Letters to the Editor
Dr_Dredd
Published Letters: 41 Editor's Choice: 1
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Slogan
[Read the article: War Room contest: Pick the Democrats' bumper sticker]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]2008: Don't make the same mistakes again.
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Nance for President
[Read the article: Waterboarding is not simulated drowning -- it is drowning]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]God bless you, sir. This is one of the most articulate statements on this topic that I've ever heard. Thank you for your service to this country, and can we convince you to run for office?
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@spmosher
[Read the article: Fred Thompson on abortion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Republicans are the same way on "states' rights." They want the states to have rights, unless they do something the Repubs don't like. For instance, look at physician-assisted suicide. States are supposed to retain control over matters of health and medicine, and the Supreme Court in Quill v. Vacco indicated that physician-assisted suicide should be tried in the "laboratory of the states." So what do the right-wingers do? They attempt to do an end run around the Supremes by saying that physician-assisted suicide is "not medicine." Therefore, it doesn't fall under the purview of the states, etc. etc.
The sheer hypocrisy is mind-boggling.
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Medical necessity? Not always.
[Read the article: Is there sexism in lifesaving?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Admission to the ICU is supposed to be based on medical necessity, but the truth is that other factors often come into play. One of these is hospital politics. I remember when I was a medical resident on call in the ICU, we had one patient who was on a ventilator but stable. He could have been sent to a "step-down" floor, but his attending physician refused to allow it. When the pulmonary fellow responsible for the ICU confronted the attending, the response was, "I'm on the medical board. You'll do as I say."
That being said, I'm still not entirely convinced that this study is exposing a bias against women. It's an observational study, which means that causal relationships can't be inferred. While there may indeed be a relationship between female sex and fewer admissions to ICU, it's not clear that the fewer admissions was caused by the female sex. I'd say the jury's still out.
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@melthough
[Read the article: Is there sexism in lifesaving?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the problem is that men and women can present with very different symptoms of a heart attack, but for the longest time this wasn't taught in medical school (partly because we didn't know it). The cases that were typically presented to us students were the ones with overweight men developing crushing substernal chest pain after shoveling snow. Women might exhibit vaguer pain, or even shortness of breath without pain, and therefore have their disease be missed. Now we call such symptoms "anginal equivalents," but this is a fairly recent thing. People who have been in practice for awhile may not have internalized it yet.
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It's just a joke, right?
[Read the article: Just one more reason to be thankful]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Please tell me this is a joke. Please tell me that the date is actually April 1st, and this is just a prank. Please tell me that the last 7 years were one long nightmare that we'll all wake up from soon.
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Not all massage is about "intimacy"
[Read the article: Quote (and debate?) of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Massage therapy is becoming an accepted method of pain control and is often employed in comprehensive pain management clinics. Would you ask if someone visiting a chiropractor or physical therapist is "not getting it anywhere"?
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Political agendas
[Read the article: Restoring Pill discounts would be easier than you might think]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Despite the flawed comparison of birth control pills and insulin, it probably is true that the issue wouldn't exist if it wasn't related to contraception. (Wonder what would happen if there were a sudden demand for Viagra in college clinics.)
Birth control pills are not always used solely for contraception. They are also the recommended treatment for polycystic ovary disease, which will probably become increasingly common as the obesity rate rises. Hopefully the discounts will be restored.
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Scalia, a response to SaltyPappy, and abortion
[Read the article: Who would Antonin Scalia torture?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First of all, I think it's sad that an esteemed Supreme Court justice seems to have confused television with reality. He says Jack Bauer has "saved hundreds of thousands of lives" with harsh interrogation. Um, no. The writers of a television show have created a scenario in which a fictional character supposedly did this. The writers could have easily written a different scenario in which lives were saved in another manner or one in which harsh interrogation didn't stop anything.
Secondly, to saltypappy, I disagree with you. Why should I have to leave the country? There are many other people who don't share your viewpoints, including some of your fellow veterans. Maybe you should leave the country and go to a totalitarian regime. There, if you take the government's position, people won't question you.
I'm perfectly willing to give soldiers in the field "the benefit of the doubt." As a physician, I know about split second decisions. However, being insulted and being told to "leave the country" by said soldiers tends to make me a little cranky and less likely to give the benefit of the doubt.
Last, to the person who discussed partial birth abortion. How come you guys scream and moan about conscience clauses for doctors and pharmacists who don't want to deal with birth control or abortion, but start ranking on doctors who don't want to participate in executions? You can't have it both ways.
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@jameslouder and medical murder
[Read the article: Who would Antonin Scalia torture?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"What's particularly obscene about the lethal injection method is that it makes medical technology complicit in judicial murder."
Thank you. I feel exactly the same way. Two of the three steps of the current lethal injection protocol (the sedative and the paralytic agent) are the same drugs that anesthesiologists use to get a patient through surgery. The lethal injection protocol is a perversion of medical science.
Many physicians feel the same way I do. The North Carolina State Medical Board issued a statement that any physician participating in capital punishment would be censured. So what did North Carolina do? Sued the medical board, saying that lethal injection would become impossible to perform. Also, laughingly, the state argued that lethal injection wasn't legitimate medicine, so the Board couldn't regulate it.
Absolutely. Lethal injection isn't medicine. So knock it off.
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Straw men
[Read the article: Who would Antonin Scalia torture?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dr. Kevorkian and assisted suicide? Oh, please. Talk about straw men! Assisted suicide and execution have nothing to do with each other. Last I checked, execution wasn't voluntary like assisted suicide.
Why do you argue that claims about lethal injection being inhumane are not advanced in good faith? One can both want to abolish the death penalty and also see problems with an existing execution method.