Elsewhere (318)
Christopher Rufo on self-flattering fantasies:
This is fantasy. Hillegass and the young protesters, who work, live, and study in unprecedented peace and prosperity, are play-acting an imaginary historical drama designed to win fawning coverage on MSNBC, not to stop Governor DeSantis from building concentration camps on the beaches of the Sunshine State.
Andy Ngo shares a bedlamite horror story:
Frankly, I’m still processing the words trans therapist. On Twitter, Mr Ngo adds, “As I dig into more disturbing criminal cases involving extreme violence or child sex abuse, I’m finding many of the suspects are trans but are never reported as such by press, sheriff’s offices, or prosecutors.”
And Amy Wax on ‘equity’ versus competence:
Now, that is an Orwellian phrase. I guess I would ask, do the patients who are treated by these doctors give a hoot about “latent ability”? Do you know your stuff? Are you a good doctor? Have you mastered this complex material? And of course, the notion that “latent ability” is the same across the board is pure ideology. […]
Someone once asked me, “What do you think it means when people do poorly on the SAT or the MCAT [Medical College Admission Test]?” I said, “It means they don’t know the answers to the questions.” [So, they then said,] “Well, the test doesn’t measure anything meaningful…” Which is a falsehood – of course it does. Is it the be-all and end-all? No, but it gives you a lot of information.
I had an academic physician tell me, anonymously, that in his department, the one black fellow flunked his board exams four times. And the whole department has to mobilise to make sure he passes the next time… They’re not going to leave this doctor alone until they push him through the meat grinder somehow. But think about the patients who are going to have him as a doctor. It just makes no sense. People have to be allowed to fail, on their own level, and according to a single standard.
Needless to say, other prickly topics are touched on. Professor Wax, and her enemies, have cropped up here before.
Update, via the comments: On the subject of ‘equity’ versus competence, see also this.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
The iron law of woke projection.
Well, given that the “resistance” being championed includes threats of violence and death, mob censorship and physical intimidation, such that police escorts are required simply to leave a building – and all done in an attempt to shut down democratic governance – it is a little… rich.
*snort*
327 who are above the law.
“Deteriorating public safety conditions.“
Unexpectedly!
Perhaps someone doesn’t want the rest of us to notice any patterns.
Big LOL, because REI has long been a very “woke” company.
Chickens coming home to roost and all that.
I see the Activist-Wanker Caste has been acting up again.
Previously in the world of the Activist-Wanker Caste. From which, this:
At which point, readers may note the name of the snooker-disrupting gentleman.
When you live among the feral.
When enough people believe the fantasy, want to believe the fantasy, for all intents and purposes it is reality. And enough people do. The OMG OMG OMG CENSORSHIP!!!11!!!! reaction of many of my friends and neighbors to DeSantis’s attempts to remove porn and leftist dogma and such from our school libraries borders on…well I would say actually is hysteria. All the while these very same people ignore, or are ignorant, or pretend to be ignorant of the far worse censorship that went on previously and is even currently ongoing in our public libraries, and even into modifying the very books themselves and even dictionaries.
I have a couple of friends that while I could easily assume their politics as left, meaning mostly mainstream, old-school Democrats, who have now jumped on this “Drag is not a crime” bandwagon of BS. One of whom even was mildly amused by the leftist hysteria surrounding Trump’s election. Conservatives…”conservatives”, especially the DeSantis fans, need to remember that he became governor of this state by the thinnest of margins. And I fear this 6 week abortion ban will create a significant backlash. Why it’s almost as if it’s a setup for some sort of failure theater. There’s a lot of fantasy out there and it ain’t just the leftist kind.
On boards and MCATs:
Minor point of order, states license, boards give specialty certification. The difficulty over time is that boards have become as much revenue generators to propagate the board (the first rule of any bureaucracy) as certification agencies.
These days most board certifications are time limited, usually 10 years, have a thing called “Maintenance of Certification” whereby one has to go through all kinds of hoops and wickets most of which include paying fees in one way or the other to the board and for usually just south of two grand taking a test which (in my case) was the same as the first time I took the thing except for the new woke questions the answers to which were obvious.
The accretion of the woke crap is the real problem and one has the option of checking the block or giving real answers which would cause you to bolo that part if not the whole damn thing. Hell of a choice.
MCATs – when I took the thing there were 6 sections covering basic sciences and a couple reasoning sections. Each section was scored 1-15. Now there are four sections, two basic sciences, one social/behavioral sciences, and “Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills” (CARS) which is based on – wait for it – humanities and social science readings, so half the test is not real sciency stuff.
To make it more exciting this CARS appears to be weighted as much as the real parts so you could be the second coming of Hippocrates and Ehrlich rolled into one, so essentially unless you recite The Current Thing correctly, you are going to be SOL.
The good news is that this test version has only been in place since 2015, so always ask to see a diploma, but ask everyone, it is the equitable thing to do.
Good to know.
Medical certification boards, and mandated, costly recertification may or may not be corrupt. But certainly in my field, aviation, maintaining “currency” is a necessary, expensive, and never-ending task. Rules, however, are set only by the FAA ( U.S., obviously).
Even to stay legal and safe as a clear-weather only, light plane pilot, is going to cost roughly 5-10 grand per year. Requirements for ATP, Air Transport Pilot, are vastly more.
Not to mention Type-Rating, which is about specific models of planes. Also mandatory.
LOL
When you live among the feral.
“You came in your neighborhood and fucked up your shit … Y’all let the white folks set y’all off once again”… I wouldn’t rely on her taking a principled stand if it was white people’s quality of life that was getting degraded by her co-ethnics.
Big LOL, because REI has long been a very “woke” company.
1930’s, links with Austria, Alpine/outdoor enthusiasts with Germanic/Scandinavian names, clubs, membership cards, oh dear. What percentage of non-white models do we have to dress up in crampons on our website in order to redeem ourselves for our tainted heritage?
How do we as outdoor equipment retailer reach out to blacks even though most blacks just don’t get the idea of traveling miles away from anything to get soaked and sunburned and blistered, they think it’s a crazy white thing. Let’s publish blog posts condemning our historical customer base as racist, and inviting street basketball into the category of outdoor sports. Hey, maybe the outreach worked given that the store was thought to be worth looting.
Yeah, that’s what I need. A brain sugeon that only know about 1/2 of the brain.
This pattern?
But was re-elected by a rather large margin.
Limit his practice to politicians.
But certainly in my field, aviation, maintaining “currency” is a necessary,
Nobody is saying currency is not necessary, and there are lots of ways to get there, but an IP sitting in an office somewhere isn’t demanding you turn in a DIE implementation practice improvement plan during an instrument check ride.
“He told a detective that he had been sexually abused as a child.”
Shocker.
Some hate facts about inter-racial crime.
Those damn hwite supremacist capitalist bassards Walmart for creating food and retail deserts.
You can make a case for liberals paying reparations–not for the harms done by slavery, but for the harms done by liberal policies.
No matter how many black shoes she kisses, this dumb bint should still pay reparations.
What the good Lord giveth, the good Lord may also taketh away. People are bloody stupid. They continue to be bloody stupid. The abortion issue hits women, the stupidest half of the bloody stupid population, hardest. The vast majority of them are not capable of making rational decisions. People, I mean. Not just women. But it’s worse with women. If you follow me.
Oh, I’ll take a stab at being that nobody. I could go either way on whether or not a doctor from say 1975 is better informed than a doctor today. He certainly would not have the disadvantage of the last 50 years of misinformation. And I guaran-damn-tee you he would be far, far less likely to suggest the solution to your child’s problem is to chop his dick off or slice off her developing breasts. But then agin I am rather stupid that way.
Oh, I’ll take a stab at being that nobody.
Unfortunately your stab is more like seppuku.
Your doc of 1975, if he was an orthopedic surgeon and had not maintained currency, would have no clue how to do a total hip, let alone as a same-day procedure. If a general surgeon taking out your gall bladder, he would land you in a hospital a week or so after diving in through a rather large incision instead of sending you home in a day after doing a laparoscopic procedure. Have an arrhythmia? Have some pills, he has never heard of radio frequency ablation. Diabetic – he won’t check your A1c, that didn’t really come into common use until the ’80s and wasn’t standardized till around 2000.
I could fill pages with examples, but if you want someone who hasn’t cracked a book, a journal, or done anything else to keep up to date since 1975, good luck.
Contrary to what you believe, the vast majority of docs are neither “misinformed” (having to sort through sometimes conflicting information, yes) nor invested* in the woke nonsense you have wrapped yourself around the axle about.
*(See 2015 rule above)
Further to the Amy Wax interview, here’s a student with unorthodox preferences.
Which is why you can’t refer to men as males.
https://thepostmillennial.com/alabama-woman-admits-to-killing-child-caught-playing-on-her-property
Another American inter-racial shooting except this time it’s one you’ve almost certainly heard nothing about. It was never the lead story on the bbc website.
I was unable to find any reports of President Biden having immediately rushed to “speak at length”, as the worlds media breathlessly stated, to this particular victims family although unlike the widely reported recent case of Ralph Yarl their son had actually been murdered.
Hollywood celebrities and sports stars were similarly reticent presumably having much more important matters to tweet about.
Discretion isn’t the word.
“MENSTRUAL TOILET” and decorated…
Sound like an upper m-class girls’ school I worked in. Despite the cleaners pleading with me to come and look at the mess (‘Slaughterhouse’ was the actual word) left for them in the toilets, I declined. Part of the frolic was to see how many of their sanitary units they could stick to the ceiling – so I was told.
Just poked through Quillette for the first time in months. I’d forgotten how many needlessly long and rambling articles they publish. Many of their contributors seem to have forgotten, or never known, the value of brevity.
He still won’t chop my grandson’s dick off. Nor is he likely to try to intimidate me into taking some experimental vaccine. In 1975, granted I was young, but aside from class/status I had no idea who he voted for. Nor would I have been sucked into some idiotic conversation about glow ball warmering during a checkup. Don’t know when doctors started sticking their fingers up men’s asses but apparently there never was a reason to do so. There’s a good chance a great many men would still have their unnecessarily removed prostates. Of course by 1975 they had gotten over their collusion with the ice cream companies with that tonsillectomy nonsense. He wouldn’t ask intrusive questions about how many guns we have. And don’t get me started on the dietary BS.
People lived full and happy lives in 1975 without such idiotic intrusion into our lives. Were we ignorant of some things? Yes. But many things we were supposedly ignorant of turned out to be falsehoods. We knew our doctors…well somewhat. They weren’t a bunch of corporate robots and it certainly wasn’t the Dark Ages.
Discretion isn’t the word.
Oh, it’s in Spain. They really seem to be on a well greased slippery slope straight to Hell recently. If I’m not wrong I believe they legalised bestiality, provided no harm comes to the animal of course because they’re not completely insane. Yet.
That killing got very little coverage in the mainstream news.
Similarly, there have been a number of random killings by blacks of Jewish white men and Chinese men in Chicago. Those killings were largely ignored by the mainstream news and the racial aspect was especially ignored. It is horrible that a black kid was murdered for innocently knocking on the wrong door, but here we have repeated cases of blacks going out looking for whites and Asians to kill and the liberal ruling class ignores it.
Well, my personal physician has never asked me any inappropriate questions.
And although the group he belongs to has added gender/pronoun questions to their standard patient identity questionnaire, nobody has pressed me when I left those questions blank.
Remember how, for decades, the accepted wisdom was that stomach ulcers were caused by stress and that dietary changes were the proper treatment? And now we know that ulcers are caused by a bacterium. The earlier false beliefs were not due to any political agenda, but rather to the awkward and halting way that medical knowledge sometimes advances.
For a good example of bad medicine caused by politics and ambition and bribery, look at how dietary fat was demonized starting in the sixties. Remember “butter and eggs are bad for you”?
Speaking of ‘equity’ versus competence…
Ben Sixsmith interviews Kittie Helmick.
“I apologize for the length of this letter, but I did not have the time to make it shorter.”
–Blaise Pascal
I strongly suspect that most of the writers at Quillette are untrained. But also that bloggers in general are writing in a hurry and do not take time to polish their prose–or even to check it for errors of spelling and grammar.
I favor tests which are designed to reject leftists…preferably down a chute into a scorpion pit.
Yet.
One of the people I was thinking of is a professor of philosophy.
That may support my contention. 😀
He’s just like you, ladies. One of the girls.
I’ve occasionally wondered whether my posts – as opposed to my comments, which can get windy – are too concise. This morning’s visit to Quillette has reassured me on that front. I had to plough through nearly 2,000 words of lifeless prose before reading something that resembled a point. At which point, the halfway mark, I realised that the rest of the article could be abandoned without any great loss.
“Why aren’t you letting us in?” they screamed.
People lived full and happy lives in 1975 without such idiotic intrusion into our lives.
Albeit with ailments now easily treatable. If you are going to doctors asking you the things you claim them to be asking, you make poor choices in doctors.
As far as digital rectal exams go, they have been done for ages as long before modern imaging modes, PSA, or DNA tests, the only way to examine a prostate or rectum was to go in. A DRE can tell a lot about a prostate, hemorrhoids, polyps or early colon cancer, injury, with a quaiac card, bleeding elsewhere in the GI tract.
You think you have prostatic hypertrophy? 25 cents for a glove, KY, 10 seconds of discomfort, or $500 for a pelvic MRI – your choice.
If that is not a piss take, you need to adjust your tinfoil hat.
Some ulcers, not all, for example NSAID use, and the “old” causes can exacerbate existing ulcers, and the “old” treatments can help ameliorate. Regardless, knowledge marches on, the world is neither flat nor the center of the universe, malaria is not caused by “bad air” and WTP’s ulcers, diagnosed with a barium swallow, would still be treated by his never current 1975 doc with a bland diet and antacids because H. pylori wasn’t nailed down until the ’80s, and treatment later.
There is a journalism style which does that intentionally–partly as a clickbait tactic to keep the reader longer, and partly as a tactic to disseminate irrelevant opinions to readers who just want to get to the point.
A worthwhile reminder.
Nevertheless, the turtle moves!
If I recall correctly, “bad air” from nearby swamps–which coincidentally had mosquitos.
Ironically, I read something long ago about some old peasant beliefs that manure piles were healthy to have in the vicinity. Shrug.
As I’ve aged – gracefully, imperceptibly – my dislike of padding has increased. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t read fiction in decades. And why I find bad pacing in TV dramas difficult to excuse.
If I recall correctly, “bad air” from nearby swamps–which coincidentally had mosquitos.
True of Rome at least, and why the wealthy lived on hills, or so the story goes.
I read some fiction, but far too much of it is indeed padded. Consider, for example, the well documented phenomenon of the popular science fiction short story or novelette which got expanded into a novel: Often the added material made the story weaker. The rule of thumb is that a short story has “punch” because it is quickly read and is tightly focused on the main point of the story. A novel adds more characters and events and details of the setting in order to add “richness”, but often that “richness” serves no particularly greater purpose and can be downright dull in a mediocre writer’s hands. (That is, I believe, why I stopped reading George R R Martin in the mid 1980’s.) In the hands of a talented writer, all that “richness” can further expand and advance the central ideasj. (One of my favorite examples is The Book of the New Sun which is almost kaleidoscopic in its richness of setting and events, but all of which contribute to the “message”.) As a third middle example, take Roger Zelazny’s novelette …And Call Me Conrad, which he expanded into the novel This Immortal. You can find intelligent people on both sides of the debate over which is better.
A related complaint: The TV series which is begun without any planned story arc, and which eventually peters out without answering the questions or resolving the issues which drew the viewers in.
As I think Daniel pointed out, bad pacing is particularly irritating in dramas produced for subscription streaming services, which should offer greater flexibility in terms of series length, and episode length, and should bypass the obligation to shoehorn in story beats to accommodate ad breaks.
In what way does ‘misgendering’ differ from truth telling?
Orson Scott Card is a repeat offender in this category.
Zelazny gets a pass – both …And Call Me Conrad and This Immortal are worth the read.
Not all expansions are to be disdained – Michael Flynn’s Eifelheim being an example.
bad pacing is particularly irritating in dramas produced for streaming services
The medium shapes the format of the message; you write TV differently when you have to cram your story into 24 or 47 minutes and you have no guarantee that the audience will have ever seen the previous episode, or will ever see the next one.
Jonathan Kay on “deadnaming” taboos and related matters of farce.
Docs: I know lots. Some keep up, Some don’t. They can be subject to fads like not being concerned about smoking risk years ago or food fads.
Fascism: The definition is when industry (and media) acts in concert with government. That is what we have currently but it is NOT controlled by the right. It is universities requiring a DEI statement to hire you or media calling burning cities “mostly peaceful”. Protesters calling the move of abortion to state legislatures “fascism” means they believe the people should not be allowed to legislate on their favorite topic. The Disney thing is informative. Dems opposed Citizens United for years (the case was about a film critical of H Clinton) saying corporations should not be able to contribute to campaigns. Now that corps are taking hard left positions like Disney in FL, it is totes ok and fascism to punish the company. Good business advice is to keep your company out of politics.
See also the school teachers who think that parents should have no say in what is taught to their children.
Docs: I know lots. Some keep up, Some don’t. They can be subject to fads like not being concerned about smoking risk years ago or food fads.
Pretty sure after 35+ years I know and have worked with more, and as with any profession, trade, or other employment field, there are going to be those two standard deviations either way who don’t keep up or go for woo, but the 95.4% in the middle, not so much.
The ones on either end will only attract those attracted to their foibles – though there is frequently a lot of money to be made hawking woo.
Nobody I have ever known or worked with would refer to a specialist stuck in 1975. If nothing else, that would be malpractice on our part, though there are patients who would go on their own hook because the guy stuck in 1975 is more likely to tell the patient what they want to hear.
Nobody I have ever known or worked with did not keep current*, if one does not, not only is licensure potentially in jeopardy, but one does not get privileges at a hospital or other practice privileges, one is also at risk of being sued into oblivion, even if Doc 1975 is in a solo practice in East Swamproot Pennsyltucky (Pop. 126 + a possum).
*(which does not mean swallowing and regurgitating The Current Thing™ contrary to what some might think)
Every now and then I’m reminded of just how glad I am to have dropped my subscription to Forbes when I did.
This tolerant and peaceful chap who only wants to live his true identity gives a warning.
He should be permanently removed from society.
“licensed behaviour technician”
Think about that title for a moment. Could it be more dehumanizing? “Sir, your behaviour is outside of normal parameters. Our licensed behaviour technician will perform an adjustment.”
Perhaps we should be thanking Tara, our charming and totally ladylike “poly trans lesbian,” for clarifying the issue. Albeit inadvertently.
Roly Poly Trans Lesbian
(No need to thank me).
I think we’ll give that one a post of its own. Comments that-a-way.
Been traveling. Finally home and see this…
Yeah, Jeenius. Get with the program. Doctors are not doing that anymore. Nor the PSA test. I had to explicitly ASK to have that tested in my recent bloodwork. Not because I buy any of it today but because whatever whims you people work on are likely to shift in the future and I like to have at least some objective data.
Of course by 1975 they had gotten over their collusion with the ice cream companies with that tonsillectomy nonsense.
And you need to lighten TF up, Francis. Obviously. Pathetic dodge of the very pertinent question. How many children died or had complications from those completely unnecessary operations that were all the rage in the 1960’s? They worked the subject into the stories of several family/children’s TV shows. No, it wasn’t the ice cream companies that were making bank on that though.
I could fisk that some more but what’s the point? Your arrogance won’t allow you to take criticisms seriously. But as for your NoRealScotsman-ish argument about finding another doctor, that involves a $400 charge just to interview one. Which is why I switched to the son of my now deceased doctor. Corporate robot that he is. See above.
The medical profession has been out of control for quite some time now. If this scamdemic has one redeeming factor, it’s that it brought some degree of serious attention to the problem. Either the majority of doctors are ok with all this BS, chopping dicks and breasts off, mask mania, everything p-gives-you-cancer hysteria, or the majority is opposed but too chickenshit to address the issues. I don’t know which scenario is worse.
Added…because I gave up on your dodging my points before I encounter what pst quoted…
This is just insulting. Similar to when arguing about global warming with a millennial and he asked me “Do you even believe in dinosaurs, dude?” What a pathetic line of reasoning for a #Science guy. See? This right here is your problem.
Mine started much earlier but, like probably everyone here, I pushed through until I had a real professional job and less time/patience for too much BS. My rule of thumb on this is that books written before the 20th century, before widespread newspaper publishing, before radio, movies, tv, ease of travel to significant cities, I excuse/tolerate long windedness in writing because people wanted their long nights filled with some form of entertainment and ideas. Anything published after 1890 descending into the post-WWI era gets viewed with suspicion that increases with the number of pages and distance in time from 1890. OK, it’s an even more complicated formula but that’s the bulk of it.
Or being excessively concerned about second hand smoke or the occasional cigar or pipe. Or red meat…or…
Ooh, this. Amazing…yet not so…that such is tolerated by educated…”educated” people. People have certainly read Orwell. Yet few seem to understand what they were reading. Or why.
Charles Dickens: Notorious for padding. Paid by the word. Newspaper serializations.
Doctors are not doing that anymore.
Aside from the urologists, general surgeons, colorectal surgeons, internists, gastroenterologists, ER, family practice, oncologists, neurologists (if indicated), orthopods (if indicated)*, and some others to include, lest we leave the ladies out, OB/GYNs when indicated.
But yeah, the ophthalmologists, otolaryngologists, cardiologists, and allergists, not so much.
Poe’s Law frequently applies to you, but in answer to your question, no, children were not dropping like flies – in the ’60s, 7/100,000 or about 70 in 1965 with various comorbidities being major risk factors. As far as unnecessary goes, back then as now, persistent/recurrent infection with or without secondary complications such as airway obstruction and inner ear infection are indications. Do you get your info from Rense or just “…the stories of several family/children’s TV shows…”?
Projection, it is not just for breakfast anymore, but there is a difference between “criticisms” and unfounded and/or ill informed ramblings.
Apparently you didn’t get the message. You’re not “current” in your own medical knowledge. GP’s are not routinely screening for prostate enlargement because they’ve come to the late conclusion that the cure is worse than the disease. Now whether or not I completely agree with that is a separate issue from your obstinate refusal to address the problem of the medical field going rogue. Which has happened mostly because the medical field, much like the Church of the past, and the “educators” of the present, are so wrapped up in their belief in their own inherent goodness that they must demonize all criticism and/or mock such as ignorance (added: or Evil). I find it doubly interesting that all three of those institutions have been held much higher esteem by women than by men. Odd, that.
Again, not the bloody point. It was an insanely unnecessary risk. A point which you choose, intentionally, to dance around. Which is why they stopped doing them. Do you not see some degree of parallel between this and the gender surgery stuff? Yes, of course it’s an exaggeration. But the root of the problem, well one of the roots anyway, is similar.
Poe’s law my ass. Another senseless insult. It’s not like I’m some rando internet being. Your failure to grasp such humor is far more a reflection on you than me. Do you believe in dinosaurs, dude?
Damn. Setting up my computer and re-reading my post…
It should be obvious but lest it get jumped on as an excuse to avoid the general idea…No, they didn’t stop doing them entirely. But they did stop doing them such that they are not so prevalent that half the kids in the neighborhood have had them done. Or whatever the number was. I was in preschool back when this was a thing. Looking in my friend’s throat trying to figure out what exactly got removed. But it was a very prevalent thing. The ice cream was quite a seller to the children back then.
Here are some links for your general edification regarding how prevalent the procedure was promoted. Children’s books, The Bob Newhart Show, My Three Sons, many others. Pretty sure it was in the script of Elvis and Mary Tyler Moore movie Change Of Habit as well but can’t find the exact script. Search engines keep trying to feed me info on the procedure no matter how I qualify otherwise. There are many, many other examples.
GP’s are not routinely screening for prostate enlargement because they’ve come to the late conclusion that the cure is worse than the disease.
No, they are following the USPSTF guidelines (which is a whole different discussion) because that is what the AAFP guidelines are, not that all follow it, but if you bothered to look up the AAFP guidelines for comprehensive exams, it includes the DRE which, during a comprehensive exam, is indeed a screening test for a number of things already mentioned besides the prostate.
For a focused exam for symptoms like urinary hesitancy, frequency, post void dribbling, your GP is going to give you a DRE. If you go in for a focused exam for a headache and you get a DRE, you have probably picked another sketchy doc.
There were about a million tonsillectomies in 1965, roughly 70 deaths, with the highest risk and rate in kids with other problems. That is not “insanely unnecessary risk” given potential complications, particularly of bacterial tonsillitis back when antibiotic options were more limited. As far as “stopped doing them” goes, 250,000/year in the US at present is as interesting a definition of “stopped” as your definition of “insane risk” or “humor”.
Right. Little Golden Books and My Three Sons were in league with Big ENT. Got it. Too bad Newhart was too late to get in on the sweet, sweet, tonsillectomy gold rush.
JHTDC man. How many strawmen are you going to throw here? The bloody obvious point is that the surgeries, at the volume that they were performed, were unnecessary. The question, at least from a utilitarian perspective, is do deaths from unnecessary procedures outnumber deaths that would have resulted from doing nothing? Which itself is a deviation from the first do no harm thing. It’s own argument. Apparently, at some level, just like the digital prostate exams, someone decided that the procedure was worse than the risk of the disease.
None of this should be so bloody hard to understand. Yet this is the crux of the problem. Your desperation to maintain your high and mighty place requires an imaginary world where those who disagree, even if doing so somewhat theoretically and/or facetiously, must be defeated. Preferably humiliated. And if that means misrepresenting, misinterpreting, or intentionally misunderstanding what your critics have to say, so be it. Thus the beautiful merger of medicine and government that is going on. Y’all fit very well together. Much like my former profession of technology and government. Don’t be evil. Heh.