Response to the question “when was your last tetanus shot”, without missing a beat and in the same tone of voice you’d ask someone when they last ate:

Significant other: “When’s the last time you went to Prison?”

The tetanus was up to date.

Allegedly for “not writing a prescription”…

Dr. Paul Arnold turned his back for a moment on a patient who was upset because the doctor wouldn’t write him a prescription.

That’s when the patient, Gregory S. Powell, 45, of Fort Myers, allegedly attacked Arnold, 65, biting off part of one of the doctor’s fingers.

As my tipster says “…probably wasn’t about refusing an amoxicillin script…”.

In custody; no word on the doc, and best wishes. 

Thanks to Glenn (a true homie) for the tip.

This was in our ED today. I suspect it was brought by one of our rotating studs….

John Mackey is the CEO of Whole Foods.

John Mackey: The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare – WSJ.com
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

Make sure you read toward the end to see what the Whole Foods Canada employees ask for…

Update: the reality based community took this very well…

Grand Rounds, Vol. 5.47 – Cost Containment In Healthcare : The Covert Rationing Blog
Niiiiice.

Robert Ricketson and the surgical screwdriver medical malpractice case: The medical records revisited | KevinMD.com

A must-read from the doctor found guilty.

Support for Congressional Health Care Reform Falls to New Low – Rasmussen Reports™
Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That’s down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June.

More significantly, 44% of voters strongly oppose the health care reform effort versus 26% who strongly favor it. Intensity has been stronger among opponents of the plan since the debate began.

Interesting.  And we’re nowhere near done with the August Rescess yet…

Oh, and Single Payor?

Thirty-two percent (32%) of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% are opposed to a single-payer plan.

Fifty-two percent (52%) believe such a system would lead to a lower quality of care while 13% believe care would improve. Twenty-seven percent (27%) think that the quality of care would remain about the same.

Forty-five percent (45%) also say a single-payer system would lead to higher health care costs while 24% think lower costs would result. Nineteen percent (19%) think prices would remain about the same.

Health care reform is hard.

Words fail « Dr. Ottematic
This past week, I got a late night e-mail regarding a meeting – of unknown reason – at the hospital the next morning. We residents arrived in the room, sure that each of us was going to be in trouble for, say, dressing unprofessionally, or that there had been a medical error on our part, or perhaps our program had not been accredited. As we looked at eachother quizzically, one face that had just stepped into the room told it all: it was much, much, much worse.

Wow.  Good insight.

» Features » New Release: The Stetho-stun.

I want one.  No, two, in case the other one needs a recharge.

iPhone Medical App Review is a new site that reviews iPhone med apps.  Check it out.

Docs Online on Arkansas Medical News Inc. Features Dr. Bates!

Alert on Doctors’ Abuse of Propofol, Drug Suspected in Michael Jackson’s Death – WSJ.com
Abuse of the sedative suspected in Michael Jackson’s death is a growing problem among medical professionals, increasing pressure on the government to restrict it as a controlled substance.

So, doctors (a very very few) abuse this drug, so the answer is to…restrict its prescribing to doctors.

Brilliant!

One of the joys of having a blog with 10 readers is that a bunch of them actually add content.  From the comments to this post (about the Collier Township, PA mass shooting) by CHenry:

Sadly a recurring pattern of tragedy. A mentally ill person: depressed, angry, frustrated and paranoid, socially isolated largely due to the behavioral features of his disordered personality (I say “his” particularly because it is true, most of these mass-killer-suicides are men) and then some event that triggers the lethal cataclysm of violence. It doesn’t even have to be something most people would think would trigger someone to break, maybe the failure of a brief relationship, or something more significant like a job loss.

U. Texas at Austin, Port Arthur, Tasmania, San Ysidro, California, Ecole Polytechnique, Quebec, Kileen, Texas, Dunblane, Scotland, Virginia Tech. All very similar, and there have been many more.

The gun control activists point to the weapons of choice. They have a point: semiautomatic firearms give an assailant a huge advantage of speed in making a body count when turned on unarmed and trapped victims. But even in places where gun ownership is tightly controlled, those with the determination to kill have found weapons of their choice.

We live in a society where it is startlingly easy to be alienated and alone, even in a crowd. For whatever reasons, the ties that bind us to one another, community, family, church, friendship and work are much more tenuous than ever before. People with thought disorders and violent tendencies have probably never been freer, both of the laws that once gave a society powers to confine them and of the observation and social controls that a world of smaller communities once imposed on their behaviors.

The lonely berserk stranger, hell-bent on wreaking as much destruction as possible before his own destruction has become the dark meme of modern living. Going postal.

I don’t see a practical answer to this problem.  Good comment.

The Jage Page
I could have finished out my career without ever having done so, and I would have retired a happy person. Once again, an apparent coward with a chip on his shoulder has decided to play judge, jury and executioner to many people who never even knew he existed. Lives were taken, and lives were forever changed.

Read the rest to get one responders’ view.  Good stuff.

Update: I wrote Philly in the headline, which was wrong.  It’s correct now.