I will respond one last time to you. You (and your cheerleader Ron) may not choose to recognize it, but others have experience in and knowledge of the issues involved in medicolegal oversight. I have spent years representing individual physicians and medical institutions in medical malpractive cases and before the Florida Board of Medicine, as well as advising them on peer review, confidentiality, and professional discipine and termination issues. As such, I believe I have an understanding of the competing interests in this area.

Regarding measures like Amendment 7, you are content to say, “Well, I had a bad experience, and the doctors have just gotten what they deserve.” This dismissive approach gives no consideration to the best interests of the patients, which was the point of my comments.

You are obviously very angry about your experiences. That anger seems to be a primary determinant of your position on these issues and nothing I or anyone else can say is likely to change your mind.

Best wishes for your future success.

Smoke, you use the despicable tactic of some of the other nameless cowards I’ve encountered in the blogosphere. You cannot really argue with what I’m saying – based on ten years of cold, hard, LONELY experience dealing with a fundamentally corrupt system of medicolegal oversight. You’ve got to resort to the ad hominem.

Oh, and you’re DAMNED straight I have “personal issues”. I am not alone. And that is kind of the point.

How can I advocate whistle-blower protection? Are you seriously asking that question? If we had effective FEDERAL whistle-blower protection, doctors and nurses could come forth in these cases and sign their names and have NO FEAR. As it is, people like me are still being force-fed our whistles – and (let me tell you – as you clamor about doctor’s ethical responsibilites to patients) NOBODY BUT NOBODY GIVES A DAMN. You cannot have it both ways.

Besides, at this point, any medical whistle-blower protection would have to be legislated as well – and in Florida that would be in the context of Amendment 7 ( a law you say needs tweaking/eliminating anyway).

Respectfully, if you/doctors in Florida hate Amendment & so much, then I would suggest you get off your asses and start doing something – start talking – about the collateral damage cause by HCQIA. Because it’s not all about the plaintiff’s bar. Your current mess has its origins in the fact that HCQIA was not working to protect patients – or to give them the information they needed when they were hurt by bad doctors. And the “good doctors” on the medical & hospital boards were telling patients they could not help them with their problems.

Just ask Thomas Mansfield over at the NC Medical Board.

Speaking as a patient, I had a GOOD case for malpractice against another doctor (he drilled a hole in my face/skull in the wrong place – something that required surgical repair several years later), and I let it drop because I knew the hurdles were too high. Having been pulverized once already by a corrupt legal system, I did not want to subject myself to it again. But hell hath no fury like an angry/injured patient banging their head against the “White Wall” – and not everyone has the scars in their back to keep them from finding a good ambulance-chaser.

Let me tell you something else – in terms of fostering any kind of legislative change, blogging under an assumed name is not going to cut it.

The problem at Putnam County was the same problem that exists in hospitals all over this nation – doctors shield & protect their own – even when they are bad/Bad/BAD – and it’s not all because of fear (because I’ve seen hospitals deal pseudo-effectively with bad doctors) – it’s because we’re all taught to be “collegial” during our training. We’re taught to “go along to get along”. Then we find out – in a place like Putnam County – or (in my case) Randolph County – that we cannot do that and call ourselves doctors.

Then we are fed to the damned wolves.

If you want to continue, I would appreciate it if you would call me Dr. Johnson. “Dr. Mary” is not the way you would address me in person in any professional setting – and it feels like a put-down of sorts (i.e. talking down to the stupid little girl). Of course, I know you’re not trying to do that;)

“Here’s the other problem I have with Putnam County’s “pity our poor hospital” story. If a small-town hospital has a physician-behaving badly, somebody . . . usually nearly everybody knows it. The staff is small & close-knit (there are always “cliques”), and the medical disasters that are played out splash bits and pieces of refuse & gore on everyone involved. The doctors and nurses who clean up the messes get tired of being caught in the crossfire and/or having their names on bad charts. In all reality, within the hospital, privacy and secrecy are a myth (and in my opinion do not always serve the public good) . . . for all that the secrets (by law) must be kept. In other words, if Dr. King was indeed a problem, someone . . . probably many people . . . at Putnam knew it . . . and they knew it for several months.

Patients were caught in that crossfire – falling victim to both (1) malpractice and (2) the economic destruction of their local hospital now drowning in a sea of litigation.

I am convinced, more than ever, that malpractice reform must walk hand-in-hand with medical peer review reform. You’re not going to have one without the other. Physicians simply must do a better job of policing their own. The average Joe on the street (who thinks all doctors are rich) is just not going to buy into damages caps (and the like) unless we clean up the act.”

I suppose folks do need a roadmap to Rome.

Some folks need a roadmap to Rome, I guess.