Thoughts of a retired physician

  So, I ought to know better but obviously I don’t. Facebook is a bizarre environment where your “friends” are often not your… well, friends. The story is simple but it prompted me to write this post on my blog rather than directly on Facebook. Here goes. I saw a post on another FB page and copied it to mine. This is it: I am not a religious person. In today’s America, polarized over religion and politics, I thought the message had some importance. The story of Christ is 2000 years old. He was a resident of the Middle East and I am certain he did not look anything like the White appearing person depicted in evangelical Christianity in the United States. In my mind this meme makes sense. We are told that Christ was a proponent of peace and tolerance. I guess socialism is the idea that we all care for each other. No sooner had I posted it than a “friend” commented that Christ wasn’t talking about government. I was told by this “friend” that government defined socialism was different an

  A metaphor for the behavior of Donald Trump since Election Day 2020 might be found in Ernst Haeckel’s biogenetic law of Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny . The lifelong evolution of the phenomenon known as Trump was one of narcissism, sociopathy, and criminality. We may view his obscene actions since Election Day as a reprise. And such behavior has never been seen since the republic was founded. There is of course the constant refrain that he actually won the election, despite the popular vote difference (7 million fewer votes than Biden) and the electoral vote difference . Donald Trump cannot believe he would lose anything, ever. His team of inept lawyers, led by Rudy Giuliani and joined by such miscreants as Sidney Powell, have lost overwhelmingly when they have tried to bring frivolous suits to courts at all levels. When the obvious hit Trump in the face, he went deeper into delusion, inviting Powell, Flynn, and Giuliani into the Oval Office to discuss other methods of overturnin

  “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” Charles Dickens opening lines for his novel of the French Revolution A Tale of Two Cities is certainly applicable this year for many reasons. The year 2020 will be remembered as a horror show for the world: pandemic and economic collapse are part of the worst of times but the United States managed to oust Donald Trump in November, even as he and his craven cult of a party refuse to concede the obvious. However, Trump will ensure political bad times for as long as he can. Trump’s latest ploy was to invite Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office for a night time session where Trump pressed to appoint Powell a special prosecutor to investigate election fraud, Flynn wanted m

  Yesterday, 11 December 2020, will probably be remembered in history as one of those tectonic shifts. Two events made the news: the FDA issues emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for Covid-19 and the Supreme Court refused to hear the nonsensical suit brought by Texas against four other states (Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) to overturn the presidential election and declare Donald Trump the winner. Both represent progress. Both are incomplete answers. First, the vaccine news. After a massive Phase 3 clinical trial and review by the FDA and its advisory panel, the Pfizer-BionTech mRNA vaccine was given the green light for distribution and states will begin vaccinating people next week. General Perna, the Army four-star charged with supervising logistics ensuring the vaccine moves smoothly and safely from manufacturing plants to the states, has compared this job to D-Day in its scope . While historians may quibble with that comparison , there c

  Margan and I gave a presentation on the Covid-19 pandemic this week to our residents here at MonteCedro and it set me to thinking about my life in medicine and how things have changed -- and how they have stayed the same. To do the presentation we had to do a quick review of what has happened with up-to-date statistics. There are multiple wonderful Internet sites that have those statistics and the people behind them vet the figures and update them daily. We were able to gather that data almost effortlessly and further, make a presentation that was clear and visually appealing.  When I began presenting years ago there was no Internet. I spent many hours in the library searching out sources that were on paper -- and not current by any means. My first efforts to make slides for a presentation were horribly amateurish and I am embarrassed to think about them. My photographic skills were, to put in kindly, rudimentary and the slides showed it. Of course the camera (it was a nice Konica SL

Today is 26 days since Election Day and our deranged president continues to rant and rave that he won the election due to massive fraud and cheating. He continues to embarrass himself and his country with this demented story. His erstwhile legal team has completely imploded, with federal and state courts tossing suits out because they are without basis or merit. A story about one of them, Sidney Powell , is far from flattering and makes one wonder about her mental status. And just hours ago, Trump appeared on Fox claiming the election was rigged and the court system is fixed. I don’t know what to make of Trump and his claims. First, the election result was clear as crystal: Biden won the popular vote by over 6 million and the electoral vote decisively. He is the President-elect and will be inaugurated on 20 January 2021. I think Trump is behaving as he is for a multiplicity of reasons. The first and most obvious is that his fragile ego cannot allow him to view himself as a loser,

  We are witnessing an unprecedented event in the history of the United States. After losing the election to Joseph Biden on November 3rd, Donald Trump has not only refused to concede. He has had a cadre of lawyers file numerous lawsuits attempting to overturn votes (primarily from cities and urban areas with large Black populations) and has retreated into Fortress White House (the White House is now behind a double wall that encircles it, suggesting that he is under siege. It appears that the only activities he currently engages in are tweeting, watching right-wing TV for hours on end, and golfing at his Virginia golf course. His appointee to the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, whose responsibilities include signing off on the election result so that a transition to a new administration can occur, is waffling on doing so.  This situation has never happened before. Trump is directing his loyalists in the administration to do many things that can only be meant to screw up

  This is from the New York Times today, a graph showing the now three distinct waves of COVID-19 across the United States. You do not have to be an epidemiologist or a scientist to see the obvious. On November 13th there were a reported 181,194 new cases of COVID-19 in the USA and the 7-day averages are climbing fast. There were also 68,516 people hospitalized in the United States and multiple states are actually beyond the breaking point: no beds, little PPE, staff maximally stressed with little respite in sight. Many of the cases are in a broad swath of so-called “red states” in the middle of the country but that is illusory. All states are dealing with a massive problem. They are dealing with it largely alone; Donald Trump lost the election because he and his administration presided over the worst failure of public health in a century.  And these are the deaths (also from today’s New York Times ). The USA total today is 245,495 dead . Also three waves but fewer in the second and t

  There is not much else today to tell. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have won a historic victory over Donald Trump. For four years, American democracy was pummeled by a president who broke both norms and laws and used every tweet and public appearance to divide Americans. And make no mistake, we are a divided nation, more so than in 2016. We are approaching 10 million cases of Covid-19 with at least 237,000 deaths and the end is not anywhere in sight. The politically more red states such as North Dakota are leading in cases per 100,000 population daily (176 cases per 100,000 population as of today) and hospitals are again filling up with sick and dying patients. El Paso, TX is reeling as cases rise and hospitals are filled to overflowing; the military is responding to appeals for assistance but Americans must not believe the military is the answer. The medical capabilities for our Army, Navy, and Air Force are limited and there have been calls to reduce their budget. Perhaps one thin

  Happy Halloween -- three days to Election Day (which has been Election Season this year). I have no thoughts to share today. My earnest hope is that the ship of American democracy will right itself and continue on. We will need time in drydock to repair but we have done so before. Until next week.