Correspondence: Gloater, Doctor's orders, & c.
ENCE Murphy's Law I saw an item in your magazine that was as wrong as wrong could be (On the Prowl, TAS, March 1999). Since it purported to express my views, I was shocked. Next time ask me what...
...Terre Haute, Indiana Edward Grossman comments that never before have doctors had so much miraculous technology to diagnose and treat patients with...
...things are only made worse when you can't even find anything worthwhile to distort...
...In closing, I would argue that even writers such as Mr...
...Louis, Missouri 12 April 1999 • The American Spectator...
...I often wonder if Cermak would have a place in the elitist-dominated Democratic Party of today...
...I also noticed you devoted nearly two entire stories to criticism of the New York Times, which forces me to ask the question: Don't you have anything better to do with your time...
...Bethel, Connecticut While much of Grossman's article is sadly true, it contains at least one gross inaccuracy...
...A systems solution might be: pick predefined medications and dosages from a computer screen and have the prescription produced on a printer...
...Next time ask me what my views are and I'll tell you, instead of printing such falsehoods...
...PATRICIA WEIR St...
...Laugh-out-loud hilarious...
...Systems analysis has proven effective in the airline industry, Space Shuttle program, and other mission-critical endeavors...
...THOMAS C. HOPE, JR...
...EDWARD J. VOLPINTESTA, M.D...
...This sounds paradoxical...
...Grossman use the results of systems analysis...
...WQEW was in the midst of a Sinatra A-Z in honor of the 8oth birthday of the Chairman of the Board (as William B. named him...
...I felt on top of the world...
...Most people would think that complicated technology that can perform medical miracles would make it easier for doctors to practice and decrease their chances of making mistakes...
...Perhaps physicians and doctors need to have more dialogue on what the limits of technology are and a better understanding of its risks and complications: too often the media announces some new medical "breakthrough" without fully explaining these issues...
...Worse yet for you pathetic creatures is the knowledge that you haven't...
...You guys are the greatest...
...So why don't you try something different in March...
...Systems analysis recognizes that machines are superior to humans in certain areas...
...When I know he's going to appear somewhere, I postpone all other forms of entertainment to enjoy his wit and biting sarcasm...
...Music City Kudos to Mark Steyn for his insightful and witty piece on the demise of WQEW ("The Day the Music Died," TAS, February 1999...
...Grossman says "the anesthesiologists kicked off their patient safety foundation, and did improve their very risky systems, only after a `20/20' expose of preventable, negligent deaths on the operating table...
...Misreading a drug prescription can have dire consequences...
...I must say it's a good thing no one devotes their entire publication to criticism of The American Spectator —they would have far too easy a time tearing it to pieces...
...But] just as what good doctors do cannot always make up for bad systems, so the very best of systems cannot always make up for what questionable doctors do or don't do...
...The "20/20" expose aired on April 22, 1982...
...His legacy to Chicago and Cook County is still very much in evidence...
...and yet at the same time never have "they had so little clout or self-respect...
...On the other hand, The American Spectator puts on a cloak of respectability that gathers and attempts to influence a larger and more intelligent group of people, but crap is still crap...
...First, now that the impeachment trial is over, don't you feel even a twinge of silliness for devoting your cover to Vernon Jordan and accompanying it with a story no one on the planet cares about ("False Witness," by Byron York, TAS, February 1999...
...For example, in the fifties a physician's probabilities of being sued were one in a hundred...
...BRIAN HELANDER Stillwater, Minnesota Cermak of Chicago As a great-grandson of Mayor Anton Cermak (The Five Weeks of Guiseppe Zangara, reviewed by Florence King, TAS, February 1999), I hope that someday political historians will take a close look at one of the great urban politicians of early twentieth-century America...
...via the Internet Edward Grossman replies: Let's hope Dr...
...Only a small portion of the population is gullible enough to take them seriously...
...Far from mocking systems analysis, or failing to suggest a solution, I wrote as follows: "There were some participants [in the California meeting on errors] who honestly wish to make it safer for all us patients and future patients...
...DOUGLAS R. HEYE Washington, D.0 Keeping Score Your magazine is my favorite, and I have been a faithful reader since 1994 I have to call attention to a mistake Tom Bethell makes in an otherwise fine article ("Dynamic Scoring," TAS, January 1999...
...DAVID M. FARIS Drew University Madison, New Jersey The most gratifying thing about this whole Clinton scandal comes from watching our more backward citizens squealing endlessly and redundantly about his getting away with it...
...Segal reads the directions for the use of new drugs more carefully than my article...
...I am not suggesting an end to personal responsibility...
...The American Spectator's ideology is tiresome as it is...
...I'm giving free advice to my friends Governor Alexander and Senator McCain, my favorite candidates for the nomination...
...Reproducible data entry is one such area...
...Sadly, with the passage of time, he seems to be just a footnote in history, barely more known now than Zangara...
...Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer have absolutely no shot and they are not going to force anybody out of the race —let alone Alexander...
...PETE RORVIK via the Internet Kudos to Byron York and his Vernon Jordan article...
...Try having some substance to your magazine instead of simply bitching about President Clinton, the New York Times, and the evil liberal empire...
...RET's sense of humor is unique and I love to see him on television...
...Those who fail to implement these lessons will be held accountable...
...I will never allow my subscription to lapse...
...Fortunately, we will have access to expert systems such as computer databases to keep us from making mistakes...
...I laughed so hard that my dogs jumped into my lap and demanded to partake in the festivities...
...Being no more than 12 years old at the time, I was astonished that my dad was such a fortune teller...
...This band-aid ignores other variables such as time constraints, years of practice with poor penmanship, etc...
...JEFFREY SEGAL, M.D...
...RAY C. TOWNSEND College Park, Georgia Hot Dog...
...Sinatra's, favor...
...Though I cannot find the reference, I did read somewhere in the medical literature that more doctors are being censured and having their licenses suspended than ever before...
...My father grew up in Jersey City listening to legends like William B. Williams and Arthur Schwartz on WNEW with hisfather, and was smart enough to pass the baton to me—and at 26 years of age, I am easily the biggest Frank Sinatra fan in the family...
...On one of my first trips to Yankee Stadium, my father bet me a nickel that at exactly 11:3o AM., he could turn the radio to u3o A.M...
...MARC C. PORTER via the Internet Healing Physicians Edward Grossman's article "God's Work" (TAS, February t000) makes the observation that our modern medical system is not perfect...
...MIKE MURPHY Falls Church, Virginia Billy Gloat Just a few things here, folks...
...My greatest WQEW memory, however, was on December 12, 1995...
...The APSF is one of several initiatives by anesthesiologists that have reduced anesthesia-related deaths by more than tenfold in the past twenty years despite an ever older and sicker patient population...
...JONATHAN KROHN, M.D...
...This signifies movement along a demand curve, and not a shift of the demand curve itself, which is what it means to say that demand increases or decreases...
...He mocks systems analysis as a way to solve problems...
...Systems analysis examines each position in a chain of events where the system may fail and attempts to implement fail-safe mechanisms to prevent disaster...
...I find it more dangerous and more disgusting than the scandal sheets sold in supermarket check-out lanes...
...Volpintesta is right—more doctors are being censured and having their licenses pulled than used to...
...But experience has shown the opposite to be true...
...Thank you for all you do...
...Shouldn't it be obvious that we must have both good systems and good doctors...
...As the Manhattan skyline came into view, with the Empire State Building awash in a sea of blue lights paying the ultimate tribute to the ultimate octogenarian, Frank Sinatra was singing that, without a song, the day would never end and a man ain't got a friend...
...in the eighties it rose to ten in a hundred...
...It is more reasonable to think that patients' expectations (and doctors') have increased...
...He misstates the law of demand, because the law is that quantity demanded increases when price decreases, and quantity demanded decreases when price increases...
...It is important to point out that as physicians acquire more sophisticated technology their exposure for liability increases...
...As for using a spell checker, no, I'm afraid I'm old enough to have learned to spell as a kid...
...Czechborn, he went from the Illinois coal mines to become a powerful leader who built the great Chicago Democratic "machine...
...So does John McCain...
...Insofar as they go home and try to redesign systems to make errors more difficult to commit, they'll be doing God's work...
...and in the nineties it is about fifteen in a hundred...
...One can only speculate...
...As we enter the twenty-first century, the amount of information that M.D.s will be required to have at their fingertips will grow exponentially...
...On the contrary, I suggest implementing the lessons of systems analysis to keep us from making mistakes...
...Perhaps Grossman is referring to the National Patient Safety Foundation, founded in 1996 by the AMA in an effort to emulate the success of anesthesiologists' patient safety efforts...
...The simpleton's suggestion would be that doctors take time to write more neatly...
...however, he fails to suggest a solution...
...I think Lamar Alexander has a strong shot at the GOP nomination...
...Those papers are so absurd as to be funny...
...and find a Frank Sinatra song...
...The Continuing Crisis, TAS, February 1999...
...Western Springs, Illinois Another Happy Customer Your trashy magazine is too much for me...
...I have not "signed on" with any candidate...
...I didn't know then that, thanks to WNEW, the odds were fixed in his, and Mr...
...Now does this mean that we have a greater percentage of incompetent physicians...
...I reported this, and also said the improvement is restricted to a few states...
...Please cancel my subscription and send no more copies...
...There I was, alone at home, sitting on my couch with my dogs at my feet reading your latest issue (relishing every word) when I read that Larry Flynt may have been awarded the rights to Boy Clinton's life...
...It seems trivial to suggest that bad handwriting may ultimately cause a patient's death...
...My trashcan is overburdened...
...I imagine you have got dozens of messages like this already, but I just wanted to make sure...
...I amsure he used a fail-safe spell checker to correct his manuscript—even though no one's life was on the line...
...WQEW, and its predecessor, WNEW, was a family favorite for generations...
...Krohn's memory plays tricks on him...
...10 April 1999 • The American Spectator The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation was founded in 1985, years before the "20/20" expos...
...I especially love him on C-SPAN, where he sort of "free-associates" with the lunatic left...
Vol. 32 • April 1999 • No. 4
