Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Doctors Being Dumb #2: 07-31-2010



Summary: First of all, it's good to be posting on this blog again. I had to take a bit of a break for health reasons, and it's been way too long since I've added anything here. Trust me though ... not posting hurt me more than it hurt you. So let's get started, shall we?

The article posted is itself a pretty humorous summary of what happened, but if you haven't heard the news, it's really not funny at all. Earlier this year (very late August to very early September), this was one of the stories that started making rounds throughout the internet. The basic story goes like this: the doctor involved, Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, had a pretty dramatic, on-again-off-again relationship with her boyfriend. I have no idea how things got to the point that they did on the night in question, but whatever it was, Dr. Kotarac decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to confront her ex-boyfriend-or-whatever at his house.

Ex-boyfriend-or-whatever was probably thinking that he didn't want to deal with Dr. Kotarac's bullshit that night, so he snuck out of his house and went over to a friend's to spend the night. (Apparently, he was going to Europe the next day, which will become relevant later on in this story.) In the meantime, Dr. Kotarac decided that the best next course of action would be to try to break into Ex-boyfriend-or-whatever's house ... with a freaking shovel. This leads me to two obvious questions:
  1. Where the hell did she get the shovel? Did she just carry it with her at all times for these kinds of occasions?
  2. How did she fail at getting into a house with a goddamned shovel? Was it made of fucking plastic?
In any case, somehow, the shovel idea didn't pan out. So naturally, she opted for the obvious Plan B: climbing up onto the roof by using a ladder, removing the chimney cap, and trying to slide down the chimney like a goddamn Mrs. Santa Claus.

And if you ever needed proof that Santa Claus doesn't exist, this is it, folks. Dr. Kotarac got stuck in the chimney and died of asphyxiation. In fact, the only way that that her body was discovered was that Ex-boyfriend-or-whatever had hired a house sitter to feed his fish while he was away in Europe, so, three days after the poor woman died, the stench of decomposing flesh is what lead the house sitter to discover her body.

It took firefighters five hours to take apart the chimney and get Dr. Kotarac's body out.

Now, I'm not saying that Dr. Kotarac was a stupid lady - I would actually argue the opposite. For example, if you do a vitals.com search for her, you'll find that she went to UCLA for medical school, and did her residency in Cedars-Sinai. Clearly, it takes a lot of intelligence, drive, and skill to be able to succeed at places like those. But, even though I'm not qualified at all to diagnose Dr. Kotarac, it's pretty clear to me that Dr. Kotarac had some sort of psychiatric condition going on. It's a given that med school can drive people to their breaking point - believe me, I've been there. And I have to wonder, did the stress of medical school contribute to whatever was going on with her? Or did she succeed in medical school because of whatever her psychiatric condition was - something that created her to be driven beyond what normal people ought to be?

And what the hell does that say about how healthy medical school is for our psyches, anyway?

Best quotation: Alas Kotarac, while plenty smart being a doctor and all, is not all that schooled in the art of home construction or Christmas myths. Santa, as it turns out, would have difficulty making it down a chimney due to modern construction techniques, which dictate that chimneys aren't big enough for a human to slide comfortably down.

P.S.: Sorry if this post wasn't as humorous as the previous ones have been. I'll do better next time.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Medicine in the News #1: 06-17-2008



Summary: Lots of things are contributing to doctors in the United States being frustrated by medical practice, including workload, loss of professional autonomy, payment denials, "informed" patients, the threat of malpractice, and decreased reimbursement. Each one of these issues is a substantial burden by itself; add them together, and it makes one wonder why doctors are allowed to be treated this way. In most of these cases, it seems that people are attempting to make their own lives easier at the expense of the doctors' well-being, which ought to be a criminal offense. With these many problems, it's no wonder that some doctors are thinking of leaving the medical profession altogether. Unless some big changes happen, one can expect physician dissatisfaction to stay at the high level where it is.

Best Quotation: "This whole week I haven't slept more than about six hours a night." I asked when his work usually got done. "It is never done," he replied, shaking his head.