. And talking to a God I don't talk to enough.

He had nothing to do with it, yet everything to do with it.

And He most assuredly was there.

Comments are closed.

Aftermath

2011-09-02T10:02:00.002-04:00

The little far-Northeastern North Carolina town where I work was battered for well over 24 hours (from late last Friday night until the wee hours of Sunday morning) with sheets of rain and screaming wind. Irene's eye passed just to our East, so we saw no relief during the onslaught. If anything, apart from when the eyewall was passing, the back-end of the storm seemed far worse than the front (I think that was about the shift in wind direction).

Trees are down everywhere. We had what I would categorize as mild-to-moderate flooding for this part of the world (the weathermen have joked that we're no longer in a drought). It was not Floyd. It was not Isabel. But's that's only because we were dry-as-a-bone. At least one local bridge is out. Local farmers took a massive hit - particularly those growing corn, cotton and/or tobacco. Peanuts and soybeans fared better.

The hospital took a nasty licking to its infrastructure (water damage mostly), but went on generator power about mid-day Saturday and, like the Energizer Bunny kept right on ticking. The computers slowed (and remain very temperamental), but never went completely down (we had prepared for paper-charts - I was actually looking forward to that - one giant checkmark down the page, a signature and you're done). The LDRP nursing staff was amazing (the weekend staff basically roomed in) - but of course, they've done this before. We did have one "hurricane baby".

I rode the storm out at my apartment - about two miles and one creek from the hospital - electing to stay with my terrified animals - venturing out only to attend the aforementioned delivery very early on Saturday morning, and to do nursery rounds (we had several babies/their families in-house).

Amazingly, I had power and even cable TV until about 8 PM Saturday night - when everything went out all at once. But it was all back on by early Sunday morning. The nurses wryly tell me it's because I'm on the same line/grid as the local funeral home.

Some of my colleagues are still without power. At night, there is the constant hum of generators in the distance.

Hospital executives threw a little post-hurricane party for the staff earlier this week. Hot-dogs and hamburgers and beach-music in the courtyard. It was thoughtful - and nice.

The hospital maintenance crew deserves medals and $20 Walmart gift cards. It's just my opinion, if any executives are reading this subversive little blog:)

It wasn't just the Outer Banks that got slammed. Inland towns like Bath and Belhaven and New Bern took a vicious pummeling. It's kind of surreal to hear people talk about the damage there now. . . as the weekend prior, Mama had accompanied my Aunts and Uncles to a family reunion in Bath/Belhaven. And, by all accounts, it was an absolutely perfect weekend - the calm before the storm.

One of our anesthesiologists (a "traveller", like me) makes her permanent home on the sound side of one of our more Southern beaches - she plans to retire there. She was off-call, and had thought about riding out the storm.  She laughed as she told me that she had expected local authorities to close the bridges/access roads . . . and was able to shrug of being told, "You will be on your own if you stay".

But when they shut off the water and sewer, it was time to leave;) Her home survived the storm with minimal damage.

The thing is, Irene was "just" a Category 1 storm (for those now sneering and spitting at the National Hurricane Center, I would rather forecasters over-predict than under-estimate). And she pretty much shut the eastern seaboard down for two days. The catastrophic damage in Vermont echos of the hurting that Hurricanes Frances and Ivan put on the N.C. Mountains in 2004. What if Miss Irene had been the Category 2 or 3 monster she was originally feared to be?

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. Get something in-between.

Folks here are holding their breaths over Katia - now lumbering through the Atlantic.

The people of Eastern North Carolina are a hardy lot. Storms come and storms go. Big rivers crest and recede. Land literally shifts under their feet. Beaches drift and homes disappear.  But these folks pick-up, clean-up and keep moving forward . . . without a lot of hand-holding from "our federal family" (cringe, choke, gag). To-be-sure there will be Federal disaster-relief and money coming in (Governor Bev is all over it), but this ain't New Orleans, and nobody is waiting to be rescued - or blaming whoever happens to be occupying the White House.

(President Obama can take his photo-ops in Vermont. No biggie.)

One resident of Hatteras Island said, "It's the price of living in paradise".

And on that note, I have one thing to say to anyone bitching about re-building Highway 12 (again).

If you've ever visited North Carolina's beaches and barrier islands and harbor towns/communities - some of them older than the state/country itself . . . stocked with ancient families who are far from "rich" . . . if you've ever enjoyed even one single day or night in paradise, put on your pirate panties, SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP.

OF COURSE, the road needs to be rebuilt - for as long as we can do it - even if it's just dirt and gravel.

In the meantime, it sure would be cool to come up with alteratives . . . like shoring up our ferry system. We also need to have some serious conversations about what gets built on our very unique and fragile coastline. How can we preserve what we have for as long as we can . . . and pass paradise on?

One thing is for sure: The day of the four-story ocean-front McMansion needs to be OVER.

Hurricane Irene: North Carolina Is Ready

2011-08-26T09:11:00.003-04:00

I would like to think that if there is ever hurricane named Mary, she will be a Category Five storm whose eye mows through the core of Raleigh, takes out the legislative building, and then curves around to wreak havoc on the District of Columbia . . . and later on, Martha's Vineyard.

Pause for wistful smile.

As it stands now, on Saturday afternoon, a massive Category 2-3 storm bearing the name of my Mother will making landfall somewhere on the coast of Eastern North Carolina.

Since the big screw in Asheboro, and despite all the bumps/boulders in the road, I've always had the sense that I was where I was supposed to be in any given moment in time - and that there were things to accomplish - even if that thing was only healing a broken heart. Eastern N.C. is like a second home - in my blood and in my bones. Mama hails from the area around Bath. Growing up, we spent a lot of summers and Christmases at Grandma's house near Belhaven (I think her offical zip code was Pinetown). As a "pirate doctor" for the last several years (independently-contracted to ECU/UHS - all disclaimers for anything said on this blog apply), I fly Blackbeard's battle flag on my CB radio antenna. This weekend, I'm where I'm supposed to be.

In the six years, I've been blogging. I've never specifically named the towns/hospitals where I've worked on Housecalls while I was actively working there, but that changes today. I will be on-call Saturday, standing with my friends and colleagues in the small, far-northeastern N.C. town of Ahoskie in Hertford County . . . a town and a people that have treated me with far greater kindness, respect and care than my "hometown" of Asheboro (or the noble progressive bloggers of Greensboro) ever did. I'm very grateful for the opportunities provided over the last several years by Roanoke-Chowan Hospital and ECU/Pitt County Memorial. They've been very good to me.

I would not want to be anywhere else right now but here - with these people. We are a family. We're been told to expect 10-15 inches of rain, flooding and winds over 100 mph. I've heard Irene is projected to hit at high tide (an astronomical high tide at that) . . . on the other hand, we're living under near-drought conditions, so all of the creeks/etc. are way down. On the bright side, the storm is expected to "barrel through" as opposed to linger and churn, so hopefully, flooding will not be nearly as bad as that gifted upon the region by Hurricane Floyd or Hurricane Isabel.

People here still talk in hushed tones about Floyd. And Hazel remains the storm-that-shall-not-be-named.

Since hitting the road to make my living, 13 years ago, I've "ridden-out" my share of storms - including a few hurricanes. I don't have to "stock-up" on much, because I carry emergency supplies/equipment in the trunk of my car at all times. I could live in the Camry for a few days if I had to - provided it does not float away.

Yesterday, while she was checking me out at the grocery store, the clerk laughed as she surveyed my prepatory haul and said, "That's it. I'm going home with you." I looked at her quizically, and she added, "You are a woman who clearly KNOWS how to weather a storm."

You ain't kidding, baby;)

A few days ago, I watched a documentary on Katrina. It was surreal to watch the old news footage (from before and after the storm) . . . footage that once again underscores just how inadequately the corruptly-run state of Louisiana had prepared for a disaster that they had known (for years and years) was coming.

To this day I STILL cannot get over the parked school buses - left to flood instead of packed with people and put on the Interstate to anywhere else but New Orleans.

In stark contrast, our Governor (who in most instances, I have absolutely no use for) is calmly and methodically doing her job (doing all she can do to brace the state for impact), and our people (of all colors and incomes and walks of life) are quietly digesting the warnings and going about the business of taking care of themselves (as they batten-down and/or evacuate) . . . because they know that the Federal government will be days-late and dollars-short to the party.

And they knew it long before Katrina hit.

Whatever happens, they won't blame it all on Obama (whose plans for economic recovery have to wait to be revealed to the country until his umpteenth vacation is over) the way it was all blamed on Bush back when the levees failed . . . as Daddy warned me they would fail.

There is a great scene at the end of "Kill Bill 2" . . . after Beatrix Kiddo/Black Mamba slams Bill (played by the much-missed David Carradine) with the "Five-Point-Exploding-Heart" martial-arts move that will send him to Hell after he stands and takes five steps.

Before rising out of his chair, Bill straightens his coat, looks at the angry scorned woman he could neither kill nor dodge, and asks, "How do I look?".

She smiles and takes his hand, and says, "Ready".

North Carolina is ready.

And I'm over/out for the weekend.

Earthquake Virgin No More

2011-08-23T15:03:00.001-04:00

At work down East. Busy day. Babies raining down from the sky. The hospital/its staff are beginning to batten-down the hatches for a hurricane named Irene later this week.

I was minding my own business in the nursery, when the building began to rumble and the baby warmers started to sway. The Freaky Mennonite was freaking. It took a few seconds to realize that it wasn't those pesky nursery ghosts messing with us - but that I was experiencing my first earthquake (or at least the first one I've identified as an earthquake while it was happening).

And it was TOTALLY cool!

I have dutifully appraised the USGS of my experience in an online questionnaire. Still trying to raise my Aunt in Virginia, who apparently lives right on top of the epicenter. And friends who moved here from California, in part to escape from earthquakes, are not amused.

"A Small Town's Mean Streak": Mesquite, Nevada Has NOTHING On Asheboro & Greensboro, North Carolina

2011-08-22T11:55:00.006-04:00

This morning, my good friend, Buzz-Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields-who-gave-one-million-dollars-to-the-Randolph-Hospital-Cancer-Center forwarded a CNN story that I actually had already seen and archived for commentary later.

Like the heart-breaking story of Kimberly Hiatt a few months back, CNN's piece showcased a good woman's suicide, after an honest mistake snowballed into the destruction of a life (well, actually two lives, because this woman took the man she loved with her).

In this case, CNN opined that Donna Fairchild's death-by-her-own-hand  showcased "a small town's mean streak".

Her death apparently also brought about a huge back-lash against her tormentors, and fostered in real change for the town.

But, of course, for that to happen, someone always has to die.

Summer is not over, and I'm not quite ready to resume regular blogging. While there are several blistering posts already composed in my noggin, I'm just not there yet.

But this story, like Kimberly Hiatt's, hit a deep nerve.

These days, as I watch local bloggers (when I say "local", I mean the oh-so-enlightened and progressive citizens of Greensboro's "Blogsboro", to whom I turned for help after all the fine, upstanding "right people" of Asheboro shut me out/down) huff and puff about the sorry state of our world . . . about how politicians and lawyers and men-in-business suits have destroyed so many futures, and ushered America into a black hole of economic and social despair . . . I often shake my head in dismay.

For I was fighting that battle long before anyone else was. All by myself. Playing by all the rules (as opposed to many who do not - yet somehow get all manner of sympathy and nearly everything they want on government-sponsored platter . . . or at least become university Presidents after they kill the once rock-solid bank).  But for all of my efforts, I got zero assistance from ANYONE who was supposed to have my back.

And the noble progressives of Blogsboro simply didn't care. They couldn't be bothered.  It wasn't "relevant" to their pursuit of happiness.

Life was good for them.

Now that virtually whole world is on the same train I boarded thirteen years ago (albeit not all for the same reasons), my story is old news. I'm STILL not the right kind of victim for what my pal Buzzy calls the "Brie and Volvo" crowd. I was not victimized by some nebulous/vague societal evil/conspiracy-of-"rich"-white-Bush-loving-conservatives (well, unless you count Fear and Apathy) . . . my villains actually have names. Their crimes are documented in black and white.

But Garland Yates is just fine with "non-profit" executives lying in civil Courtrooms under his jurisdiction. It's called a get-out-of-jail-free card. All the right people in Asheboro get at least one.

You simply cannot win with this bunch.

I know Donna Fairchild's pain. I vividly remember the hometown headline that I was a liar . . . as if it were yesterday . . . put front page, above-the-fold by one of "the chosen" in the despicable gang of elitist, sexist, racist PIGS that ran my hometown of Asheboro, North Carolina into the ground . . . a headline that covered the guilty tails of a pair of greedy, lying, WAY-overpaid-for-what-they-do MBA's who always put style above substance . . . two carpet-bagging jerks who CLEARLY (based on what they did to me) would have rather me let a desperately-ill newborn baby girl die than cast reasonable doubt on their cutesy marketing themes.

"Care you can trust". That's ALWAYS been a good one.

(I murmur it every time I get a decent headache.)

It was a lawsuit and a headline designed to fiscally-destroy, emotionally/professionally crush, and humiliate me . . . in the town where I was raised and came back home to serve . . . the berg where my Mother taught school for 30 years . . . the place where my parents still lived - and where my Father ultimately died without ever seeing real justice for his daughter.

And if you're an evil mill-town bastard . . . calling in your favors amongst your pals at the Asheboro Rotary . . . snickering over your ingenuity . . . and (above all) keeping score in your sick/power-tripping games . . . one-and-a-half out of three isn't bad, I suppose.

But "the boys" (and a few girls) didn't count on the fact that, barely able-to-make-ends-meet, nearly crushed-in-all-ways and totally humiliated, I would stand my ground and fight back.  Or that I would even "win" . . . not that the USELESS POSERS "writing" for the Courier Tribune could acknowledge that "win" in a front page headline . . . and not that "winning" actually turned out to be a win.

All hail Steve Schmidly. But hey, Asheboro's got booze now, and maybe his daughter will get elected to something.

These days, I have to wonder. If (drowning in despair, after being UTTERLY ABANDONED by EVERY local, state & Federal regulatory & law-enforcement agency that was supposed to protect and speak for me AND that newborn baby girl) I had marched into the gilded lobby of Randolph Hospital and blown my head off (splattering the brain-matter containing the hard-won-higher-education-that-the-mill-town-kings-say-they-value-so-much all over the walls), would that have gotten me any sympathy/bleeding-heart-hand-wringing . . . or my story/cause some posthumous national news coverage?

Or if, after being cyberstalked and viciously cyber-bullied/LIBELED online . . . only to have the deliberately obtuse & lazy DA/Sherrif's Department throw me under the bus - and a burned-out Randolph County judge let the psycho-blogger off . . . . would me hanging myself in my apartment far from "home" have made Edward Cone-of-the-Cones, or Roch Smith, Jr., or John Robinson, or Sue Polinsky, or Jeff Martin HAPPY?

And I'm thinking it would. In fact, I KNOW it would. The evidence is also there in black and white. Martin, in particular, would have reveled in the "breaking" of me.

Too bad for the right-fine, upstanding folk of Asheboro and Greensboro that Mary Johnson was/is made of stronger stuff . . . and that they were just totally, utterly WRONG . . . about her . . . indeed, about EVERYTHING.

For now, I can stand as living, breathing, blogging evidence that, in terms of "mean streaks", Mesquite, Nevada has NOTHING on the "communities" of Asheboro and Greensboro, North Carolina.

I'll be back . . . soon.

The Need To Screed

2011-08-09T20:46:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've fielded several inquiries about when I'll resume regular blogging. A man I met this past weekend actually wanted my autograph.

Apparently, I have fans . . . a surprisingly large following amongst the common folk of Asheboro . . . the consensus being that I tell it like it is . . . especially when it comes to our sad/sorry/suck-up excuse for a newspaper . . . and all of the "right people" who ran my hometown into the ground as they stuffed their own pockets . . .

. . . Bob Morrison being first in line in terms of screwing-over his employees while he collects his very phat paycheck. And he's gotten away with it mostly because no one on Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors has a working set of testicles - or a spine.

Fans. Who knew? (Well, certainly not some of the more "progressive" bloggers of Greensboro.)

The answer is to the question is I'll come back when I feel the need . . . the need to screed. And I don't yet. I'm enjoying my summer break . . . and the time away from my Blogger dashboard has been very productive.

But I do know what the first topic will be. Well, maybe the second.

Stay tuned.

The Doctor Who Lived

2011-07-20T08:40:00.004-04:00

I was home last weekend - although lately, I've thought of Asheboro less and less as "home". The YaYas bought tickets to see the Harry Potter grand finale (see it in 3D), and we had a fine time watching good witches and wizards vanquish the bad.

J.K.Rowling's story is nothing if not about how ordinary people "sort" in the face of corruption and evil in their midst . . . how some rise to the occasion while others sell themselves short - and out. It's packed with very good lessons for children to absorb/digest, and Ms. Rowling earned her kabillion dollars/pounds.

After the movie, someone commented to me that when it came to medicine (and law/journalism) in Asheboro, there were a lot of parallels between my experience and Harry's . . .

. . . except I had no Dumbledore - nor Snape (Alan Rickman deserves an Oscar nod) - to watch over me, advise me or protect me.

Make no mistake, Asheboro, North Carolina is well-stocked with snakes and Voldemorts who prey on the young, the weak, the sick, the apathetic, the ignorant and the just plain stupid.

I am the doctor who lived . . . despite everynastything Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin threw at me.

And that's an accomplishment in and of itself.

Sandhills Update: Bob Morrison And Brooke Schmidly Don't Just Fly Over The Cuckoo's Nest, They Mow It Down

2011-07-08T00:00:00.004-04:00

In speaking with lawyers and others familiar with the North Carolina's legal system over the last few months, I've heard a lot of opinions. But the one that is shared by virtually everyone is that legally speaking, Randolph County is a different world. Down is up. Right is left. And there ain't no light in any of the crevices.

There's a reason Randolph Hospital made it a contractual obligation for employed physicians filing any lawsuits relevant to their employment to do so in Randolph County.

The game is fixed to protect Asheboro's big dawgs.

I've never been more sure of that than I am now. We'll get to that.

I got a phone call on July 4th. A friend back home was positively giddy . . . having just read a SCATHING letter-to-the-Courier-Tribune's Editor published in Sunday's paper . . . from a lawyer representing Sandhills Mental Health Center (in Pinehurst). . . addressing a "guest column" written by Randolph Hospital CEO Robert Morrison.

(My friend was laughing uproariously.  It was too just good for snail mail, he said . . . or even a FAX. He HAD to read it to me over the phone . . . "I don't know who this guy is, Dr. J, but he RIPPED Morrison a new butthole! It's PRICELESS!)

I've blogged on the "dispute" between Sandhills Mental Health Center and Randolph Hospital before . . . most recently after Morrison appeared before the Randolph County Commissioners requesting that public money reserved to pay for Sandhills' services to Randolph County residents be diverted to Randolph Hospital.

Commissioners have publicly characterized Morrison's request as "dead in the water" because of North Carolina law . . . North Carolina law that Mr. Morrison's lawyer might have familiarized him with before he made his proposal.

I'm told that Morrison back-tracked a little afterwards, saying he was just trying to shed light on a serious problem.

(Several Housecalls readers suggested that the nearly $300,000 be subtracted from Bob's over $700,000 salary & bennies package.)

I've really got to commend Sandhills CEO, Victoria Whitt, both for her stoicism during this onslaught, and for not just rolling over and playing dead/taking Bob's crap. I know Morrison is not used to anyone talking back. Ever since he came to Asheboro in 1993, Morrison hasn't had to digest the word, "NO!", too often.

It's actually not fair to characterize this as a dispute. Bob Morrison is just flat out wrong to be blaming the problem on Sandhills. And his little sound-bite-media-road-show is gearing up to be state-sanctioned extortion.

The state is mediating the fiasco as if there is a real dispute because the truth of why psychiatric patients are in the fix they're in EVERYWHERE has everything to do with failed mental health reform legislated by the state. But Bob painting himself as some kind of Knight of the Psychiatric Round Table is just FICTION.

Bob Morrison is nothing if not a consummate liar.  And actually, he's not really all that consummate about the lying. He's just been very well-insulated and protected from the consequences of his actions from almost the day he arrived in Asheboro nearly two decades ago. Unfortunately, in a small pond where the mill-town gods are never wrong, the Randolph Hospital Board of Directors' notion of "oversight" has always and only involved rubber-stamping everything he's ever done . . . no matter how unjust, amoral or illegal.

Bob's "right people", you see.

Toss in all the hob-nobbing at Rotary . . . stir in a local newspaper whose Publisher & Editor would rather chow down the pricey ordurbs at the hospital shin-digs than ask an objective question of any of their "friends" . . . and Randolph Hospital's CEO is coated in some industrial-strength Teflon.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've not been able to find/read Bob's column. As regular readers know, I don't (and WILL NOT EVER after the treatment I & others have received from our local "journalists") subscribe to the local rag whose primary function is to be a cheer-leading newsletter for Asheboro's well-named and well-connected. Moreover, I cannot read the paper online - as the Courier dived behind a pay-wall several months ago.

Before that, I was banned from commenting on stories (free speech in Asheboro is only for those who don't question authority and omnipotence of those who put our town on life support) . . . because my commentary was a bit too hot for certain "right people" to handle.

But I expect the guest column was ripe with Bob's very unique (we'll get to that) perspective on who should be providing/paying for psychiatrists to treat the mentally-ill requiring inpatient admission at his "non-profit" community hospital.

Closely examined (at least more closely examined than the talking heads at WFMY TV tsk-tsking over the indignities suffered by patients and their families will do), Morrison's position seems to be that psychiatric patients in Randolph County should be somebody else's problem.  Patients presenting to his hospital in mental health crisis care supposed to be out of sight, and out of mind . . . and their care not out of his pocket. They're supposed to be whizzed in past the ED doors (with and nice bill presented for ED services), and then moved out very quickly - shipped off to facilities in the netherlands more quipped to deal with sick and broken minds.

Sandhills is contracted to provide the screening and triage services necessary to get these patients to the right facility (Randolph ain't it), and from what I've heard through the medical grapevine, they're doing the best they can with what they've got.

If a bed cannot be immediately found, Randolph Hospital itself does not provide psychiatric services for inpatients, and can only "baby-sit" these patients in the ED or holding areas until the state's mental health triage system can evaluate them and find a bed somewhere else.

Moreover, this problem is compounded by the fact that not all psychiatric patients are created psychiatrically or medically equal. Different problems require different approaches - perhaps even different facilities.

(Been there, done that, used to work in an out-of-state big city ED. Psychiatric patients had to wait there too.)

I would submit that if Bob had really CARED about all of this before he started making the rounds in front of the TV cameras, he would have proposed developing a comprehensive psychiatric program and hired psychiatrists to see these patients YEARS ago. He would have contributed to solving the problem - as opposed to threatening to suedthe facilities that cope with it.

The thing is that mental health is not nearly as glitzy or glamorous or lucrative as cancer care in a flashy new buidling - and doesn't rake in nearly as much money.

And/so the FACT is that, although behavioral health IS an integral part of any community's primary care (arguably the job of community hospitals - as opposed to trying to keep up with the medical Jones in Greensboro, Durham, Chapel Hill and Winston-Salem), Bob Morrison never really gave a rat's tail about mental health care in Asheboro & Randolph County . . . at least not before the seriously mentally-ill presenting through his emergency room started taking up beds/space at Randolph Hospital . . . because, in the wake of the decimated landscape left behind by ex-Governor-now-convicted-felon, Mike Sleazely's, ill-conceived 2001 "Mental Health Reform Act", there are not enough beds in psychiatric facilites to go around.

North Carolina downsized its in-patient system (closing about half of its facilities) without and before successfully building the community out-patient infrastructures that were supposed to replace the care offered by hospitals.

In other words, it's a SYSTEMIC PROBLEM born of BAD POLICY born of BAD POLITICS (I cannot resist the urge to note that it all occurred under a Democratic administration).

Translation: NOT SANDHILLS FAULT.

But Bob needs a demon, if he's going to play avenging angel. Even better if he's demonizing a girl. They're far easier to portray as "wack-jobs".

Things are really bad for psych patients in North Carolina - a genuine crisis of daunting proportions - mostly because of the Easley administration's "fix" that wasn't (kinda what I'm expecting from Obamacare but that's neither here nor there).

However, a lack of inpatient beds is a huge nationwide problem - getting worse in the economic downturn.

Nothing about what is going on in Asheboro is really unique, and Bob Morrison is no champion of the tired, the poor and the mentally-ill.

He's actually Nurse Ratched.

[As long as he's pointing fingers, as I understand it, Bob is a BIG Democrat and was a BIG supporter of exp-Governor Sleazely's administration and policies. What goes around.]

Once again, reality is that Bob Morrison was too busy building cancer centers that Asheboro didn't really need (my apologies to Sir Buzz Armfield of the Asheboro Armfields who gave one million dollars to that center), and running off whistle-blowing physicians who didn't "fit in" to his grands plans for remodelling Asheboro's medical landscape in his carpet-bagging image (or rather, some over-paid consultant's image, because Bob Morrison never had an original idea in his life) to care very much about mental health . . .

. . . until it started messing with his bottom line and his BONUSES.

Except for what has quietly poured into his own pockets . . . and those of his executive staff, consultants and lawyers . . . Bob Morrison follows the money.

And he's never wanted anyone else following where it went. That's why he can't cough up old tax returns on his "non-profits" . . . or comprehensive lists of his Board members and/or Corporate membership.

Moreover, the intrepid reporters at the Courier Tribune, despite their occasional posturing-to-the-contrary will not EVER apply the heat to make him.

Since 2010, Bob has been writing letters to state officials, and making appearances before County Commissioners, and postering on TV, bad-mouthing Sandhills Center (a facility that handles psychiatric admissions for eight - yes, chickadees, count 'em - EIGHT counties . . . namely Randolph, Richmond, Anson, Moore, Montgomery, Lee, Hoke and Harnett) because he says they are not in compliance with North Carolina Administrative Code and General Statute.

Now, Bob is FULL OF MECONIUM (it's a nice, almost sterile word for something else) on that point. But if you think this physician is too much of a "disgruntled ex-employee" to be credible, don't just take if from me . . . take it from the N.C. Department of Human Services and the N.C. Attorney General (not that I'm a big fan of either) . . . both of whom have summarily dismissed Bob's claims in advisory opinions.

But even if he didn't have feces coming out his ears, ROBERT MORRISON WOULD KNOW ALL ABOUT NOT BEING COMPLIANT WITH NORTH CAROLINA LAW.

This blog exists because, in my book, Bob and his Vice President, Steven Eblin are unconvicted felons who repeatedly lied under Oath about the "confidentiality" of public records containing financial information relevant to my damages claim . . . .

. . . you know, the damages claimed in the long-ago lawsuit I filed after Bob and Steve fired this ex-public-servant for saving a critically-ill newborn baby's life and reporting what happened to peer review . . .

. . . the lawsuit that was supposed to see me vindicated, and give me the opportunity to rebuild what Randolph Hospital's "evil twins" so maliciously & methodically destroyed.

Given what was in those public records that Bob and Steve and Randolph Hospital's lawyers withheld while negotiating with Steve Schmidly, the monetary damages awarded at settlement (as a number of lawyers have pointed out, I did technically "win" all aspects of the legal battle) were a fraction of what they should have been . . . after three years of hard work flushed down the toilet and a reputation decimated - followed by almost three more years of brutal litigation.

In this instance, it was not about ensuring good patient care, but (1) keeping the Pediatric "business" under his control . . . and (2) saving some money when he had to own up.

Alas, in North Carolina, Pediatricians really ARE "a dime a dozen". Non-profiteering hospital executives, embracing perjury, contempt and fraud as a means to a bad-faith end, are no big deal to our District Attorney, State Bar or Attorney General. Public servants screwed-over in said service are SOL. Everybody lies in Court. It's no biggie.

(Like I said. Not a big fan of Law-&-Order Roy Cooper.)

My dearly-departed Pops, who along with my sainted Mother was forced to absorb and endure every humiliation inflicted by these goons-in-suits right along with me, never thought that Steve Schmidly was as negligent or stupid as the settlement he negotiated ultimately proved him to be.

Nope. Pops ALWAYS believed in his bones that my Randolph County law firm sold me out.

When I finally sat down with my legal files, and figured out just how thoroughly I had been swindled in the settlement, and confronted both Schmidly and Morrison, the Bobber took great pleasure in taunting me in e-mails. He and Steve clinked glasses at various "right people" functions, and he'd give Schmid my regards.

I still had a hard time believing Schmid could have betrayed me like that.

But as of July 4th, 2011, if I ever had any doubt that my lawyer took me for a great big ride, I don't now. For I am informed that, in this dispute with Sandhills, Bob Morrison is being represented NOT by my old nemesis Robert Wilson, but by Steve's daughter, Brooke Schmidly.

(I really didn't think Mr. Wilson would be so moronic as to condone a hospital CEO he represented publicly dissing another CEO/facility doing the very best they can under circumstances way beyond their control . . . particularly when the legal leg Morrison is standing on is made of glass. I cannot imagine this is playing well in Raleigh . . . or even among Bob's compatriots at the N.C. Hospital Association.)

To refresh reader's memories, Brooke is the faux-homegirl (raised in Kernersville) who, along with Bob and her Father, seduced the citizenry of Asheboro into believing that being a "family-friendly", "Mayberryish" burg wasn't enough any more.  Being "dry" wasn't economically marketable . Alcohol sales would save the town.

Asheboro had a chance to remain unique and be special. That's all gone now.

Brooke Schmidly now sits on the Alcohol Beverage Control Board . . . and there are rumors she has higher political aspirations.

In stark contrast to Dr. Mary Johnson, whose last name wasn't Redding . . . or McCrary . . . or Bossong . . . or Armfield (sorry, Buzzy) . . . our Miss Brooke has been getting the royal treatment since she came "home".

Her Daddy smoothed the way.

[As aside, a "non-profit" hospital CEO (whose town has long been identified as a high intensity drug-trafficking area) endorsing alcohol sales in his previously-dry city (Bob said he needed to have it in order to recruit doctors) is incomprehensible to me as a matter of improving the community's general health . . . particularly its MENTAL HEALTH (kinda relevant to what we're discussing here). But I bet all of the associated alcohol-related pathology has sure kicked up the hospital'$ revenue. All of Bob's "concern" for those suffering from alcohol dependence and addiction is first-class hypocrisy.]

I'm digressing. In moving on to the meat of this post, I actually don't have to exert any energy at all making mince-meat of Brooke Schmidly. A lawyer from Pinehurst named Thomas Van Camp has done it for me. His letter to the Courier Tribune, published below, is a work of art.

Without mentioning Brooke's name, he manages to makes her out to be just as much a self-serving fountain of mis-information as her client. A chip off the old block, she is.

The Letter is entitled, "Time To Set The Record Straight"

My name is Thomas Van Camp and I am an attorney practicing law in Moore County, North
Carolina. I represent Sandhills Center. For the last several months, I have followed the conduct and comments of Mr. Robert E. Morrison, the President of Randolph Hospital.

In his recent guest column, he makes numerous statements which are both misleading and inaccurate. Mr. Morrison’s failure to acknowledge the true facts and his self-righteous attempts to politicize this issue for his own gain are disturbing.

For those interested, here are the facts:

Over the last 8 months, 71% of the individuals (with psychiatric diagnoses) presenting to the Randolph ED have been discharged with an appropriate disposition (either inpatient or outpatient) within 48 hours of admission. Another 23%, who have required hospitalization at the state facilities, have waited between 48 and 120 hours (5 days), due to no beds availability at the state facilities - they are placed on the state waiting list and then we are called when a bed opens up. 6% of the individuals have had waits of over 5 days - the majority of these have medical issues that need to be addressed prior to a psychiatric facility admitting them - i.e. they have to be treated medically and then medically cleared.

Therapeutic Alternatives Qualified Professionals see all of these individuals and make disposition arrangements, with the telephonic backup of licensed professionals and psychiatrists.

In June of 2010, Mr. Morrison sent a letter to Victoria Whitt, the CEO of Sandhills

Center, claiming that Sandhills Center was not complying with the North Carolina Administrative Code or the North Carolina General Statutes in connection with providing services to the mentally ill in Randolph County.

In his letter, Mr. Morrison cited the same statutes referenced in his guest column.

Sandhills Center denied the allegations contained in Mr. Morrison’s letter citing the fact that it
maintained a 24 hour, 7 day a week crisis response service through an entity called Therapeutic Alternatives.

In an effort to educate Mr. Morrison, Sandhills Center requested that the North Carolina

Department of Health and Human Services review Mr. Morrison’s letter, as well as the services being provided by Sandhills Center, in order to determine whether or not Sandhills Center was in fact complying with North Carolina law. Sandhills Center received a two page response from the Department of Health and Human Services, which rejected Mr. Morrison’s position.

This two page letter was provided to Mr. Morrison and his attorney.

Apparently still not satisfied, Mr. Morrison continued to write letters to Sandhills Center making the same baseless claim that Sandhills Center was not complying with North Carolina law.

Again, in an effort to address Mr. Morrison’s concerns, Sandhills Center requested that the North Carolina Attorney General’s office review the matter and provide a legal opinion regarding whether or not the services provided by Sandhills Center in fact complied with North Carolina law.

On April 8, 2011, Special Deputy Attorney General, Richard Slipsky issued an informal opinion/advisory letter which rejected out of hand Mr. Morrison’s position and advised that Sandhills Center was in fact complying with North Carolina law.

Notwithstanding the fact that both the Department of Health and Human Services and the North Carolina Attorney General’s office had opined that Sandhills Center was complying with North Carolina law, Mr. Morrison threatened to sue Sandhills Center, blindly insisting that his position was legally correct.

In an effort to avoid potential litigation, which would both be frivolous and costly, Sandhills Center suggested that the parties engage in pre-litigation mediation in an effort to resolve their differences. The parties selected former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Henry Frye to preside over the mediation.

The mediation was held on April 15, 2011. Representatives of the North Carolina Attorney General’s office also attended the Mediation.

Although the mediation did not yield an immediate resolution, there were attempts on both sides to understand and appreciate the others’ concerns.

Notwithstanding the fact that Sandhills Center was complying with all of the mandates of North Carolina law, and in an effort to appease Mr. Morrison, Sandhills Center ultimately agreed to contract with Therapeutic Alternatives to provide a licensed psychiatrist to make daily rounds Monday through Friday in both the emergency room and in the hospital’s transitional unit where patients are awaiting transfer to an inpatient facility.

This service would be in addition to the 24-7 Mobile Crisis Team already in place in Randolph County.

Sandhills agreed to fund an on-site psychiatrist because, at the mediation, this was clearly Mr. Morrison’s main concern.

On May 5, 2011, Sandhills Center informed Mr. Morrison and the Hospital’s attorney, in writing, of its intent to provide this service effective July 1, 2011.

Sandhills Center was able to fund the on site psychiatrist by electing not to compensate the emergency room physicians who were providing assessments. The thought was that this would not negatively affect patient care because the emergency physicians were being compensated by Sandhills Center for services that they were already required to perform under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (“EMTALA”).

EMTALA requires hospitals and ambulance services to provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare regardless of citizenship or ability to pay.

Thus, effective July 1, 2011 mentally ill patients in Randolph Countywill have the benefit of (1) a 24-7 Mobile Crisis Team which includes licenses qualified professionals, (2) the same emergency room service previously provided by emergency room physicians and staff and (3) an on site psychiatrist making rounds through the emergency department and transitional unit Monday through Friday.

The foregoing represents just some of the facts that Mr. Morrison neglected to include in his self-serving guest column.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Morrison continues to publicly attack Sandhills Center in light of the fact that, according to the North Carolina Attorney General’s office, Sandhills Center was not required to make any concessions in response to Mr. Morrison’s demands.

Although it is difficult to comprehend Mr. Morrison’s true motives, perhaps it has more to do with the bottom line than patient care. In fact, Sandhills Center’s decision to provide a psychiatrist to make daily rounds Monday through Friday will, according to Mr. Morrison, result in income to the hospital on an annual basis of approximately $300,000.00.

Perhaps Mr. Morrison is attempting to sway public opinion in the event that the hospital elects to sue Sandhills Center.

In any event, if Mr. Morrison spent less time grand standing in front of the County Commissioners, finger pointing and writing guest columns, he might realize Sandhills Center gave him exactly what he requested.

Thomas Van Camp

It's actually not difficult for some of us to discern Bob Morrison's motives, Mr. Van Camp. But we're covered in the scars he inflicted. He would lie to his Mother if it put money in his pocket.

He's already put his hand on a Bible and repeatedly sworn lie after lie . . . with even the the presumed Wrath of the Lord God Himself failing to deter him. God knows that the State of North Carolina will impose no such sanction.

What Bob is doing now is purely and simply about putting money in his institution's pocket - which in turn, ultimately means more money in his pocket.  I very strongly suspect that all of this public posturing has something to do with getting a piece of the action . . . in other words, eventually extorting external funding for an inpatient unit at Randolph. It's right out of the progressive playbook.

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste . . . it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. " -Rahm Emanuel

Let me be clear. Providing inpatient Psychiatric services in Asheboro is actually not a bad idea. But I would just prefer that it happen after an honest, open dialogue (not gonna happen in a town whose newspaper has dived behind a pay wall and only sucks at one teat), as opposed to predicated on a pack of lies that assigns blame to the very people and institutions who've been doing the hard work all along.

I would also not worry too much about public opinion, Mr. Van Camp. It doesn't count for much in a Court of law (witness the farce of justice that will set Casey Anthony free in a matter of days). And take it from the homegirl who might as well been a mugging victim in New York City, as long as their own applecarts are not jostled too much, most people in Asheboro don't get worked up over anything that might actually embody small town values.

I really love the way that Mr. Van Camp turns the tables on the Emergency Department physicians who have no doubt done most of the whining because Psych Patients are parked in their money-making beds (they can't evaluate as many faux heart attacks).

"You want our already over-burdened-facility-not-really-at-fault-in-this-mess to fund psychiatrists that your way-overpaid CEO should have thought about recruiting a long time ago . . . as a very basic community service? Fine. We're already on a shoe-string. And EMTALA allows us to cut our own losses by letting your Emergency Department doctors EAT IT . . . instead of paying them for work you admit they cannot do.

I believe it's called an "unfunded mandate", Bob. Take it up with your hero, Obama.

(Beautiful.)

I wonder how his ED physicians feel about Bob now (this is one instance in which I don't feel sorry for the doctors at all - mostly because it's some of the same crew who sat around deaf, dumb and blind while I got stomped)?  He's not so much the hero, I expect.

In closing, I saw Bob fairly recently. We live in the same neighborhood (well, he lives there - I more or less vacation there), and starting out on my last trip back down East, I saw him in the cool-down phase of a run.

He saw me too, and GLARED his worst "evil-Bob" glare as I drove past him.

Like I care.

I mean, PUHLEASE. I honestly don't know why this poser is glaring at me . . . after all, I'm the homegirl who, for nearly fourteen years, has had to drive hours in order to work (after the great blackball) . . . the one who takes the killer-call no one else will touch in an attempt to stabilize her financial situation - a situation that will NEVER recover from what Bob Morrison and Randolph did.

In stark contrast, Morrison is the "public servant" that Randolph Hospital pays over $700,000/year . . . yet We-the-Gullible public are supposed to believe he cannot afford to pay for his own psychiatrists.''
(I wonder how the residents of the seven other counties Sandhills serves feel about this deal?).

One of my friends asked me if, while on the receiving end of one of those glares, I'm ever tempted to turn Bob into a hood ornament.

I told her, no.

Bob Morrison is so not worth it. He's a giant pustule on the butt of Asheboro. He's MRSA. It's just going to take the right antibiotic (i.e. lawyer) to get rid of him.

(How's that as a reflection of my mental health?)

And my advice to Mr. Van Camp and Sandhills the next time Bob flexes his little legal winkie up and down, or our Miss Brooke presumes to lecture Sandhills on following the law (it it were not so pathetic it would be funny) would be this . . .

. . . "Hey Bob, we've been doing some background research on a legal case you and your current law firm were involved in several years back.

You remember the case . . . you DESTROYED the practice of a homegrown Pediatrician after she defied your minions' written threats in order to save a baby's life - and then reported what happened to peer review. It's a CLASSIC whistle-blower scenario (never mind that your current legal counsel's Daddy didn't work very hard to hammer that point home).   In doing this fairly dastardly deed, you breached a Federal service agreement - bastardizing the intent of the public service program that brought the doctor home, depriving patients/their parents of a doctor they trusted and pouring taxpayer's money down the drain.

We're kinda wondering, Bob, how exactly did good patient care factor in to all of that? Did you really want this Pediatrician to roll over and go back to sleep and let that child die? Or keep her mouth shut while a doctor YOU falsely advertised as having expertise in Neonatology that he did not possess, kept prancing around the hospital as some kind of specialist?

But you weren't done pounding, were you Bob? After destroying any chance she had for staying in town, you tried to bully this lady doctor into silence, by SLAPP-suing her for telling the truth to the government she served. That's pretty damned low-ball, Bob. Who was paying for your lawyers as they warped the law and used it like a sledgehammer?

We've been looking into some of the allegations this lady doctor has made online (about the bold-face lies you told, and being swindled at settlement) . . . allegations you've not had the decency or guts to address in any way . . . allegations that the same newspaper letting you write your guest columns has determinedly pretended do not exist.

The thing is, Bob, N.C. General Statutes and U.S./IRS Codes are VERY clear on public records being made available to the public. It sure looks like you treated the Court pretty contemptuously when you LIED UNDER OATH in discovery . . . and defied a judge's order . . . and negotiated with the physician victim of your malfeasance in very BAD FAITH.

Perjury is a fairly serious charge.

I mean, my God, Bob. You wanna talk about mental health? It would be AMAZING if this doctor did not suffer from PTSD and depression. You did the worst kind of number on her!

The N.C. Attorney General is in the next room. How's about we go discuss it with him?"

As my good friend, Buzz Armfield said when all of this was brought to his attention (that's after he could catch his breath from hysterial laughter over the absurdity of it all), "Mary, God bless him, your Daddy was right".

Bob and Brooke aren't strange bedfellows at all. They're just bedfellows in the Cuckoo's Nest of

Asheboro. The game was fixed all along.

I was actually almost "lucky", in that unlike Randle McMurphy I was able to get away from the crazy people running this *&^%$#@! asylum.

Thank God, this one could fly East.

No Justice For Caylee: In The Good Ole USA, Kids & Fetuses Don't Matter At All

2011-07-05T23:14:00.006-04:00

I've not followed the Casey Anthony investigation or trial at all. And that's been hard to do.

How the disappearance and murder of one little girl has grabbed the headlines for so long . . . when there are so many children out there who are neglected and physically/mentally/sexually brutalized and murdered every single day . . . is something I've not been able to wrap my head around. Why does the media latch on to what and who it does?

How many children/families still alive/still suffering could have been helped with even a small portion of the air time devoted to a murder trial presented as entertainment . . . the ultimate in "reality TV"?

I can't deny that, without a conscious effort to avoid following the case, it would have been easy for me to get sucked in. As someone who never had children, I cannot comprehend the kind of evil it would take to snuff the life out of that gorgeous little girl in the pictures.

The media circus has been a truly sickening thing to behold - even for someone like me who exercised every opportunity to change the channel. Nancy Grace, Geraldo and all the rest of the vultures feeding off this case are worthy of a stint in one of the lower circles of Hell.

I've known all along that justice would not be served for Caylee Anthony, and the "non-guilty" verdicts on the felony counts were exactly what I expected and predicted . . . not because I believe her Mother isn't guilty-beyond-any-reasonable-doubt (it's hard to get past the weeks of Casey lying about where her daughter was, or the car trunk reeking with decomp, or duct-tape covering the child's skull where her nose and mouth used to be - information I must have absorbed by osmosis because I did not purposely sit down and read/watch anything about the case) . . . but because the justice system in this country is so fundamentally warped.

I'm not "speechless". I'm not "shocked". I can't even work up outrage. I'm just resigned. I absorbed the news and kept working as colleagues around me fumed. Indeed, I wasn't going to comment at all on the "trial of the century" until I saw a "tweet" posted by Roseanne Barr after the verdict:

"Kids only matter in this country when they are fetuses."

There'd be a lot of truth in that statement if fetuses actually mattered. The devaluation of children in this country starts in the womb - when taking their lives is someone else's "right".

I'm very sorry for poor Caylee. It's not right.

But alas, there's a lot that's not right in this sorry world. Just ask the "fetuses" who did not make it in.

7/6 Update:

News reports state that Casey Anthony is set to "make millions" via book deals and media appearances.

Of COURSE, she is.

Kill a child - either deliberately or via gross parental negligence - and lie you ass off/cover up the death - and you too can become a media sensation and a millionaire.

Save a child's life and . . . well . . . read the sidebar.

Independence Day 2011: What Happens When Social Media's Leading Physician Voice (Kevin M.D. Of MedPage Today) Gets Tangled Up In That Veil He Can't Ever Seem To Pull Completely Back

2011-07-04T23:59:00.013-04:00

Last Independence Day weekend, I put up a post on the ridiculous/time-consuming/expensive requirements now imposed upon Pediatricians who want to remain (key word, REMAIN) Board-certified. I updated the post in December. They're good posts and I'd encourage anyone who hasn't to read them. The American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) and medicine's other specialty-Boards have long been behaving like a bunch of Ivy League Fascists, and somebody needs to call them on it.

Once you've jumped through all the hoops to become a Board-certified physician (the medical school, the residency, the two-day proctored exam, the oral exam in some specialties), that should be IT.

I'll happily do all the American-Academy-of-Pediatrics-approved Continuing-Medical-Education you want me to do . . . I'll take online open-book tests (a very useful learning tool) every few years without much fuss . . . but being required to sit for another proctored exam when you haven't seen a classroom in nearly 20 years . . . and plodding through all of the juvenile busy work that the Boards have now invented - on the theory that taking doctors away from their patients to play computer games or conduct faux-research somehow improves patient care . . . is TOTALLY FRICKING RIDICULOUS.

In short, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) is selling a bogus bill of goods to the American public, and they're treating doctors like errant/dishonest children. The very clear message is that physicians who've paid their dues cannot be trusted. We are being turned into the enemy by our own kind.

Given the American Medical Association's (AMA's) track record in "representing" physicians over the years, this kind of thing is certainly not new. But it's damned annoying.

Let us be clear: What the ABMS has done is NOT noble, nor will it save millions of lives - but is instead all and only about generating more money for the individual specialty boards - as well as the peripheral industries that the "Maintenance-of-Board Certification" programs prop up. Many millions of dollars. It's not really about producing better doctors.

If all of the fuss was really about producing better doctors, they'd be working on ways to clean up physician peer review, protect medical whistle-blowers and manufacture/legislate some decent tort reform.

I'm actually planning to write the American Board of Pediatrics (they're based in the very enlightened & progressive burg of Chapel Hill) soon, and seriously ask them when I get credit for the going-on fourteen years of medico-legal CRAP I endured because I followed all the high-minded protocols they now "teach" in their "Part Four Activities", answered a nurse's desperate phone call one night-in-the-middle-of-the-night, and (despite the threats of a trio of clueless hospital/practice executives) came in in to stop malpractice/save a critically-ill newborn baby's life.

A little credit for having the stones to author this blog - and speak a little truth to power - might be in order too.

O dear. I have digressed haven't I? That was last year.

The subject of this 2011 Independence Day's post is the MedPage-Today-hosted blog authored by Dr. Kevin Pho, called "Kevin M.D.".

I actually should have written this post several months ago (back in March) and I didn't. The truth is that I'm pretty burned-out on blogging (it's the reason I took a summer break) - and believe that it is subject to all of the ills now affecting main-stream journalism.

Bloggers selling out to sponsors & corporations (ala HuffPo and AOL) . . . or simply trying to run with whoever is currently politically "cool". . . seems more and more to equate with local newspapers kow-towing to advertisers and/or town cliques. There are "right people" and wrong people, you see. You're either in or you're out. It's worse than high-school.

If blogging ever was "relevant", it's not really now.

The very first things to fly out the door when journalists - or bloggers - sell their souls to the highest bidders are accountability, transparency and the truth. But these things are as necessary as air and water to the health and well-being of a society.  Indeed, my hometown of Asheboro, North Carolina can credit most of its "dying" largely to our journalists at the Courier Tribune looking the other way while the-right-people-in-Rotary did very dirty things to good people.

[Speaking of, I am quite frankly AMAZED that Asheboro's Courier Tribune actually published a letter from Thomas Van Camp (a lawyer for Sandhills Mental Health Center) that made mincemeat of Randolph Hospital CEO, Robert Morrison's recent campaign to style Sandhills as the evil-doer in Bob's abject failure (as a non-profit, community hospital CEO) to provide adequate psychiatric care to patients in Randolph County (he was too busy building cancer centers we didn't really need). The Bobber's shameless grand-standing amounts to legal extortion designed to get Sandhills to pay for a psychiatrist that the over-$700,000 man should have hired himself long ago - IF he was so "concerned" about patient care. But this is a subject for another post on another day of what is supposed to be a summer break.]

Where Dr. Kevin Pho, of Kevin M.D. is concerned, as a fellow medical blogger, I've really tried to remain "collegial" (doctors are nothing if not collegial) and do things by the book (we'll get to that).

Blog wars are so tiresome.

(Of course, when you really think about it, doing things by the book is what got me professionally eviscerated in the first place - it's all in the side-bar, folks.)

Alas, collegiality . . . being polite to those fellow professionals who've stomped on me (or sat by deaf, dumb and blind while I was getting stomped) . . . has not ever served me well. So I'm left with calling them as I see them.

And Kevin Pho, M.D. is a blogging fraud. A sell-out of the first order. An AMA/Obamacare hack masquerading as someone who has an objective, critical eye. He's sewing up holes in that veil he keeps talking about as fast as some of the rest of us can rip them.

Two things happened this past week that made me re-think remaining silent with regards to my opinion of the New Hampshire internist who bills himself as "social media's leading physician voice" . . . a self-endowed "title" that I've always found more than a little presumptuous.

And that's mostly because I've come to understand that all Kevin wants to hear is the sound of his own voice - or those that agree with him/his VIP sponsors (which include the AMA). He wants to be on all the advisory boards and invited to do the Times Op-Eds and/or TV spots . . . he sees himself as the next "Dr. Oz", albeit with more credibility. Blogging is merely a stepping stone . . . and to get up the stones to higher ground, the good Dr. Pho must play the game.

All of that would be just fine with me if he (and MedPage Today) were PLAYING FAIR and letting all the voices of medicine be heard on his blog - and if he were giving the public he says he wants to educate the whole truth - by letting all of his readers speak.

But he's not.

In that sense, Kevin reminds me a lot of Edward-Cone-of-the-Cones-Healthcare-System-Cones . . . one of the Greensboro, N.C.'s progressive "journalists" who invited me to this blogosphere six years ago to tell my story . . . and then (in true Ethan Feinsilver fashion) did everything he could (i.e. by banning and delinking and "Coning") to bury it and discredit/trash/marginalize the Asheboro Pediatrician/home-girl who refused to stand-down and turn a blind eye while a Cone-owned doctor nearly killed a newborn baby girl with his arrogance and clinical ignorance.

Ed and the boys at the N&R sold a bill-of-goods that they did not deliver on. But hey, trust-fund Ed (I know what masters he's served all along) really wishes me well. Besides, Ed didn't have to watch his newborn child nearly die because of the stupidity of a doctor. Likewise, he's never experienced watching someone he's loved and nurtured and raised to be a decent human being endure every manner of professional humiliation (courtesy of a "non-profit" hospital covering its ass) for doing the right thing. His name alone (a name that happens to figure into my story) will likely immunize his offspring from the things other lesser beings have endured. The rest of us can "get over it" and "move on".

Getting back to what prompted this post, first, one of Kevin's readers/regular commenters contacted me out of the blue. We'd corresponded before. Long story very short, she was asking questions from the point-of-view of a patient . . . in this case a patient's parent . . . the very kind of person Kevin says he wants to inform - and help. Her daughter was very badly surgically mauled (I have some experience with that), and she has encountered many roadblocks in terms of extracting any kind of satisfaction or "justice" out of our thoroughly-broken peer review and medical malpractice systems. In what came as no surprise to me (yet befuddled and disillusioned her) this Mama-lioness's biggest problem seems to be the difference between what doctors evaluating her daughter in the wake of the surgical mauling will tell her privately - and what they will say publicly/under Oath.

It's called "the White Wall".

(If you wonder how that works, all you have to do is go to the Housecalls sidebar and read about what
Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin did to me - while some of Asheboro finest and most respected physicians pretended it wasn't happening.)

My commentary at Kevin's . . . back when he did not block my IP address (we'll get to that) . . . often referring to my experience in Asheboro (when appropriate/on-point to his posts), and the realities of physician peer review . . . had intrigued her. She wanted to know more about what really goes on behind that "veil" that the good Dr. Pho brags about about pulling back . . .

. . . but can somehow never can get far enough back to cast sunlight into the darkest places.

We had a good back & forth via e-mail. I was blunt at the time (I've found that most patients actually appreciate bluntness - if it's the truth) . . . advising her that the only profession that circles-the-wagons-and-covers-the-asses-of-its-bad-apples more than medicine is the one symbolically represented by a blind-folded goddess holding her scales.

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I learned long ago - the very hard way - that Lady Justice is no lady . . . she knows exactly who she's bedding . . . she spends most of her time on her back with her skirt up around her neck . . . and she's got no problem with money tipping the scales.

In the practice of law, particularly in North Carolina, "the Two Americas" is very much alive and well (if you have any questions about that, just ask my former Senator, Johnny Reid Edwards - or ex-Governor-turned-convicted-felon, Mike Sleazely).

In her latest e-mail, the blogging-Mama-bear said she'd been thinking about me and wanted to know what I was up to. I told her that I was working on exactly what I said I was working on when I took my break back in May . . . constructing a legal case against the toothless state and Federal"oversight" agencies that coldly let this former public servant swing while Randolph Hospital worked its dark magic on her life and career.

But I also have a job, I'm doing massive amounts of overtime this summer, and lately the stork has been crapping on my head (that's okay, it's job security). So it's a slow go.

Bottom line: The N.C. Medical Board, the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Hospital Organizations, the N.C. and U.S. Departments of Social Services, and even the Internal Revenue Service (now charged with the oversight of healthcare courtesy of Obamacare) were utterly toothless when it came to actually doing the right thing by a doctor who put a patient's life before her own career and happiness. They were NOWHERE TO BE FOUND.

And if all of these hallowed agencies could not do right by the aforementioned Pediatrician-in-public-service, what in God's Holy Name makes anyone think they're going to do right by patients? GET REAL!   You have to wonder what the politicians who dreamed this mish-mash up were smoking.

Instead of responsible, ethical oversight, what Dr. Mary Johnson got was a conspiracy of dunces - getting endlessly bounced from jurisdiction to jurisdiction with no one cooperating or communicating with anyone else.

Plainly and simply (much like the American Board of Medical Specialities peddling their maintenance-
of-certification schemes), these organizations are selling a bad bill of goods to the public. It's WAY past the time their collective feet were held to the fire.

Especially in the wake of the cyber-stalking business last year, I cannot think of a better case than
mine. The state and Federal governments have watched me get professionally pummeled, insulted, and ridiculed (for telling the truth) for years. They have not cared - not intervened EVEN ONCE to stop Randolph Hospital (or anyone else) from doing it.

The case itself is not really hard to make. It's simple malignant, deliberate, never-ending/on-going negligence on the part of ALL of these "oversight" & "patient-safety" agencies. They require duties of physicians that they IN NO WAY protect or defend.

But, as I recently told my good friend, Sir-Buzz-Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields-who-gave-one-million-dollars-to-Randolph-Hospital's-Cancer-Center, over the years I've discovered that there as many legal opinions as there are lawyers.

And the biggest problem I currently face is finding an attorney in North Carolina who, apart from a real sense of ethics and the spirit/intent of the law, has a spine and some guts. For whoever takes this case is going to have to cast some very negative aspersions on his own profession.

As I have done on mine.

There's no veil to pull back on this blog. I burned it long ago.

We'll get back to my comrade-in-blogging in a few paragraphs. The other thing that prompted me to write this post was a recent conversation I had with an out-of-state Pediatrician (who happens to be black) looking for a position in North Carolina. She's done a fair amount of Locum Tenens work (the way I've made my living since the giant screw) and has looked in several states and commented how positions in other neighboring states seemed far more "stable" (i.e. physicians tended to take a job and stay there) as opposed to North Carolina. She opined that North Carolina is a "revolving door" (once-upon-a-time I got SLAPP-sued over pointing this out in a complaint sent to USDHHS, so I always LOVE it when a colleague makes the same observation). She was surprised by this ebb and flow of (mostly) young physicians in and out of positions throughout North Carolina - as the state boasts four medical schools and a number of nationally-prominent medical institutions. She thought the state would be a haven of medical stability - but exactly the opposite is true.

I told her that North Carolina's medical schools and giant medical institutions (most of them sucking eagerly - in some fashion - at the public teat) were EXACTLY the problem . . .. as our medical schools, (despite all of their enlightened, progressive hype & rivel about diversity and cultural enlightenment) are perhaps some of the last standing bastions of white male supremacy (aka: good-ole-boyedness) in our society. Having four medical schools in North Carolina actually means that there is an endless supply of newbie physicians to sucker into the scut work in places no one wants to work - and they are very easily taken for granted and abused. Women, blacks, other minorities and especially foreign-medical-grads are merely cogs in a giant wheel of profit . . . run by way-overpaid people with MBA's (as opposed to M.D.'s) . . . skimming their own money off the top and on the backs of the labor of others.

Despite the massive fiscal and human investment made in their training, these young doctors are oftentimes treated horribly . . . in a state that has embraced "right-to-work" philosophy with such gusto that employed physicians, despite their unique duties and responsibilities, are oftentimes be treated no better, if not worse, than lowliest employee at one of the local mills in one of our dying towns.

Meanwhile, the increasingly-entitled American public still thinks that all doctors are "rich", so we deserve and/or can handle whatever pummeling comes our way. Everybody "knows" Pediatricians perform tonsillectomies for the money.

This brings me back to Dr. Kevin Pho . . . one of the fortunate in our profession who has apparently been allowed to live his dream, and seems to have never had a bad professional day in his life. Like my local blogging nemesis Edward Cone, from his carefully constructed online perch amongst the "right people" and organizations of medicine, Kevin appears to me to have no real ability to comprehend the darker underbelly of medicine . . . or some of its uglier secrets. And he most certainly has no empathy or real compassion for colleagues who've walked through - and been badly burned by - fires started by someone else.

Indeed, lately Kevin has done nothing lately but HACK for the American Medical Association (at best, it "represents" about 20% of practicing physicians in the United States) and its support of Obamacare.

Several months ago, I could take no more.  Dr. Pho had put up yet another post that advocated young physicians going into public service (it's very Kennedyesque and Peace Corpsish, dontchaknow) - specifically the National Health Service Corps . . . the very Federal program that allowed Randolph Hospital to do what it did to me without batting an eyelash.

The boys and girls in Bethesda could barely come out of the rain - much less enforce the terms of their own site agreements.

"Obamacare", of course, threw even more money at the program - without fixing ANY of the massive black holes physicians-in-public-service can fall through (so much for "reform").

It's glorified indentured servitude. Make no mistake that if you sign on for this ride (usually on the road to nowhere), and you need help, NO ONE IN WASHINGTON IS GOING TO HAVE YOUR BACK.

I sent Kevin a personal e-mail that minced no words about endorsing these programs - and his wholesale failure to educate "newbies" about the dangers of public service. It equates to deliberately leading lambs to slaughter in order to get a "seat at the table" in Washington (never mind that the AMA's table equates to the kids table in the back of the room). Pure self-service. It's despicable - especially when you have doctors on your blog who have served in these programs who are telling very ugly stories . . .

. . . ugly stories President Obama and his administration did not want anyone to hear BEFORE "reform" was Rahmed through Congress.

Almost immediately, I discovered that my IP address was blocked at Kevin's and I could not post comments. I tried to post as a "guest" from other computers - yet nothing got through.

In essence, this physician's voice had been effectively silenced by an influential medical blogger who bills himself as "social media's leading physician voice" and whose blog is regularly read by national reporters trolling for medical stories.

Mine is a story that SCREAMS to be told to the largely kept-in-the-dark masses - particularly for the sake of younger doctors trying to sort out how to pay back those God-awful school loans.

Par for this course. It made me angry, but as I said before, blog-wars are tiresome and rarely worth the effort put into them. I basically wrote Kevin off as a loser and a loss - much in the way I've written off John Robinson and Edward Cone and everyone who has ever tried to pass themselves off as a "journalist" at Asheboro's Courier Tribune.

I stopped checking Kevin's blog every day. And I discovered that I wasn't really missing anything. I could live without vanilla medical commentary.

I did send Kevin another e-mail asking for an explanation and got nothing but radio silence. For a short while, I let it go. I tried to "move on" and "get over it".

But as Kevin continued to drool over the AMA and its "representation" of physicians (his main argument seeming to be, "what else have we got?"), I did eventually write MedPage Today's Editors, and ask for an explanation for my banishment.

I made the point that I sign my name and take responsibility for all of my comments - something that many of Kevin's favorite anons do not do.

I also pointed out that prior to blocking my comments altogether, one of Pho’s tactics was to (1) heavily edit my comments, or (2) let me comment a few times . . . get a conversation or exchange going . . . and then drop/edit/block responses I made to other commenters who were addressing - or (sometimes) outright attacking me - essentially letting their statement or attack stand as "the last word". You could say it's a very "transparent" way to steer your thread towards making someone look bad.

Editing comments without permission - then publishing them - particularly the comments of people who sign their names and own what they say - is one of my pet peeves. You essentially take that person's voice and make it your own. It's the worst kind of deception and fraud . . . a wholesale rape of that person's right to free unencumbered speech - to be heard as they are.

Marrianne Mattera, Managing Editor of MedPage Today, initially reported back that MedPage today would be reviewing Dr. Pho's policies with regards to comment moderation. Later on, as I remained banned - and persisted, she became more prickly, stating that Kevin had the right to "moderate" his blog as he saw fit - and had no real obligation to explain what he was doing or why.

Later on, Executive Editor, Peggy Peck, also made some easy-to-take-as-disparaging remarks about the number of readers of my little-blog-that-could vs. the number of readers of heavily-sponsored Kevin's. My forum was my blog, and Kevin could do as he liked - even as he told the world that every voice mattered. The message was very clearly sent that my physician's voice was not nearly as important as the butt-kissing blogging internist who seems intent on buryng his head in the sand when it comes to what some of his colleagues have endured on the front lines of medicine - and in the service of their country.

This response to a physician/fellow-blogger who signs her name is interesting in that my aforementioned "Mama-bear" friend reported to me that Kevin had once banned her too.

She immediately complained to MedPage today.

She told them that Kevin was being deceptive.

"Patients only think they have a voice (at Kevin's). There is a place online that shows the worth of his site, and the profit from more clicks. Ad revenue requires neutrality."

(Or at least the appearance thereof. It's the same trick the journalists pull. And no one is buying.)

She was very quickly unbanned.

She tells me that I'm not the only physician/commenter who is fed up with Kevin's tactics as a blog-owner-billing-himself-as-the-voice-of-his-peeps. She's heard from others who cannot seem to get past the smug little wizard's curtain (as have I). I'm not the only physician whose voice and commentary have taken a back seat to Dr. Pho's agenda-of-the-moment - and his desire to move on to bigger/better things.

My biggest frustration with Kevin Pho is that he positioned himself as some kind of big media "player" during the shameful Congressional fiasco that eventually turned into what is now called "Obamacare". Now, one would think that "social media's leading physician voice" . . . someone who KNEW what a fellow-blogging-physician had been through in public service . . . might have said something at one of those kiddie tables he and the AMA were sitting at in Washington . . . might have encouraged someone in Congress to contact Dr. Mary Johnson, formerly a Pediatrician in the National Health Service Corps, and talk to her before throwing more good money after bad . . . maybe even let her testify before the Committees that throw the money.

He might have encouraged the bureaucrats in Washington to clean up their act.

In the interest of justice, he might have also asked a national journalist/media outlet to look seriously at investigating and reporting my story.

But he didn't.

Because it was all about Kevin and how high he could go.

So call me independent and less-than-collegial, but I am calling BULLSHIT on Kevin M.D., Marrianne Mattera and Peggy Peck and MedPage Today. I'm availing myself of my forum, and the Internet is FOREVER.

Dr. Kevin Pho is not pulling back any veils. He's part of the problem now. Smoke and mirrors and pure self-promotion.

And in my humble opinion (as someone he clearly regards as a "nobody"), it ain't what blogging is supposed to be about.

In closing, where blogging is concerned, I feel like those one of those Angry Red Birds who die hammering their heads against walls built by evil pigs. But at least I'll die trying . . .

. . . and clean . . . as opposed covered in filth.

Author's Note: I'm going to pretend I'm Kevin now. Comments on this post are closed.  As stated
early-on, I'm officially on a blogging break , and doing boatloads of Pediatric overtime in real-world rural North Carolina, so I don't have the time to moderate. That and at this point in the great scheme of things, I really don't care what anyone who might defend Kevin Pho's tactics thinks.

Because if they defend his tactics . . . in 2011 America . . . they're just wrong.

7/5 Evening Update: I forwarded this blog post to Marianne Mattera and Peggy Peck of MedPage Today.

This was Ms. Peck's response (it's in blue because it's soooooo progressive):

I believe this matter has been addressed, digested, and it is now closed. I see that you continue as an active blogger and I applaud your enthusiasm.

Very "John Robinson". This was my response:

Ms. Peck both you and Kevin Pho are as phony as it gets. It’s crystal clear that FREE SPEECH and journalistic neutrality/integrity mean nothing to MedPage Today.

Forgive me if I cannot applaud presenting yourselves to be something you are not. You are LYING to the public you-all claim to want to educate.

Digest that.

And/so, there you have it. While proclaiming to lead the way in representing the opinions and experiences of physicians online, MedPage Today and Kevin M.D. are shutting people out of the dialogue - a dialogue that Kevin edits or shapes by exclusion to suit his purposes.

It's despicable. And if I am enthusiastic about anything, it's about exposing liars and frauds in medicine.

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

2011-06-27T20:41:00.012-04:00

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"

2011-06-26T17:46:00.001-04:00

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?

2011-06-21T18:11:00.001-04:00

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"

2011-06-15T10:17:00.198-04:00

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

2011-06-09T14:31:00.255-04:00

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

2011-06-05T22:23:00.030-04:00

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.

Comments are closed.

The Great Housecalls Summer Sign-Off: Taking Back Tomorrow

2011-05-17T10:03:00.062-04:00

You know, for a couple of weeks, I've been working on this uber-big, long-winded, summer sign-off . . . using the commentary of a U.S. Attorney in Greensboro (as Community One brass waived a criminal indictment in a Ponzi scheme) to do it.

Asheboro's mill town kings - running the hometown bank aground - had "turned a blind eye" to very ugly things going on right under their noses, you see.

Why yes, they could . . . help RIP YOU OFF.

The "reporters" at the Courier Tribune had the stones to feign surprise, and print something-that-wasn't-news-to-most-of-us (i.e. crooks-in-suits ran the local bank) as news. And the oh-so-heroic U.S. Attorney's office stepped in to make Community One pay back pennies-on-the-dollar to the hapless victims. Ooo-rah!

My point was going to be that the boys at the bank were not the only ones turning blind eyes in Asheboro. And the *&^%$#@! U.S. Attorney KNOWS it.

But I've learned the very hard way that short of suing someone, accountability and transparency and justice in Asheboro are not for everyone . . . and the ONLY reason the victims of the Ponzi scheme got their ounce-of-flesh is because there was something in it for a-government-that-wanted-to-get-out-from-under-the-mess . . . in the form of marrying off two "bad-sister" banks and dumping the problem on a couple of private investment firms.

It's an "elegant" solution, that will make everybody happy . . . well, except ordinary, long-term FNB investors who, according to the Triad Business Journal, will be "wiped out" by the time all the wheeling and dealing is done (I thought going from $30 a share to 30 cents a share had already accomplished that, but this dime-a-dozen-doctor doesn't have an MBA, so what do I know?).

You've got to understand that in Asheboro (where only "right people" matter) what's really important is that Mike Miller is a university president now. He's out. He's okay. The Courier will print that . . . will celebrate that. And thanks to the Feds, this ugly/embarrassing business will all be out of the headlines soon. David Smith will be very happy re-vitalizing what isn't fore-closed on (5/29 Update: Rumor has it that Mr. Smith and Council-member Walker Moffitt want the City of Asheboro to BUY the forclosed-upon Asheboro Country Club - perhaps the lamest of lame ideas I've heard lately). Keith Crisco can keep outsourcing/globalizing/whatever-the-hell-he-calls-it the state's economy (it not being enough to have helped kill a town). And your retirement nest-egg gone, your son or daughter can drop out of college and work at the new Sheetz . . . or one of Schmidly's bars.

You can take comfort in the fact that going to college and getting the degrees and doing the years of indentured servitude wouldn't count for much anyway.

As you can see, it's a long and winding road, and I could have gone on forever. But then I got side-tracked by a phone-call from Sir Buzz-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields, who wants his name off that &^%$#! cancer center . . . and then all hell broke loose . . . from F-3 tornadoes in North Carolina (we ain't Kansas), to royal weddings (hope this one has a happier ending), to President Obama using Dick Cheney's super-secret-assassination squad to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden.

There's a rumor the Lord Himself is going to make an appearance on May 21.

The sign-off post kept expanding and meandering . . . getting longer and longer as I vented years of frustration with some of my more holier-than-thou fellow Americans in our local blogosphere . . . painstakingly pointing out all of the delicious irony and flaming hypocrisy in the difference between the drenched-in-partisan-hate positions they've staked-out over the last decade, and the course actually pursued by their Messiah-in-Chief when he laced-up his golf shoes to fight Islamic extremism and terrorism on a global scale . . . as he, himself and him tracked down and killed America's public enemy number one.

It warms this battle-weary, deeply-scarred, moderately-conservative, God-fearing heart to watch these "progressive" keyboard-jockeys (not-to-mention the Courier Tribune's editor - clearly out-of-touch with his readership) . . . who fancy themselves so much more evolved and civilized and enlightened and purer-in-their-faiths than anyone-who-may-have-cracked-a-smile-at-the-news . . . squirm in discomfort at Obama's "elegant" (there's that word again) mafia-style solution . . . which had its foundation in some of the darker corners of Gitmo (or places a lot lit Gitmo conveniently located in other countries/jurisdictions). It's KILLING these people that the strategy of taking the battle to the enemy actually worked.

Who is the "moral relativist" now?

Being a more practical, down-to-earth (and truly "old-fashioned") girl, I know that those who live by the sword, die by it . . . and Caesar is owed his due. The Lord Himself said so. I won't be sampling the fires of Hell for my more Medieval urges (which, let's face it, I can't and won't be doing anything about) any more than porn-loving OBL met dozens of willing virgins when Seal Team Six sent him there.

Moreover, I refuse to mug the "we're better than that (translation: you)" arrogance that no doubt PISSES OFF our enemies more than dancing-in-the-street-at-the-death-of-a-murderous-thug (or just about anything else we Americans do) ever will. I've got ZERO problem with Obama making like Lt. Maynard on Blackbeard (these days it's about collecting DNA as opposed to heads) . . . and interrupting Bin Laden's Al-Jazeera reruns in a fashion that mercifully spared the battle-weary & PTSD-suffering American public a farcical NYC show-trial staged by Eric Holder . . . a trial that would have involved coughing up evidence . . . you know, like those "gruesome" photographs so many of us would like to see . . .. not so much for "the proof" as for the SATISFACTION.

As I've said elsewhere, my problems started on Bill & Hillary Clinton's watch. I languished in the village while Bill chased skirt. And I cut the Bush Justice Department a whole lot of slack in terms of the priorities they assigned after 9/11.

I let the legal-eagles (and the local journalists) tell me that, in the great scheme of things, my hard work and my service, and my dreams, and my sacrifices did not matter at all. The government's lawyers had more important things to do. I was not the right kind of victim.

And I'm sorry. That page just turned. It's not an acceptable answer anymore.

It spits in the face of everything I was taught about what this country stands for . . . everything I believe . . . and it clouds all of my tomorrows.

As you can probably tell from this intro, the original post was spiralling out of control.

Then my friend Charlene came back to work. She almost didn't get any tomorrows - and the one she's dealing with now is not-at-all the one she wanted.

So I told her story on this blog. Then I stopped typing. Then I did a lot of editing and deleting.

It's time to slow down, and to step WAY back, and to breathe, and to re-assess, and to re-focus. I've ceded far too many of my "tomorrows" to crooks and hypocrites (the point that the so-called "journalists" like John Robinson and Lex Alexander always determindedly miss - right after they lob the cheap shots and just before they cut me off - is that I WANTED "professional help" - theirs) . . . and this blog.

Blogging has been cathartic in a whole lot of ways that really cannot be described. It was incredibly empowering to come out from under the cloud of fear that surrounded my every move and utterance FOR YEARS . . . to cast off the shame I didn't deserve . . . to break the silence . . . to get the truth out . . . and expose most of the ugly to light and air. I'm very grateful for the friends I've made - and the ones I've reconnected with along the way.

And I would not really change a thing - because, as they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

But I've got better things to do with my keyboard this summer. The legal files await and it's time to stare down - and dive into - ~~that box~~ those boxes of PTSD . . . boxes I would not now need to re-open if ANY journalists living in the Asheboro-Greensboro area . . . and "reporting" on its goings-on - were worth a tinker's damn. Wishing doesn't cut it (pssst, don't tell Ed Cone). It's about doing. I deserve a better tomorrow.

There are also pirate movies to see. And young wizards winding down their battles. And I'm reading a really cool book about what happened after Cleopatra morphed into a vampire.

I know a little bit about morphing into something I did not want to be.

So I've spent the last two days re-working the Housecalls sidebar into an easily accessible summary of the most important aspects of the story I've labored for six years to tell here. I've also thinned-out and streamlined the links. (It's not the short/sweet/uber-dry "100-words-or-less" that Edward Cone-of-the-Cone-Health-Cones hinted might "hook" one of the area's lazy/sold-out journalists, but I've come to understand that trying to make something very complicated and very traumatic look simple was just another trap. Mr. Cone dangled rotten carrots from the start.)

And I'm signing off for a while . . . you could say "moving on" . . . without a lot of fanfare, or rehashing things I've said before . . . and, like my friend Charlene, plan to do what I need to do. She's actually my inspiration.

The only story I'm might miss is the indictment of John Edwards. But you know, I think we can just wait for that movie too;)

It's all in the sidebar folks. Have a nice summer. I plan to.

As Housecalls is boarded-up for the summer, comments on this post are closed. Roch Smith, Jr., Blogsboro's champion of free speech, and his precious local blog aggregator can KISS MY ASS!

Update: My fellow homegrown outcast, Sir Buzz Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields-who-wants-his-name-off-that-&^%$#-Cancer-Center, has perused this post and the new sidebar and approves. He actually suggested that Mr. Roch Smith, Jr. should kiss his ass because it "has a great deal of hair" and is "generally lacking in hygiene".

TMI perhaps?

We have a tenative plan to do lunch on Saturday - the rumored date of the Lord's return - which could be problematic as Queen Mary's knight-in-shining-armor is an agnostic. From a recent e-mail to the Buzzman:

If the world were to end on Saturday (and I think it will not as we're not supposed to know the day or the hour - and the Lord would be just enough annoyed with those who presume to know His business to wait until Sunday) there is no way I would rather go out than in the middle of lunch with a good friend.

That's assuming I would vaporize in front of you - and I'm thinking the jury-of-angels is still out on that one. Oh woe is me.

Tribulations are my thing, you see. One must keep one's sense of humor.

My Friend: The Stunningly-Beautiful, Totally-Fricking-Amazing, Nurse Charlene

2011-05-11T00:25:00.006-04:00

One of the best things about getting kicked out of your hometown by non-profiteering liars-and-thieves are the people you meet on medicine's yellow-brick-road. I most certainly would not trade some of the friends-I-never-would-have-met-had-I-not-saved-the-life-and-blown-that-whistle for sixteen peaceful/uneventful years in Asheboro working for the losers running Randolph Medical Associates & Randolph Hospital.

Before we get started talking about my stunningly-beautiful, totally-fricking-amazing friend, Charlene, I have a new "Freaky Mennonite" update.

(For the record, I have dutifully confessed all of my more bloodthirsty/less-than-Christian urges regarding Osama Bin Laden to the Freaky Mennonite. . . we've discussed them philosophically . . . and she's agreed to pray for my redemption . . . which means I just might have a chance at not going to Hell quite so fast as some of Greensboro's higher-minded bloggers might wish me/others of "my kind" to go there.)

The Mennonite's hours at the hospital were cut, so she had to find alternative ways to bring in money and support her Mother. It's America, so she started a business. It's rural America, so much like an Amish farm-raising, the Mennonite men of her church came together and helped her build a greenhouse - where she now grows fresh vegetables and herbs - and puts together secret Mennonite concoctions that are designed to make you healthier and happier. She also sells things that other Mennonites make . . . and calls her little business-that-could, "The Hodgepodge Lodge".

I've told her that she needs to blog . . . or have one of the younger, perhaps more computer-savvy Mennonites in her church help her build a website that she could then play with. But that's hard because her only Internet access is from work (where non-medical surfing is technically frowned upon) or the public library.

I am particularly fond of the "Ezekiel Bread" that one of her Mennonite friends bakes. With the Smuckers peanut butter I can scarf from the doctor's lounge, it's great for breakfast.

But I am very jealous now, because the Mennonite has gotten some local press coverage (the kind I've always screamed for back home).

For your reading pleasure, Housecalls presents, "The Freak Speaks" (for the record, lest you too think I deserve to fry, the Mennonite suggested the title for the link).

Before we leave the subject, as a "citizen journalist" who (FOR OBVIOUS REASONS) has been less-than-happy with the "real" journalists back home, I was amused that the Mennonite was just a little put-out (but not a lot put-out because Mennonites don't really get - or stay - put-out for long) with the noble young journalist's spin on her endeavor. She had wanted the reporter to focus a little bit more on how the Mennonite community came together, when she had very little start-up money, to help her get things off the ground (literally), expecting nothing in return . . . and perhaps publish some pictures of all that. But the well-meaning/do-gooding reporter chose to go with an angle of how the Mennonite's little greenhouse-that-could has become a way to educate schoolchildren about healthy eating.

Of course, it's all good. Because, you know, she's a Mennonite. And they're all good.

Since I'm one post away from a summer sign-off, I've got another nurse-friend that I'd love to blog about (the community is throwing this busy-bee a party next week for all of her good works), but she's a feisty thing and has threatened to off me if I blog about her (and I sincerely believe that she would/could), so we'll move right on along to Charlene.

Back in mid-November, I alluded to a freakish accident suffered by a dear friend and nursing colleague at the little hospital where I work down East. Charlene is a tiny little spit-fire (who reminds me very much of couple of other tiny spit-fires I've known over the years), and LDRP (Labor/Delivery/Recovery/Post-Partum) nurse extraordinaire. Her ability to place IV's in tiny sick infants rivals my own - as does her gift for wry sarcasm and biting commentary on the sorry state of our world.

Her humor is often blunt, self-depreciating and/or raunchy, and on any day she's working, you KNOW you are going to laugh and laugh and laugh your arse off.

Today, I actually went in the nursery to hide/cry. But they were tears of happiness, and we'll get to that.

Charlene is absolutely gorgeous too (I say this not in a "gay" way - not that there's anything wrong with that) . . . in a wholesome (at least until she opens her mouth) redneck, farm-girl kind of way. But to say so embarrasses the crap out of her (which is really funny).  She's married to a local, plain-speaking, pick-up-driving, steel-working man who worships and adores her (as well he should), and they have three little girls who are as gorgeous and smart as their Mother.

(She is so going to kick my ass when she reads this. She's been trying to get sneak peeks all day.)

Charlene's nightmare started with a slip in her bath-tub, very early in the morning, on a day that she actually had off from work. The culprit was a container of bodywash that had tipped over and leaked all over the bottom of the tub. Charlene fell forward on an outstretched hand - feeling a "pop" as she went down.

It's the classic scenario in which one suffers a Colles fracture at the wrist as I did several years ago. Six weeks in a cast, and apart from knowing before it's going to rain long before it rains, you're good-as-new.

The Fates were kind that day as Charlene fell on her non-dominant hand. We'll get to that too.

Outwardly uninjured, Charlene got back up, finished her shower and continued to get dressed - figuring that if she had broken something, she'd just go on in to the hospital for an X-Ray later in the day.  Being a good nurse, she iced it from the start and eventually started holding it high over her head - to reduce the rapidly increasing swelling.

Problem was, the hand didn't stop swelling. It felt funny - like pins and needles. And it began to turn blue. And it throbbed/hurt like HELL - with 10/10 "crying-face" spasms radiating up her entire arm.

And then, her fingers started to turn while/lose sensation.

And then her hand got very cold. She could not feel a pulse.

And then it was clear it was time for the nurse to become a patient.

In the Emergency Department, the physician-on-duty took one look at Charlene's hand and STAT-paged the Orthopedic surgeon. And the Orthopedic surgeon wasted no time dithering about . . . rolling her on to the OR himself, barking orders as he whisked her down the hall.

We're going to keep this medically simple. Charlene did not break a bone or (as I understand it) even tear a ligament. But she had somehow managed to twist & lacerate the blood vessels supplying her right hand at the wrist . . . resulting in a wicked case of compartment syndrome. In compartment syndrome, bleeding into the enclosed space of a limb causes swelling and severe pain . . . and the blood pulsating from the lacerated arteries filled up poor Charlene's hand like a water faucet expanding a rubber-glove. This kind of injury creates tremendous internal pressure that damages nerves and cuts off circulation to the soft tissue very quickly.

Compartment syndrome is a true surgical emergency - because there is a very narrow window of time in which a surgeon can act to minimize the damage and save the hand. By the time Charlene got to the ED, most of that window was gone.

(It's actually probably fortunate that the skin was not broken when she fell, or Charlene might have bled to death on the bathroom floor before being able to get help.)

Her surgeon knew he was charging a hill that he might not be able to take.

Minimizing the damage involved repairing the vessels and stopping the bleeding (duh), and making strategically-placed incisions on the surface of the hand to relieve the pressure. These incisions are called fasciotomies - wounds that are left open until the swelling subsides.

The rest is about pain control, sedation (to relieve anxiety) and waiting to see what tissue survived the trauma and remains viable.  Re-perfusion of the injured tissue is also very painful and can actually cause irreversible damage itself.

There is a big risk of infection setting in as well.

I did not find out about Charlene's injury until later that morning - after I had finished nursery rounds and heard someone say that they thought Charlene was in the PACU (post-anesthesia-care unit). I was confused, and asked why she was working over there, and was then informed of the accident, "We're sorry, Dr. J, we thought you knew".

It was like being kicked in the gut.

Charlene was actually in the ICU, and it seemed like the whole hospital was determined to visit her and collectively will her hand to repair itself.  That afternoon, it was rather like watching an adored queen greet her subjects. Many of her friends at the hospital were discretely ushered in-and-out past the nursing desk during those first few hours after her surgery. She tells me now that she was in so much pain, and so floating so high on a fog of anesthesia and narcotics, that she does not remember my initial reaction to seeing her hand . . . and I'm glad she does not. For despite all of my best efforts to keep on "the doctor's game face", I know that all the color left my countenance to reside in the pit of my stomach when I saw her impossibly-swollen, unnaturally-white, horribly-blotchy fingers peaking out above the surgical dressing. It was hard to murmur the niceties as she re-introduced me to her sick-with-worry husband, harder still to offer hope that she'd keep any of the fingers after seeing them for the first time - knowing full well that hope was slim.

Lying has never been my strong point.

Charlene's thumb appeared to be in the worst shape - which was especially distressing given its importance in terms of retaining some useful function of her all-too-human hand.

Later that evening, Charlene was flown-out to Duke to see the gurus. I remember watching the bird disappear into the stars over my head with tears streaming down my face.

I was pretty pissed-off at God, you see. Charlene and her young family had already overcome so much - most of that is not cannon-fodder for this blog.

Her only brother had died just months before - after an accidental overdose of prescription medications taken in lethal combination. The siblings were close (he left a daughter behind), and on the day she slipped in the tub, Charlene had only just begun to emerge out of "the numb" that enveloped her being after her brother's death. She and I had actually had several very deep conversations about the smorgasbord of feelings and survivor's guilt that one copes with after a loved one dies suddenly and under suspicious or violent circumstances.

I had been there and done that. The what-ifs and if-onlys will kill you, and it was very nice to be able to help soothe someone else's wounds with the balm of experience.

Alas, with regards to Charlene's physical injury, there was very little I could do to help but pray.

It's my theory that in order for prayer to work, you have to stop being angry at God. Since I'd do just about anything for Charlene, I resolved to put my anger about what had happened to her aside. It wasn't easy. Since the day Randolph Hospital worked its magic thirteen years ago, I've said a lot of prayers, and have had a bit of a love-hate relationship with my Maker.

Of course, a lot of people, with much better connections than me, were praying for Charlene. Prayer chains were formed at local churches . . . and every day, at a designated time, anyone on the LDRP unit who wanted to do so gathered in the hall, held hands and prayed for Charlene's recovery and rehabilitation (since the hospital accepts Medicare and Medicaid, I'm quite certain it violated someone somewhere's delicate sense of separation of church and state - but such someones could just kiss my ass).

As time progressed, it became clear that Charlene was going to lose portions of every finger on her hand. Her fingertips turned black. Her thumb was in bad shape. The gurus at Duke did their exalted consults and their studies and then sent her home for almost a month to "wait and see". They did not want to remove more than they had to.

Charlene continued to have severe muscle spasms of her arm and "phantom pain" (for lack of a better description) after her discharge home.

Shortly afterwards, I was Christmas-shopping at the local Walmart. I was in one of the decoration aisles when I heard someone call out, "Dr. Johnson!". I looked up from the box of blue-glitter-birds I was examining to find myself face-to-face with Charlene. She was accompanied by one of her own high-school "Ya-Yas". She looked tired, and I could tell right away she was still on pain medication because she moved so slowly, albeit effortlessly - and was fairly "loose" and faux-animated as we talked.

(It actually reminded me very much of the time that several of my "Ya-Yas" packed up their-still-heavily-drugged-after-her-hysterectomy-Queen, plopped me in a wheelchair and took me for a spin in my pajamas around the Greensboro Coliseum - for some kind of home show. I held packages and had a glorious time - at least what I can remember of it.)

Charlene's right arm was in a sling (Anesthesia had mercifully gifted her with a nerve block from her shoulder-down) and her hand was covered with an oven mitt. I was afraid to look at the mitt as we talked, and was trying not to cry. She cocked her head at me, smiled very wickedly and asked, "Aww, Dr. Johnson, You want to see, don't you?"

I swallowed very hard, sheepishly shook my head up-and-down-for-yes (for once I was speechless), and moved in closer, pulling open my coat to shield "the reveal" from prying eyes. Her "Ya-Ya" looked at me nervously . . . gesturing her head in a barely-perceptible circular motion at the people shopping around us . . . I silently indicated that I understood, and pulled in even tighter for the look.

Meanwhile, it was clear Charlene was devilishly enjoying our discomfort . .. like a kid sharing a big secret.

You think, when you're a doctor, that you're prepared for everything and you've seen it all. I was not, and I have not. Charlene's mauled hand was still swollen and bruised/mottled - the tips of her fingers and a good portion of her thumb were black & scabbed - and the fasciotomy scars on her hand & wrist were still angry red whelps. It physically hurt to look at the devastation, and my knees literally tingled. But as I studied Charlene's injuries with my morbid doctor's fascination, I came to the quick realization that while yes, she would lose some portion of all of her fingers, what she had left would be very workable in terms of rehab - or a prosthesis if she wanted one.

For her part, Charlene spoke very matter-of-factly and clinically about what she was showing me - tuning her hand over repeatedly - examining her hand almost as if it were someone else's.

A few people in the Walmart aisle had noticed, and eyebrows were up, so we wrapped up "the viewing" fairly quickly.  Charlene put the mitt back on and we made some small talk. I told her that everyone in my universe - including people she didn't even know - were praying very hard for her. Her "Ya-Ya" nodded and smiled at that. I teased that I was going to get her some Duke "Spirit Fingerz" gloves to wear, and she cracked jokes about "Salad Fingers" (one of our technically-forbidden, totally-warped You Tube distractions during downtime at work).

I told her that she needed to get well, and get her ass back to work, because I had no one to talk real smack to . . . that she had no equal, and no one else on staff was remotely worthy of serious engagement. She really liked that.

(I'm legendary, you see;)

But then, despite all my best efforts to keep things light, I started to tear-up, and buried my face in my coat. The Walmart shoppers were sure getting their money's worth.

Charlene smiled at me when I was able to poke my head back out . . . reminded me that it was her non-dominant hand . . . and together . . . right there in the Walmart aisle . . . we decided everything would be all right. I asked her if I could hug her - but I did not want to do anything that would hurt her. She laughed and pulled me in for a good squeeze with her good arm. We walked around the Christmas aisles for a while and then parted ways.

And I went home very satisfied that God does answer prayer . . . maybe not always with what you want to hear . . . but He is there . . . and He does answer.

He also helps those who help themselves. I started researching prostheses - and contacted a world-renowned company that might ultimately be able to help Charlene.

I also made of point of seeking out the Orthopedic surgeon who had done everything in his power to save Charlene's entire hand - in order to tell him what a fantastic job he had done in the face of ugly odds. People on the front lines of medicine- the physicians in Podunk - often do not get the credit they deserve. All the glory goes to the mega-centers with the big names.  I felt like this doctor needed to hear from a colleague that he didn't just save a workable portion of Charlene's hand.

He saved her life . . . as well as big and little piece of the lives of all the people that love her.

On December 7th, Charlene went back to Duke. Her pinkie was amputated at the distal metacarpophalangial (MCP) joint. Her 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers were amputated at the proximal MCP joint. Her thumb was amputated at the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint.

Her world-renowned surgeons could do no more and sent her to rehab. The nurses at the hospital rallied around their friend for day-to-day support. I saw Charlene a few times about town, but for the most part got updates from the girls - and elected not to otherwise intrude.

The next time I spent any time with Charlene was at our unit Christmas party. The nurses all bring in food for a buffet, and gifts are exchanged. The unit "adopts" two needy children in the community, and builds Christmas packages for them. This time we also adopted Charlene's girls (who came to the party). By that time, Charlene had taken to wearing socks over her injured hand.  The drug cocktails and nerve blocks were a thing of the past, and she was much more self-conscious about her hand (of course, it was also the dead of winter and her hand was exquisitely sensitive to the cold).

The body-issue thing is something that all amputees have to come to terms with, and Charlene was clearly struggling.

Again, the silly girl simply does not appreciate how stunningly beautiful she is.  But it's not just about her physical appearance, it's about her essence. She lights up any room she is in. People love her.

I was a bit vexed over the sock business, because I had ordered a buschel full of Maggie's Organic Tie-Dyed Socks - in order to gift all of the nurses with a pair for Christmas (I wear them every day). I had wanted to give Charlene several pair, but they were back-ordered (the socks eventually arrived and became Valentine's Day gifts). I gave everybody IOU's.

The medical staff had raised a respectable sum of money to help Charlene and her family out with expenses while she was out on short-term disability. As people ate, and we admired a premie-in-her-bassinet destined to spend her first Christmas at the hospital, I slipped my friend a Christmas card with a check enclosed that matched the staff's effort.

This time, Charlene was speechless.

(Dr. Johnson is like a stealth drone.)

I also slipped her a packet of information from the company I had contacted about prosthesis possibilities. She was eager to review the information. Later on, she would tell me that she was not quite ready for something like that - because she needed to come to better terms with what she had - and learn how to use it.

And that's okay. Because the technology will always be there if she wants it.

And did I mention that my stunningly-beautiful, totally-fricking-amazing friend, Charlene is also incredibly brave?

For the last nearly five months, Charlene has been in rehab. Her hand looks amazing-for-what-it's-been-through now . . . scarred to-be-sure, but much better than I ever dreamed it would. Sometime down the road she may need some more surgery - to release scar tissue and improve her range of motion/ability to oppose. But right now, it's all good.

I'll be standing back and letting her try the IV's if she wants to.

And today, my stunningly-beautiful, totally-fricking-amazing, incredibly brave friend came back to work.  I rounded the corner of LDRP's back hall to see her bright shiny face sitting at the post-partum desk . . . giggling with Delivery Nurse Pam (who we like to call "The Vagina Whisperer") over all the computer & security updates she's missed.

And my heart sang. I could literally hear the angels laughing (or maybe it was the nursery ghosts - but it's okay, because they're all very friendly).

It was as if Charlene had never left us.

The tears I slipped away to shed in the nursery a short time later were tears of pure joy.

And it gets better. Tommorrow, the Freaky Mennonite is working a shift. And Charlene will be there.  The "family" . . . my family . . . will all be back together.

Do not tell me that God does not answer prayer.

Thank You, Thank You Very Much!

2011-05-09T14:08:00.000-04:00

As the water rises in Memphis (mind still blown), at least we know they'll still have Blue Christmases:

"I want to say this: Graceland is safe. And we would charge hell with a water pistol to keep it that way, and I'd be willing to lead the charge," said Bob Nations Jr., director of the Shelby County Emergency Management Agency.

Best quote I've heard in a long time. Right behind you, Mr. Nations.

And thank you. Thank you very much.

A River Runs Through It

2011-05-09T00:33:00.000-04:00

A lot has happened in the past week, and I'm still working on that last post before the great summer sign-off. But between the job and the gorgeous weather the keyboard's charms are lost.

I've worked in two big cities in my life - one was New Orleans, and the other was Memphis. And on both occasions, my Daddy told me to have my fun and GET OUT. If a decent hurricane directly hit, the levees in New Orleans would not hold. "It will be the biggest mess you've ever seen". And the Mississippi would flood again.

And so it has. This blows my mind.

Meanwhile, clean-up here in Eastern NC continues. It got knocked out of the headlines fairly quickly - by the even nastier storms the next week - and then a royal wedding - and then a bullet running through Osama Bin Laden's skull.

But the folks down here are used to fending for themselves. They pick up and they move on along.

What's On The Bottom Of The Ocean (With Osama)?

2011-05-04T20:37:00.000-04:00

Well, maybe three more posts.

This is exactly what the Federal and state governments did to primary care physicians. Notice that lawyers just quit and let the poor & underserved rot.

Dear Mr. President . . .

2011-05-04T18:32:00.000-04:00

Well, it appears I have two more posts left in me.

I believe deeply in my bones that President Obama made the wrong decision today. But we'll leave it to someone else (maybe a MSM media outlet . . . yeah, I know . . . that's REALLY "crazy talk!") to sue the government under the Freedom of Information Act.

However, wanting to do something more than "vote" in dueling unscientific Fox News and MSMBC polls, I did contact the White House this afternoon and let them know where I stand:

This is the second time I've contacted the Obama White House.

The first time was shortly after the President took office - before "Rahming" through his RIDICULOUS/EXPENSIVE healthcare "reform" legislation (that didn't fix much of ANYTHING that needs to be fixed - and shamelessly PANDERS to entitlement/every worst common societal denominator) was passed. I wanted to tell the President about my horrible, awful experience as a public servant/Pediatrician in the National Health Service Corps (in my own hometown no less) - and to plead for his help in holding the "non-profit" hospital that professionally terrorized me (for doing my duty, saving a very sick baby's life and blowing the whistle on bad care) - and the government agencies that abandoned me (much like the government agencies that screwed up before 9/11) - accountable.

I never got a response.

It was not a surprise. My story (which played out in the days of Hillary Clinton's "village") does not reflect favorably on the President's agenda.

Bin Laden's burial at sea - as some kind of war hero and after "religious rights" - was bad enough. But I just learned that the White House will not release the photograph of a dead Bin Laden to the American public that has suffered and bled so much.

Apparently I am an "extremist" for wanting to see proof (just as this "fellow American" was a "racist" for wanting to see a real birth certificate - something I myself would/could produce in an INSTANT if I were running for office).

And apparently, this once-great nation is supposed to cower in fear forever on the theory that MUSLIM terrorists waging their unholy war need an excuse to murder.

Please know that I WILL DO EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO SEE THIS PRESIDENT AND HIS "ADMINISTRATION" VOTED OUT OF OFFICE IN 2012.

I did check the box asking for a response - just like I did last time.

Sir Buzz-Armfield-of-the-Asheboro-Armfields seems to think it will be two guys in dark suits wearing sunglasses and talking into their suit lapels.

Meanwhile, I've not seriously looked at anyone as a candidate until today - so I'm pretty much starting from scratch. It ain't Palin and it ain't Trump. But Herman Cain looks like someone worth learning more about.

Redux With A Purpose: One Woman's Experience At Randolph Hospital's "Armfield" Cancer Center

2011-05-03T13:25:00.003-04:00

I had planned for Sunday's post on Ginger Hunt to stay front and center on Housecalls for at least several days before I put up the-post-that-it-bumped, and then took a long summer break from blogging. I've been really struggling with some decisions about how to proceed with the rest of my life - about what is important and what is not.

It's amazing how much difference one day and one event can have on your life and outlook.

Osama Bin Laden is dead. A wave of emotions are still pouring over me - one could say like water in a mighty stream. Alas, as hard as I've tried over the years, I've never been able to achieve the "quiet".

Over the last 24 hours, apart from Dubya's statement that, "No Matter How Long It Takes, Justice WILL Be Done", cutting to the very core of what this little-blog-that could is about, another statement - made by man who lost his son in the Towers (Peter Gadiel, President of the 9/11 Familes for a Secure America) on that awful day resonates to the bone:

" . . . no federal official has been held to account. Not one from the Clinton administration. Not one of the Bush administration officials who ignored the Gore Commission's recommendations for improved airline security, nor anyone from the State Department whose officials, in violation of law, regulation and common sense, issued visas for the asking to the 9/11 terrorists.

So, no, I can't celebrate the death of bin Laden.

Too many Americans, who were paid to protect this country but failed to, have skated free of blame.

When they are called to account, and when proper measures have been taken to protect us from future attacks, then I will celebrate."

Gadiel's comments are spot on . . . and immediately super-charged the wavering resolve in me. As someone who served her country and her community honorably and well . . . as someone who BELIEVED in what this country stands for . . . I deserved better all those years ago.

But I was abandoned by institutions and people paid to protect me - no Federal or state official was held to account - and they have skated free of blame.

And when "Mr. Hope and Change" rolled in, his legislation to over-haul my profession and day-to-day existence offered no real hope and no real change.

The following is a comment that I dropped at Guarino (after taking some punches from the usual suspects yesterday for my less-than-angelic/more Shakespearean notions of the difference between what Bin Laden was due and what he got after a Navy Seal team sent him to Hell):

Mick, you're absolutely right. You GOT ME. I could not make a comment here without making a reference to Edward Cone - alluding to the FARCE that substitutes for justice in this country - or anyone's ability/desire/resolve to enforce the law.

You'll note that Gadiel is an equal-opportunity POTUS-basher (it's good to know that there are others who have not forgotten how our intelligence community became the joke that it was back in 2001 - and cannot look at either Bill or Hillary Clinton without gagging).

Gadiel's statement drips with both bitterness and resolve - care to call him "crazy" too?

Nip and tuck his wording just a little bit and it applies to my situation as well. In the wake of the joke that was Hillary Clinton's "village", and just weeks out of a legal dogfight that nearly destroyed me - only to see the world as we knew it dissolve into chaos, I cut Bush II's DHHS and Justice Department a whole lot of slack in my own fight because I figured the government had a lot on its plate.

After all, I wasn't dead. In a very real sense, I put my own problems on the back-burner for the public good - and let the government skate.

I turned to other resources - other citizens who said they cared about fair play and transparency and justice - and asked for them to step up and help out.

They didn't. And yesterday is like stepping out from under a huge cloud. It's far past the time for an accounting. I'm done with the back-burner - and I'm done with the sniping of those standing in moral quicksand hypocritically beating their chests.

(One more thing) To compare GW Bush, as POTUS and Commander-in-Chief, to Osama Bin Laden, terrorist, is comparing apples and rotten, stinking oranges. It insults the memory, intelligence and patriotism of every serviceman and woman who volunteered to serve this coutry and then died in its service.

Moreover, to deny that, in the war on terror, Obama became little more than "Bush III" is a lie - a delusion - completely out of touch with reality. It's sad and it's typical.

Sad and typical for the GSO blogosphere . . . and some of its primary well-named and well-connected players . . . who preach empty sermons on citizenship and justice and transparency and accountability . . . who are so obsessed with partisan one-up-manship and proving they are morally & intellectually superior to those whose just causes and psyches they would grind under their keyboards.

And/so, in keeping with the purpose of this blog, here it is again: One Woman's Experience at Randolph Hospital's "Armfield" Cancer Center .

And, Dr. Mary Johnson vs. Randolph Hospital (And the Corrupt North Carolina Justice System): NOW THIRTEEN YEARS In 2110 Words . . . no thanks, of course, to stalwart, truth-seeking, hyper-locally-focused journalists like John Robinson, and Ray Criscoe and Annette Jordan and Edward Cone.

I encourage the residents of Asheboro and Randolph County to read these posts (and peruse the sidebar), and ponder what it says about the "rigtht" upstanding people who've run our "non-profit" hospital for the last nearly twenty years.

And please spread the word. Because our local newspapers are bought and paid for, and because I'm not the "rich" doctor of urban myth, word of mouth is the ONLY way this gets out.

OBTW, Bedford and Betsy, your cousin Henry (aka "Buzz") is still waiting to hear from you. What would your Father, a Pediatrician, say about what you now support with family money and the family name?

I have one more post in me before I bow out to focus on making happen what needs to happen. Stay tuned.