4. I Hate Doctors—At Least, Most of Them

I HATE DOCTORS—
AT LEAST,MOST OF THEM

I HATE DOCTORS

(Transcription)

Burt: “You’ve been my physician for over twenty-five years. You can’t just dump me like you would a broken heart-lung machine.”

Doc: “There’s no room for sentiment in medicine, and frankly, your quaint right-wing viewpoints aren’t as interesting as they once were. I’m turning your medical records over to young Dr. Kaloofka from my office.”

Burt: “But Kaloofka doesn’t speak English, and I’ve never heard of a doc, or anybody for that matter, who keeps a venomous giant lizard as an office pet.”

Doc: “You’re always making mountains out of millstones. As for Kaloofka, he has become a star with my female employees. They’re all smiling a lot and humming ditties from the Pakistani hit parade.”

Burt: “What about loyalty? It was because of you that I joined ‘Californians Against Midwifery.’ I haven’t missed a meeting in two years, and although I have no idea why, they just elected me secretary/treasurer of the district. And what about those thousands of buttons I own that say ‘Chiropractic Isn’t Christian’?”

Doc: “Humphhhh.” (He grumbles, undecipherable.)

Burt: “I could have sued you back in ‘97 when your lab mistakenly diagnosed me as having cholera.”

Doc: “Most people would have seen humor in that.”

Burt (voice choked with emotion): “Things aren’t so funny when the county board of health puts you under quarantine, but the worst indignity was when you forgot me in an examination room. I spent that weekend locked in, with no clothes, a very cold bench, and nothing to read but the spring 1988 edition of ‘Living The Good Life With A Partial Colon’.”

Doc: “Sure, Blumert, you’ve been OK at times, but you came up empty when we asked for volunteers to firebomb the health food store that sold that profane book, Good Health Equals No Doctors.”

(End of Transcription)

Being advised by my semi-retiring family physician that I was no longer his patient reminded me that, basically, I hate doctors.

Nothing personal: I also dislike lawyers and bureaucrats, major and minor, and anybody who has anything to do with the tax code.

Only “physicians” from the list above claim “victim status,” however, and seek out conservative/libertarian thinkers to articulate their interests and link them with free-market principles. That’s okay. We all do better in an environment free of government intrusion, but my physician friends think that they have “special” victim status and that their grieviences are unique.

A visit to any “hard-money” financial conference or freedom-oriented seminar will find docs well represented, shoulder-to-shoulder with the other freedom fighters. The docs are decent, well-intentioned guys who “talk a good game,” but when it comes to their day-to-day practice of medicine, they thoroughly enjoy the benefits their State license affords them.

The socialist virus seems inexorable, and reversing that flow is difficult. If any group has the wherewithal to smash the evil trend toward socialized medicine, it would be the docs themselves. Their AMA has enormous influence in every legislative body in the nation. Add to that the power inherent in their medical associations at the state and county level, and doctors can accomplish almost anything.

We have coddled doctors long enough. They can’t keep blaming government agencies, HMOs, and third-party payers for all their deficiencies. It’s widely perceived that patients have low expectations when they have to arrange an appointment with a physician The patient finds indifference, rudeness, and would have to visit the Department of Motor Vehicles to find comparable attitudes.

Particularly objectionable is what happens when a medical office employee becomes expert in every medical specialty. The patient must convince this high priestess their condition warrants an appointment with the doctor. Doctor friends insist that American medical care is the best in the world. It’s also said that Americans are the freest people in the world. Neither statement provides total assurance.

The entire American medical delivery system can do better, but it will take a sea change in the attitude of the average doc.

The four questions below present a hard cynical critique of the status of the health care industry.

1. How would you like to be in a business where one-half of your customers are addicted to chemicals but can’t obtain them without express permission from you?

2. How would you like to be in a business where the companies who produce the chemicals require your endorsement for the success of their product? Payola becomes the way of life for every physician. He is provided with free samples, junkets to resorts all over the world, and other worldly pleasures beyond the imagination of the layman.

3. How would you like to be in a business where the moment some competitive force is evident, all guns are turned toward that threat? Competitors are marginalized and often face criminal charges with some level of government acting as enforcer.

4. How would you like to be in a business where substandard performance caused by drunkenness, laziness, or plain old criminality often escapes proper notice?

The great medical curmudgeon, Robert S. Mendelsohn, MD, author of Confessions of a Medical Heretic (New York: Warner Books, 1980), spent the latter years of his life goring medical sacred cows. He once pointed out that “Historically, when doctors have gone on strike, the mortality rate has dropped.” Indeed, a friend and former medical editor remembers a doctors’ strike in Israel that only ended when the undertakers picketed the medical association headquarters. Their business was being hurt!

January 5, 2000

I STILL HATE DOCTORS AND NOW THEY HATE ME

Life is a series of humiliations.

Maybe it’s neurotic, but I have much stronger recollections of humiliations suffered—large and small, real or imagined—than I do of events that were celebratory.

For example, my only surviving memory from ages 0–5 was of a horrid moment at a Horn & Hardart Automat in New York City.

For those born after the war between Italy and Ethiopia, who know nothing of those American icons, let me provide some history: For much of the twentieth century, the Automat was America’s largest restaurant chain, feeding 800,000 people a day.

Every Automat was cavernous and ornately bedecked with mirrors and marble—but there were no waiters.

The tunafish sandwiches and wedges of apple pie were housed in chrome-and-glass coin-operated little boxes. Each item was priced and the glass door sprung open when the proper number of coins was inserted. The last of the Automats, these magnificent “giant vending machines,” closed in 1991. There is a thirty-five-foot section from the original Automat on display at the Smithsonian Institution.

It was magic land for a five year-old, and I was so proud when my mother entrusted me with two nickels to purchase my own slice of cherry pie. Unfortunately, the box was too high and I asked a man for help. I gave him my two nickels, he inserted them and peered down at me for a third as the price was fifteen cents.

It was a crisis too horrible to recall even now. The man was ugly and loud. He said that I was a dreadful little boy. What was my upbringing? He was a childhood dragon come to life. I was too frightened to cry and could only look helplessly to my mother back at our table.

It took days of mother-comforting to help me survive that humiliation.

Fast-forward a decade to my next major humiliation: I was fifteen, making my annual appearance at Aqueduct Racetrack with my father and his racetrack buddies.

It was the final race and we were betting on a long-shot filly named Bright Goldie. The odds on her were 45–1, and I decided to watch the race standing at the rail right on the finish line. The race ended in a virtual dead-heat. The stewards flashed “Photo” on the Tote Board but there was no doubt in my mind. Bright Goldie had won the race by an inch or two and I dashed upstairs to give my father and his friends the wondrous news.

I was Lazarus returning from the dead to tell all: “Our horse won, our horse won.”

It took about ten minutes for the official results. Just as I said, Bright Goldie won, and she rewarded her backers by paying $97 for each $2 bet.

The fifteen minutes of excitement proved too much for this lad. (I was clutching a $5 win ticket in my hand.) Later, my father told me that I passed out cold when the official results actually flashed on the Tote Board.

I revived in just a few seconds, but the episode haunts me still, and provides solid evidence that I’m more at home with bad news than I am with good.

No list of humiliations can be complete without at least one instance of a lover’s heart being shattered by a non-responding object. I was a college freshman, and she was a freckled-faced, brainy type with natural orange colored hair. I could barely breathe when I looked at her. She was kind to me in her fashion, but I had the feeling she was never quite certain of my name.

Yes, I was the one seen carrying her books around campus. I was an appendage, a sort of pet rock seeking any slight attention.

Finally, one day, fortune smiled and she invited me to brunch at her home that Sunday. I had four days to rehearse, four days to select the proper clothes. I memorized the list of the New York Times bestselling books and agonized whether or not to bring along a few poems she had inspired.

Sunday finally came and I took deep breaths before reaching for the door buzzer. From that point on it was all a blur. The eighty-five guests had already arrived and the party was at fever pitch.

My princess breezed by, handed me an apron, pointed to a room filled with dirty dishes, and said: “You’re such a dear. We are desperate for help in the kitchen.”

I never saw my Dulcinea again that day—but there was one indignity still to come: As I started to leave, her younger brother gave me a small tray of leftovers and said, “Blumert, you were great help today and I’m going to recommend you to friends.” A $5 bill was neatly folded on the food tray.

I hated him then, and I was right: Today, he’s a prominent commie professor at an Ivy League school.

As the years passed the humiliations become less frequent. But last year, I was devastated when my family phyician for twenty-five years summarily dismissed me as a patient. I had been loyal and recommended him to others when he was struggling to build his practice.

I was one of his first patients and comforted him during his malpractice suits. My reward—he dumped me (The sordid details of that epic humiliation are available in my article, “I Hate Doctors.”)

The ingrate. He’ll be begging me to come back as a patient, but if you must know, I’ve done just fine without him. Who needed him anyway? This is an age of medical specialty. The Internet provides unlimited access to data in the pursuit of good health. No waiting rooms, no surly receptionists, no crooked insurance companies.

And then three weeks ago the gods conspired against me and I was stricken with the flu. Every human who has walked the earth knows the agony caused by a bug that’s trying to kill you.

Surely, there must be immediate help out there. I started my search at Walgreens.

After eleven purchases at the drug counter, colorful packages that promise to defeat coughs-chills-sore throat-runny nose-fever, I realized that all of these cold and flu medicines are essentially the same.

They are a fraud.

They drug you into an unpleasant stupor, but sleep is fitful and you’ll probably make a mess of things if you are operating heavy equipment. With the passage of time the body will overcome both the drugs and the virus.

“I’m not going to use any of those head cold and flu remedies ever again.

Never,” I moaned.

“Call a doctor!” my wife said.

“I don’t have a doctor,” I responded. “Don’t you remember? He dumped me.”

“Well, people tell me that there are now these new ‘immediate-care’ clinics all over the country.”

After some Yellow Pages research, I selected the medical clinic named:

“WeReleva Your Feva. No appointments necessary. Physicians on Site 24 hours.”

Somehow I felt a humiliating experience coming on.

I dragged myself in, coughing and sputtering. My face was pressed against the glass door waiting for them to turn the lock at opening time.

The receptionist, wearing a Florence Nightingale nurse’s uniform, said, “You have an appointment?”

“Yes.”

“How are you going to pay?”

“Cash.”

“You mean a check cash, card cash, or cash-cash?”

“Cash. Cash. Cash.”

“Please pay now. Getting money from an estate is never easy. By the way, if I catch your flu, you’re in big trouble.”

In the next sixty seconds I was weighed, blood pressure taken, temperature recorded, all without removing my jacket or unbuttoning a button.

I was put in the traditional examination room, only this one had bars on the window. The only thing to read was a crumpled magazine left behind by the last patient: “How to Live the Good Life With a Partial Colon, Part II.”

Suddenly a huge figure blocked the doorway. There he was: the Doctor. He was wearing a white medical tunic studded with military medals on his chest.

“Hello, Doc,” I wheezed. “I’ve got the flu.”

“A few questions, first. Who is your primary physician?”

Well, it was clear he hadn’t read my article, “I Hate Doctors”—so I explained: “My primary doctor dumped me.”

“He dumped you. How come? What were the circumstances?”

“Well . . .”

“Have you considered that possibly it was because of you that he quit medicine?”

“No, I hadn’t considered that.”

“Think back: Why did he dump you?”

“Well, I was sick a couple of times.”

“Sick or malingering?” he snarled.

“Look, all I’m here for is to have you listen to my chest and make sure I’m not getting pneumonia, so give me some real cough medicine with codeine and I’ll be out of your hair.”

It was clear the prescriptions were already written and he gave them to me.

“Fill those prescriptions at the pharmacy in the building. I get a cut.”

In spite of the interrogation and strange bedside manner, he was my kind of a no-nonsense doc.

“Doc,” I said. “You’re my kind of doc, and I’d be proud to call you my family physician.”

“Not so fast, Blumert,” he said. “I’m not taking any new patients, and I’m not comfortable with your secessionist inclinations.”

The same old feeling of rejection returned.

“What do I do? I need a primary physician.”

He pulled out a yellowed, coffee-stained sheet with names. Some were crossed out with scribbled notations like insurance fraud, guilty of criminal negligence, and plain old embezzlement.

“Well, let’s see who’s available here. Ah, here’s Dr. Goldfinger. He will be coming out of Detox this month. The two of you should get along just fine.”

January 11, 2002

THE ANNUAL PHYSICAL EXAM AND OTHER SCAMS

The dialogue was all too familiar:

Blumert: No, I don’t need an appointment with Dr. Kaloofka (see: “I Hate Doctors”). All I do need is for you to call Walgreen’s with a prescription for Vandoors, I don’t recognize your voice, but I’m a long-time patient. Please check your files.

Voice from Hell (V from H): Yes, Mr. Blumert and as long as I have you on the phone, let’s spend a minute bringing your file up-to-date. Here goes:

Are you still a proponent of Midwifery, Health Food stores, Chiropractic and other zany cultlike activities?

Are you still overweight and slovenly?

Blumert: Hold it! I don’t have time for this nonsense. What else is in that file of yours?

V from H: Your file reveals that we have prescribed Vandoors 6 times over the past 8 years. Have you become addicted to Vandoors, Mr. Blumert? We are constantly on the alert for drug abuse. Have you considered seeking help?

Blumert: My dear Miss Who-ever-you-are, Vandoors is a skin ointment which combats warts. I no longer choose to speak to you. Would you kindly ask Dr. Kaloofka to come to the phone immediately.

V from H: Yes, I now see it on your chart. Warts. Tee hee, I’ve never heard of anybody having warts on—

Blumert: Enough! In less than 12 minutes I will be arriving at the doctor’s office.

Have my file ready for me to pick up and if you are still around when I get there, it’s likely I will strangle you with my bare hands.

V from H: Oh, don’t be such a grouch. I was only trying to be friendly. I’ll call Walgreen’s right now and I hope you get rid of those warts. Tee hee. You must laugh out loud every time you think about them.

Blumert: Keep in mind that a physician has a privileged relationship with his patient. That extends to his dizzy receptionist as well. So, just forget about my warts.

V from H: OK, I’ll only tell my husband, I promise. By the way, Dr. Kaloofka has you scheduled for your annual medical check-up on October 9. Remember, no food or water for one week prior to the exam.

Blumert (beaten): I’ll be there.

EPILOUGE

Life is filled with petty indignities as above. To maintain sanity and longevity, one must build defenses: “Know your own worth,” “Brush the cretins off,” “Consider the source,” “Don’t be marginalized by midgets.” (I just made that one up.)

So fortified, I only spent two days in bed after the confrontation with the V from H.

Friends and enemies alike are dazzled with such resiliency.

I must admit, thinking about my scheduled AMC-up, shortened my rehabilitation.

Why was I so submissive in agreeing to it? Is the procedure valid, or just another chunk of mythology that we inherit at birth?

Consumed with the challenge of the project, I set out to learn the origins of the AMC-up.

Predictably, there are competing theories as to how it all happened; I present them to you without bias.

THE ECONOMIC THEORY

It was the winter of 1913, in Troy, New York, and two young physicians were faced with closing down their shared medical practice for lack of patrons.

Dr. Cohen: I have no idea where the patients have gone. Could it be that they are just not getting sick, or maybe they’re all broke and taking their ailments to the Free Clinic?

Dr. Kelly: Well, there’s always a job in the US Army. With 3 or 4 wars on the horizon, they will be creating an abundance of patients for the indefinite future.

Dr. Cohen: No, there has to be a better way. Whenever my father’s wholesale dress business was in trouble, he had a Sale. How can we get customers, oops, make that patients, to fill the Waiting Room? We need the medical equivalent of a Sale.

Dr. Kelly: I’ve got it! Our own patient base is the best source of business.

After my uncle bought his Model T Ford he was told to bring it back to the dealership for regular “check-ups.” He originally paid $440 for the car, but has spent double that to keep it running. Some of the problems were discovered during those routine “check-ups.”

The primitive Cohen-Kelly AMC-up program spread through the medical community like a prairie fire. Soon, Madison Avenue types were writing brilliant copy.

“You had better get an annual medical check-up, or you will die,” was the essence of their message.

After all, it was a time when scientific progress was seen as inexorable. Every disease would be stamped out and life expectancy would be significantly extended.

It was not surprising that the concept of the AMC-up quickly became part of standard medical procedure.

(As a footnote: the two physicians, Cohen and Kelly, prospered. Later on, sadly, Dr. Kelly changed his name and drank himself to death. Cohen became an ambulance driver in the Spanish Civil War and was executed by a Franco firing squad when he refused to discard his red beret.)

THE BENEVOLENT (NON-PROFIT) ORIGINS OF THE AMC-UP

Little is known about the disease Northern Puppick Fever, nor its cure. There is lore that it appeared in the Maine woods during the summer of 1914, killed and then disappeared forever.—Hypochondriac’s Medical Dictionary

A young biologist had just exposed himself to the bite of a Warp Headed Beetle. He faced certain death if his theory was correct; The harmless looking little bug carried Northern Puppick Fever. Sadly, he was right.

Within seven hours the young man was dead, but there was the hint of a smile on his face and his dead eyes were frozen on a note in his hand.

We will never know the exact wording of the note, but old-timers I interviewed advised that the lumber company doctors, following the heroic biologist’s instruction, instituted an AMC-up.

We don’t know what it was they looked for, nor what they prescribed if they found it.

We do know that the AMC-up made Northern Puppick Fever disappear forever. And, monetary profit played no part in the drama.

Benevolence, as a motive to save lives by using AMC-ups, has also become part of medical ritual. unfortunately, most of the non-profit research comes from Government laboratories, or those labs under contract to the state.

Granted, there are some really decent folks who advocate AMC-ups to keep people alive and healthy, but I’m perfectly comfortable with “Profit” as the driving force behind the Annual Medical Check-up.

The constant risk is that such a “check-up” becomes economically viable ONLY IF SOME DEFICIENCY IS REVEALED.

In another time, the guy who pumped gas often found that the hoses under your hood were frayed and, for safety sake, needed to be replaced.

As a consumer, there are times I’ll buy the AMC-up, at other times not. As always, the consumer must maintain constant vigilance.

The concept of an “annual check-up” is a compelling merchandising concept. So compelling that I am creating Blumert’s Annual Gold Check-up.

My Gold Check-up will scientifically analyze the individual’s economic circumstance; it will explore his psychological make-up. Vital questions will be answered: Is it possible there is a genetic family link to gold? And, most important, how much brain damage has been caused by the pollution of the “war on gold”?

Once the Check-up is completed, the patient and Gold Dealer consult about the report’s findings. Finally, the prognosis and the recommended prescription to achieve and maintain proper Gold health.

I have a strong premonition that every Annual Gold Checkup will indicate that the patient is woefully deficient and in need of some gold coins, NOW.

Please call our offices to schedule an appointment for your Annual Gold Check-up.

August 30, 2004

KEEP THAT KNIFE AWAY FROM MY CHEST

This article is being written at Dr. Robert Cathcart’s chelation facility in Los Altos, California. I sit in Lounge chair #4 and this is my 23rd session out of 30. Please forgive any typos as the IV is in my right arm and I’m writing left-handed. (Note: my pal and Lew’s Tom Dorman also does chelation, but in Seattle.)

Having a cardiologist as a friend can be rather comforting. If you’re dining together in a restaurant, and you keel over, there he is, your cardio-pal, kneeling over you-no teenage ambulance drivers-no strangers probing your vital parts. This is what friends are for.

Actually, I’m twice blessed: My cardiologist buddies are husband and wife. She heads up the Coronary Care Unit at San Francisco General Hospital, and he is a successful practicing cardiologist in San Mateo County.

I must admit—aside from the frustration of dealing with their neoconservative politics—there was a secure feeling when I was with my “cardio-docs.” It was like driving through the worst part of town in a Sherman tank.

That was until recently.

“You’re overweight, you don’t get sufficient exercise, blah, blah and more blah and it’s time you quit those cigars,” he said. “I’m scheduling you for the works—we will start with a stress test and then, blah, blah and more blah.”

He’s fatter, more sedentary than I and wears an awful hairpiece. As to the cigars, he never noticed that I stopped smoking years ago when those delicious Cubans plummeted in quality becoming as unsmokeable as the garbage from the Dominican Republic and other points in the Caribbean. (For this sin alone, Castro should burn in hell.)

But I digress.

While he droned on, all I could think of was that dreaded “rite of passage.” A straight line, without detour, starting with the stress-test, next an angiogram, leading almost inevitably to Open Heart Surgery.

“No,” I said to myself, more out of fear than conviction. “I’m starting chelation therapy instead.

For those of you unfamiliar with chelation, I’ll leave the detailed explanation to experts like our own Bill Sardi, but following is a short description from the Internet:

Chelation Therapy consists of slow-drip IV injections of EDTA (ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid) a synthetic amino acid, combined with aerobic exercise, special diet, and no smoking. The word refers to the alleged removal of plaque and calcium deposits from arteries and veins by EDTA.

I have scrupulously avoided my cardio-pals since I started chelation therapy four months ago. The instant I set foot in the world of anti-orthodoxy, my friendship with the cardio-docs was in jeopardy.

But I could only avoid Cardio-doc for so long—and the inevitable chance encounter occurred at the local sporting goods store. He was examining traps for large animals, and I was having small success finding waterproof boots that were truly waterproof.

The snippy clerk darkened my mood when she advised: “Why don’t you forget about waterproof boots, stay home and just keep your feet dry.” “Oh yeah’,” I quickly retorted.

The deep voice of my soon to be ex-cardio pal boomed: “Well, Blumert, your chelation therapy certainly hasn’t improved your wit.”

What follows is the transcription of the last exchange between Blumert and the cardio-doc:

Cardio-doc: “You realize that the entire medical establishment views chelation as witchcraft. If there’s any “leeching” of calcium that takes place, it will be from your skeleton, not from your arteries.”

Blumert: “The medical establishment has been wrong before, and there’s lots of testimony from thousands of folks who have been helped.”

Cardio-doc: “It’s all anecdotal, means nothing.

Blumert: “But I actually feel better.”

Cardio-doc: “No, you don’t feel better.”

Blumert: “But I actually do.”

Cardio-doc: “You only think you feel better. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t count. Only double-blind research studies count.”

Blumert: “Oh? Do they use double blind studies with open-heart surgery? Is there a control group?”

“Do you open everybody’s chest but perform the surgery on only half the subjects?

“When do you tell the folks from the control group that their chest was opened but that no open-heart surgery was performed?

“What happens if years later the placebo group does better than the open-heart surgery group?

“How in heaven’s name would you find subjects to participate in so absurd a study?”

Cardio-doc: “A typical, specious Blumert-libertarian argument.”

Blumert (now on a roll): “Furthermore, isn’t it sad the average working fellow cannot afford $100 per chelation session which totals a bit over $3,000, but a $40,000 open-heart surgical procedure is within almost everybody’s reach. I’ll respond to that myself.

“The insurance company does not accept chelation as a legitimate procedure, and therefore doesn’t cover it, but there’s not a health insurance policy that doesn’t embrace every technique used in open-heart surgery.”

Cardio-doc: “Hmff. That’s because insurance companies recognize what is valid and what is not.”

Blumert: “And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

As the Cardio-doc left the sporting goods store he carried no large animal traps and I failed in my search for waterproof boots.

I wondered if he would ever talk to me again.

If chelation helps me, I’ll happily share my experience with him. Poor guy, he has been immersed in heart surgery and the like all of his professional life. On most issues he thinks clearly, but when it comes to Medicine the roadblocks appear.

I’ll wager that you know physicians just like him.

It’s basic libertarian philosophy that the individual is free to seek out any path to good health without interference from regulatory agencies, governmental or private. (AMA.) This view is so entrenched that I have never heard any disagreement among libertarians.

In the struggle for liberty, I have shared the trenches with the folks from the world of alternative health-but this time I was not dealing with abstractions. My life is at stake.

Why is the establishment so venomous toward chelation?

The statistics are overwhelming that, at least, chelation doesn’t hurt anybody, and if it delays some folks from rushing into surgery, what’s wrong with that?

The war against chelation continues. A recent Canadian study indicated chelation was ineffectual, although the sampling was small and some chelation advocates questioned the procedures used in the study.

The worst news for physicians who use chelation in their practice came several weeks ago when they learned that their malpractice insurance was canceled. All sorts of theories explained the action of the carriers. Some suggested ugly motives on their part. Others were more understanding.

At this writing the Chelation Docs have been unable to find an alternative insurance carrier.

It’s hard to predict what the immediate future holds for these courageous doctors.

February 20, 2002

SAVED FROM THE SURGEON’S BLADE

Having rotator-cuff shoulder surgery isn’t all bad. It puts you among an elite of macho types who come to the fraternity through power weightlifting, hurling a baseball in excess of 90 miles-an-hour, or missing too many right-hooks in the boxing ring.

Four years ago I earned my credential by pushing open the door to the men’s room in my office building with my shoulder. The subsequent experience was a horror: constant, throbbing pain, sleepless nights, endless fog induced by pain pills, and the trauma of the surgery itself. One nurse likened it to a shotgun blast to the shoulder.

The subsequent physical therapy is conducted by people who seem sustained by the pain they inflict. And when all is done, the victim may recover 80 percent of his range of motion, but almost never without the distant, dull reminder of residual pain.

The nightmare had almost faded when late in February, racing up a stairway, I missed a step, lost my balance, and instinctively reached out to break my fall. I heard the same sickening sound, experienced the same dreadful, sharp pain, and knew beyond doubt that I had done it again, this time to the other shoulder.

My despair was profound. Knowing what was ahead of me, I could hardly face going through it again, especially now four years older. Yet this time, the pain was worse, the sleepless nights longer, and the pain pills less effective. Before I knew it, I was back on the same course, to the same hospital, the same operating table, the same surgeon, and probably that same shotgun.

Enter Jim Foley, friend for 40 years, former Pan Am 747 captain now winding down his career with United. Jim never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t adopt, a revisionist theory he found unreasonable, nor an alternative health procedure he did not accept. He urged me to call Dr. Tom Dorman before I “entered the surgical trap.”

“Look,” I said, “Tearing a rotator cuff is like breaking a bone. It’s got to be repaired, and surgery is the only plausible approach.”

Foley wasn’t finished. Next I received a call from Dr. Art Robinson, brilliant biologist, former head of the Linus Pauling Institute, and another friend of many years. Art’s message was a testimonial. He had faced and avoided disk surgery, and also begged that I visit Dr. Tom Dorman.

The next 36 hours were the worst. Jim Foley arranged a phone consultation with Dr. Dorman, and although my recollections were dim, my pessimism persisted. The doctor was kind and solicitous, asked me some pointed questions, and encouraged me to make the trek to Seattle.

The flight was a low point, as the change in air pressure made the pain more excruciating. I later learned I had the last seat on the last Sunday flight, intending to arrive early at Dr. Dorman’s Tahoma Clinic Monday morning. I spent the dreadful night at the hotel sitting in a straight-backed chair so the throbbing was held to a minimum.

The next morning, on the way to Dr. Dorman’s clinic, I wished I were back in San Francisco, headed for my inevitable destiny on the operating table.

I had spoken with Dr. Dorman several times through the years on shared political interests, never professionally. I knew a bit about him. He’d been born in Kenya of a British colonial family. Many of these folk left Africa when the Mau Mau’s took over. Most scurried to South Africa or back to the UK. Tom’s family, being Jewish, had the option of going to Israel. There he became a decorated paratrooper. Later, he studied medicine in Scotland, then settled in the US.

With his academic record, success in the US medical establishment was a lock, and Tom was headed for a metropolitan hospital or a chair at a major university. Nope, not Tom. The medical establishment was governed by too many charlatans, too heavy a bureaucracy, and too much deception.

Now, at 60, he’s a medical maverick, scorned by the established order. Sound familiar?

Back to Blumert. The clinic Tom works out of is no plush, downtown facility. Tahoma Clinic is in Kent, Washington, a semi-industrial Seattle suburb. But there, Tom is free to practice his own brand of medicine.

I’d never met Tom Dorman face-to-face, but I was not surprised to find him meticulous in dress, manner, and speech, his clipped British colonial accent enchanting.

We chatted for a moment about our mutual libertarian bona fides, then moved to his office. His fingers deftly scanned my shoulder, and the muscles and tendons did not evade his touch.

“That’s good,” he commented almost to himself. “This won’t take three visits. One should do it.”

I listened with disbelief.

“Let’s get to it,” he said. The next five minutes were almost surreal. He pushed and probed around the unhappy shoulder until he found the spot he was looking for. First, a little air jet of anaesthetic, then an injection and about 30 seconds of discomfort before the magic elixir spread into the damaged area.

“Okay,” he said, “the anaesthetic will allow pain-free movement, but that will be temporary. Tonight you will probably be in pain again until what I injected takes over. You should then start to feel better.

I tentatively rotated the shoulder and the pain was almost gone. What a relief, if only temporary.

“Doc, I also have a problem with my right elbow. I suppose it’s a tennis elbow I earned by dragging around bags of silver coins through the years. What do you think?”

This time his fingers were a blur, the magic pain point quickly located, and the rapid-fire injection completed in an instant.

He then told me to call in a few days. “Hold it,” I said. “What about torn rotator cuffs? What about the notion that they must be surgically repaired?

“Nonsense,” he replied. “You have bursitis.” He then proceeded to recite the anatomy of the shoulder and the implausibility that anything was torn or severed.

But what about those $40 million athletes and their torn rotator cuffs? “Well,” he answered, “I supposed they are tended to by $2 million orthopedic surgeons.”

“You mean,” I shouted, “it’s rotator-cuff mythology?”

“Good choice of words, Burt. Look, you know about the corruption and lies in government. It’s no different in the government’s approved medicine.”

“What did you inject me with, Doc?” I think he said something about a cortisone equivalent, but frankly, my dears, I don’t give a damn. As I write this, it’s been weeks since my visit, the elbow is absolutely cured. Bags of silver coins, anyone?

My shoulder is almost normal. No more pills, no sleepless nights. Maybe I’ll have to go back to Seattle if the pain returns, but I don’t think so. One thing is for sure. I canceled my appointment with the operating room.

I only have one regret: When recounting these events to JoAnn Rothbard, she was very happy for me and said, “Murray would have loved this story.” Murray, that great skeptic of establishment medicine, would indeed have loved it.

November 25, 2006

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Dr. Thomas A. Dorman, Paracelsus Clinic: td@paracelsusclinic.com

DID HE SAY, “A FOUR HOUR ERECTION?”

The Hollywood of my youth didn’t contaminate their product with four-letter words.

It was the 1960s, and I was at the movies with my mother.

And there it was: THE dreaded four-letter word coming from the screen, resonating around the theatre.

I don’t recall the film, but it was a horrid moment, THAT profane word in a movie, and my mother sitting right next to me.

Panicked, I felt like sliding under the seat—did she hear it? Maybe she heard it, but didn’t know what the word meant. After all, this pure creature was my mother.

I admit it. I come from a different time. All aspects of sexuality were governed by, “Don’t ask . . . don’t tell . . . don’t talk about it. Don’t even think about it.”

Not only were those of “deviant” sexuality confined to a closet, almost every male 11 to 17 had his own version of a closet.

My first sexual text was a dog-eared National Geographic Magazine featuring photos of bare-breasted tribal women, which passed from one sub-teen to another.

My parents would sooner discuss the insane uncle who lived in our attic than the specifics of procreation.

I don’t recall the word “sex” uttered in a classroom until high-school biology, and then the reproduction they covered was confined mostly to the plants of the planet.

The bright kids, however, began to uncover wondrous excerpts about the taboo subject from “banned” books like God’s Little Acre and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, but those of us who grew up in the 30s and 40s were generally so ignorant on the subject that had it not been for the power of the human sex drive, the species might have died out—at least in my neighborhood.

By now, you’ve got the picture. I’m a prude, or worse. The so-called Sexual Revolution of the 1960s didn’t even budge me. I remain unnerved by the way sex is dealt with in the schoolroom, and the boardroom. The only place it belongs is in the bedroom and even then, don’t provide me with the details.

I squirm when I witness sexuality in film or theatre, especially when it’s designed to shock or arouse. I’ll admit to sharing an off-color joke now and then, but never with eroticism as the theme.

No, you won’t find me on any picket lines. I state my position by flipping the dial or not buying a ticket—but I’ll join you on the barricades if you’re fighting government censorship.

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a new assault on our sensibilities.

It all began with Viagra, and Bob Dole on network TV, often in prime time.

Most of us laughed, some were repelled, and others too uncomfortable to even discuss it. The Leno and Letterman writers had a field day, and I suspect that the supposedly staid Midwesterner Dole was the subject of a million jokes at water-coolers around the nation.

Soon the chuckles faded and the commercials became more graphic. Words we never read in print became “household” in TV sitcoms.

Here was the same old tactic: repeat the four-letter word often enough and it no longer shocks. Thoughts once private and personal become obscene. What was sacred becomes profane.

A desensitized herd is easier to corral, but don’t get me started on that subject.

Back to Bob Dole, the new sex symbol, and the TV ads. They implied the nation was in the midst of an epidemic. Actually, two epidemics. “Male impotency” was the first, a problem solved by science. The consumer has the choice: chemicals requiring prescriptions or over-the-counter natural compounds.

The second “epidemic” is based on the “myth” that “size doesn’t matter.” In one TV ad, a deli clerk eyes a beautiful waitress, then turns to the camera, picks up a large salami, and tells you, the viewer, that size DOES matter and that just one dose a day will change your life. (Initially, their claims for “male enhancement” seemed based on hocus pocus, but lately, they, too, suggest that “science” plays a role in their remedy.)

The variety of brands fill a counter at Walgreens: Viagra, Vigorex, Cialis, Levitra, Enzyte, to name a few.

Enzyte produced a cartoon-like series of TV commercials featuring real people, including their own, “Bob.” Since discovering the wonders of Enzyte, Bob has a grin frozen on his face. His matronly wife stands in the background of each episode gazing adoringly at the new Bob. His friends and associates are consumed with envy.

Cialis, the latest entry in the impotence drug market, runs the most graphic ads. Promoted by the biotech company ICOS and drug giant Eli Lilly, Cialis was late in coming to market. (Viagra had a five-year head start.)

The FDA requires that all negative side-effects for all drugs be listed in advertising. The listed side-effects for Cialis are predictable and boring: Headaches, upset stomach, nasal congestion, backache, muscle ache AND then comes the shocker: The voice over warns YOU about the possibility of suffering a FOUR-HOUR erection.

Although a rare event, the Voice advises, you’d better seek immediate medical attention.

“Did he say four-hour erections?” I asked my wife.

“Blumert, why don’t you switch to C-Span? I always worry when you get interested in commercials.”

It isn’t often that I’m visited by my muse. She shows up so infrequently these days that I can hardly claim her as my own. I don’t think she likes my politics.

But this time, she magically appeared and swept me away to the Emergency Room at the County Hospital. She was at my side through the following encounter.

(If Editor Rockwell deems this final scene too vulgar for LRC readers and my essay ends abruptly here, e-mail me and I’ll forward the tasteless conclusion to you. If not, read on.)

Scene: Time: 2 a.m. Emergency Room, Mills Hospital, San Mateo.

ERD (Emergency Room Doc): “What seems to be your problem, Blumert? The Admissions Clerk says you are suffering the side effects of Cialis. Is that correct?”

Blumert: “Yes, Doc. I took one Cialis tablet 24 hours ago and I’ve got a pressing problem.”

ERD: “Let’s see, the PDA says the side effects could range from a headache to nasal congestion. Which symptom is yours?”

Blumert: “None of those, I fear. For the past 3 hours, I’ve had an . . . Doc, could you please ask the nurse to leave the room. Uh, well, since about 11 p.m. I’ve got an . . .

ERD: “Stop mumbling. You mean, ‘an erection.’ How interesting. I haven’t seen that reaction to Cialis as yet. Face the table, please, and hold this tray. Let’s take a look.”

Blumert: “What are you doing with that fork, Doc?”

ERD: “Fork? I was having lunch when you came in and I was about to sample the coleslaw. Don’t panic, please. Here, I’m putting the fork away.”

Blumert: “What do I do? I have important people to meet with tomorrow. This could be an awful embarrassment.”

ERD: “The way I size things up, Blumert, nobody would even notice. Go home and take a cold bath.”

Humiliated, my muse and I slink away. That Doc was certainly unsympathetic and rude. I hope he needs to buy a gold coin some day.

July 14, 2004

GETTING OLD IS NO BARGAIN IN ANY CULTURE

I know I’ve had too much when the Thunderbird Industrial Red the host bought at $4 per gallon begins to taste like a rare French Bordeaux.

Like most cocktail receptions, the idle chatter around me was typical, but that all changed when the young woman smiled and said, with obvious respect and affection, “Mr. Blumert, I’m so pleased to see that you’re still around.”

When she realized her unfortunate choice of words, the poor thing was mortified and ready to die on the spot.

Those close by pretended they’d heard nothing, and I should have followed their lead, but not me. I had to save the day, “Well, I really died two years ago, but I haven’t had the good sense to lay down.”

Nobody laughed and I was astonished to see my wife able to roll her eyes with such intensity.

This was not the first occasion where my advancing years had caused discomfort for others.

There was the time I showed up a day early for a dinner party. (The hostess was very kind about the mix-up and insisted upon fixing me a ham and cheese sandwich.)

My wife says that I have worn the story out, retelling it to the same people at a hundred dinner parties ever since.

She exaggerates, and fails to mention that these folks are also ageing, that they don’t remember much, and that they laugh each time I tell the story as though it were the first.

If you need hard evidence that not everybody is loving and patient with the aged, observe how abrupt and mean-spirited some family members become as Grandpa’s hearing fails. (When I lost patience with my own father’s refusal to use a hearing aid, he responded, “So you think I’m deaf, huh? Well, drop a coin and see who’s first to hear it hit the floor.”)

Some sociologists believe that you learn a great deal about a culture by examining their attitudes toward the aged. Some societies come out better than others, but, I assure you, the elderly have a tough time of it in EVERY culture.

It doesn’t matter how lofty the accomplishments of a person’s life, if they live long enough, eventually, they will encounter disrespect.

Worse, live into your 90’s and you run the risk of outright cruelty at the hands of the “low-level” types who comprise the work force in many “retirement” institutions.

Even those expensive, “Assisted Living Residences” that look like a country club hide dirty little secrets of cruelties visited upon helpless old folk.

All of which set me to thinking about how different societies in different times dealt with their old and sick.

In an earlier, more gracious time, nineteenth century American composer Stephen Foster (1826–1864) sentimentalized about, “The Old Folks at Home”:

Way down upon de Swanee ribber,

Far, far away,

Dere’s wha my heart is turning ebber,

Dere’s wha de old folks stay.

All up and down de whole creation,

Sadly I roam,

Still longing for de old plantation,

And for de old folks at home.

Through the nineteenth century in America, the burden of caring for the elderly was a family matter. For those without family support, society looked to charity for assistance. The neighborhood church was usually the focal point for such help.

In the early years of the twentiethth century, in many American cities, the churches began to provide institutional support for the elderly. Almost every religious denomination had its version of a “Home For the Aged.”

A close friend was a career social worker with Catholic Family Services in the San Francisco Bay area. He was one of those tireless professionals who genuinely helped real folks dealing with life’s real problems.

One of Bill’s fellow workers called him, “A priest without collar or credential serving those who didn’t attend a regular church.”

During the 1980s things changed. It seemed like the private charities were having “jurisdictional” problems with various government agencies. The “private sector” social workers did not have a chance and they were losing ground to the government “commissars” by the minute.

It wasn’t much later that Bill quit social work. I recall his comment that, “when the elderly were designated as ‘Senior CITIZENS’, their lives were doomed to domination by the state, just as what happened to the ‘citizens’ during the French Revolution.” (Everybody was called, “citizen,” even as your head was lopped off.)

A visit to Google and the San Francisco phone books reveal that the Private Sector of charities, although shrunken, still exist and do good work, BUT the bloated leviathan of state agencies will smother them until they are extinct.

There are optimists out there who look to advances in science and medicine to alleviate the pain and misery of being old. I wish I could share the view that the market, through science, will create “Golden Years” for the elderly, but I wouldn’t bet a dime on it. Not as long as the bureaucrats infect the entire system.

Well, is there anywhere in the world where the old are revered and treated with respect? I don’t think so.

The Chinese are supposed to dote on their aged. Maybe they did a few dynasties ago, but I fear they are just as callous with the aged as their occidental counterparts. At least that’s the way it seems in San Francisco.

I doubt if anybody really believes that the Eskimos abandon their elderly on a chunk of ice. It’s a heartless piece of mythology, but at the center of it, is there an underlying integrity?

After all, the folks they deposit on the ice are old, unproductive, sick, and not long for this world. It seems pointless to expend scarce resources on them. Resources that can be better used elsewhere. (Or so it seemed when I was a young Randian.)

“Your piece is a downer, Blumert,” chided my wife. “People don’t want to hear about getting old, getting sick and dying. Lighten up, or Rockwell will ‘deep-six’ it.

“Don’t forget he wouldn’t take your calls for three months after that article you did on ‘The Inca Indians and Their Influence on Suicide in the West’.”

Well, as I always say, “When reality is too grim, try fiction.”

In the 1937 Frank Capra film, Lost Horizon, the world was introduced to Shangri-La.

Robert Conway, played by Ronald Colman, leads a group of plane crash survivors from certain death in the frigid mountains of Tibet to a perfect valley called Shangri-La.

Shangri-La is paradise, but eventually we learn that the place has its problems. I won’t spoil the movie for you by telling everything, but I can say that Lost Horizon presents the best fictional example of a society dealing with ageing by putting it on “hold.”

It just so happens that my favorite Star Trek episode, “The Menagerie,” Episode 16, Season 1, takes a different approach. This Gene Roddenberry masterpiece solves the problem of ageing and other disasters through a combination of science and mysticism.

In “The Menagerie,” former Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike is severely injured from exposure to delta rays. The Captain’s mind is prisoner to his broken body.

Mr. Spock had served under Pike for many years and at the risk of being charged with mutiny, is determined to bring Pike to Talos 4, a planet off-limits to Federation spacecraft.

The Talosians, after losing a war several thousand years earlier, developed illusion and telepathy to a remarkable degree.

The plot is intricate, but Spock knows that the Talosians have the ability through illusion to put Captain Pike “back together.”

The court martial committee exonerates Mr. Spock and Captain Pike is left on Talos, finally free of his disfigured body, to live a perfect life of illusion.

Good science fiction puts me in a reflective mood. What would a life of illusion on Talos be like, I wondered?

My reverie was penetrated by my wife’s pronouncement that, “There are two people at the front door asking for Blumert. They look like Eskimos and are talking about a reservation you have somewhere in the Bering Sea. What’s that all about? And, what shall I tell them?”

It’s clear that I have enemies on the “Eskimo Ice-Floe Selection Committee.” Tell them I’ve already booked the Motel 6 in Shangri-La and to buzz-off.

December 20, 2004