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Wed Nov 28 17:17:50 GMT 2007

Ron, Ronnie, Rob, Roy, Pret, et al:

Guys: All of you accept that the practicioner with the instrument (laryngoscope, needle, or scalpel) in his hand sees life only from the end of that instrument. It is the person at the foot of the stretcher with their hands in their lab coat pockets that invariably sees most clearly through the morass of the resuscitation. Righteous indignation by the guy with the instrument is a smokescreen for worsening tunnel vision. 

I can't understand how in the hell the news about Grady generated so much collateral rhetoric. Stand back, and put your hands in your pockets, and look at the facts: The hospital was administrated by a pollitically appointed board. Hello? Are you all with me here? Cronyism, ad nauseum, does not lead to good management (or good government). Everyone knows that hospitals (and especially ERs and trauma care) are not good business. Yet, most pull it off in the non-profit mode, and the faith-based organizations have the most staying power of all. Why? Because the boards of these hospitals consists of guys and galls who are the CEOs of major successful corporations or leaders in their fields who were nominated and elected into the board by the board. They are not the pollitical appointees of some idiot (lawyer-type) who hoodwinked the other idiots (constituency) with "vote for me, and I'll set you free." It sounds like the folks down there in Atlanta have taken the first step is getting 
things right, and I wish them luck.

And for God's sake, pleeeeze leave Iraq alone unless is is about the advances in trauma care that this war is certain to facilitate (as all wars do). All of this verbage "it's about the oil" - well, I hope so. Oil is a natural resource that can help those folks living exemplary lives if they can achieve a market economy, and I believe they can. That certainly was not going to happen under Saddam Hussain. Nobody knows what is right for a patient until they walk out of the hospital - only time and history will tell.

DB

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