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Sat Oct 11 07:34:27 BST 2008

Stephen

Enough OK. Enough.

You have made your views very clear, which is fine. I am sure you are acting with good intentions. But honestly your diatribe has now well surpassed acceptable limits with the following offensive comments

> Bass and Scalea should just go piss on the graves of Stephen, Mickey, Tanya 
> and Ashley. 

> Yes, I believe it is located in front of Bass' desk so the person assigned
> to the committee can grovel easily. 

You seem to be focused on criticising others rather than finding a way forward. A lot of heat, but minimal light.

Like it or not, some people will just see things differently to you. They are also probably acting with good intentions. However, we should be able to disagree without becoming disagreeable.

A panel to review to program at Maryland is a great idea. This must be multi-disciplinary, and must be fairly balanced with representation from "both sides". As much as possible, recommendations should be based on evidence rather than prejudice (from either side). 

The recommendations from this panel may well have implications for other programs throughout the US. Certainly I would hope that other programs would at least review these recommendations. If so, then this would seem to be long overdue. 

As an emergency physician working part time with a helicopter service in Australia, I (and my colleagues) have been shocked and saddened by the number of recent fatal crashes in the US. Some of this reflects your size - there are possibly more helicopter programs in the US than in the rest of the world combined. So some of this is explainable, but not all. Something else is going on. And we need to find out what that is - with integrity, openess, and dispassionately. 

It is a tragedy that well meaning people have died while trying to help others. It is even more so if they have died in vain - which would appear to have sometimes been the case. But please let us not blindly criticize them, as well as their colleagues still mourning their loss. Instead, let is try to learn something from all this. Those that have died deserve nothing less.  

Steve Walker
Emergency Physician
CareFlight
Sydney Australia

Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 7:00 AM, <trauma-list-request at trauma.org> wrote: 

> 
> Message: 2 
> Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:24:00 -0400 
> From: htaed_rd at 123mail.org 
> Subject: RE: Panel to Review Maryland Medevac Helicopters 
> To: "Trauma &amp; Critical Care mailing list" <trauma-list at trauma.org> 
> Message-ID: <1223515440.22938.1278307259 at webmail.messagingengine.com> 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" 
> 
> 
> He may be a good man, but I am not looking for someone to drink beer 
> with. 
> 

Agreed.  He may be a good man, but I believe he has become somewhat 
overconfident in his position.  Hubris is a fatal mistake 

> 
> Is he applying this "objectivity test" to others being considered for 
> the committee? 
> 

His objectivity test should also be used to exclude him, Dr. Scalea and 
anyone else involved with MIEMSS.  That is only fair. 

> 
> Or do they just have one lonely seat on the committee for someone who 
> meets their definition of objective? 
> 

Yes, I believe it is located in front of Bass' desk so the person assigned 
to the committee can grovel easily. 

> 
> Filling the committee with those who will be expected to come to a 
> decision that is acceptable to the HEMS sales doctors is not at all 
> objective. Filling the committee with a bunch of people with diverse 
> views would allow for a dialogue about the issues. If everybody already 
> agrees that there is no problem, why have a committee? 

> 
> This is just politics. 
> 

Actually, no, politics implies that there is some way to effect change and 
remove corrupt officials from office.  This is more like the mafia than 
anything else, except Dr. Bass is not nearly as dapper of a dresser as some 
of the great mob bosses. 

> 
> The crew members and the patients deserve better. 
> 

Amen.  Bass and Scalea should just go piss on the graves of Stephen, Mickey, 
Tanya and Ashley.   That is what they are already symbolically doing to the 
memories of these people and those of all the others who have died for what 
is at best an extremely questionable practice and at worst, a pointless 
waste of money and lives.   They refuse to even consider the possibility 
they may not be correct and will not provide data to prove their stance 
correct, because there is no such evidence and they are probably afraid that 
if they try to find it and fail to do so that they would not be able to bury 
the results (since MIEMMS is a state office and their work products are 
generally subject to FOIA requests). 

-- 
Stephen L. Richey, CRT 
Aviation Injury Research Project Leader 
Saginaw Valley State University 
Work E-mail: slrichey at svsu.edu 
Home Office Phone: 248-366-4452 

"It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring 
momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are 
always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen 
themselves."- Dietrich Bonhoeffer 
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