They are all mean people who suck and are more interested in operational billing departments than health care delivery. Plus I just don't want to go. My favorite joke lately is that it will be more dignified to just die in the back yard before submitting my precious flesh to those horrible, awful, self righteous un helpful nasty people in the medical profession.(rant, rave, fume, expostulate)

I'm glad my mother and father both wasted their lives in the medical profession.

Wait? what? People don't tip?? I always wonder if I under or over tip, but NO tip? WTF? So, what is proper tip for delivery?

When I was delivering drugs I went to three towns. One was very wealthy, one was average/mixed, one was very poor.

The first were almost all on account and only one time did I ever get a tip. The second were a mix of account and cash and I generally got tipped. The third were a mix of public assistance (so they didn't pay cash either) and cash and I was NEVER not tipped in that town. People would dig in their couch cushions to tip me.

As it was unfolding I was giving the first town the benefit of the doubt for a long time since they were just signing a sheet and didn't have their wallets involved in the transaction. The same was true for the families on assistance as well, however, and they would apologize for keeping me waiting while they sent a kid to grab a coin jar or started digging through coat pockets.

I don't know if it said anything about human nature, but it certainly said something about who had ever worked for tips.

Too bad Katie Bee was never treated by Drew's folks. I bet it would have been win all around.

Morning, all. Trying to decide whether to go to my physio appt or not. MOving around might help me feel better, or it might really not. On the other hand, the hospital cafeteria does great breakfasts.

Katerina, ~ma for doctor appt. I can relate to the fear (which I think is hard for some people to understand - that we're not doctor-bashing, but that we've been hurt, and last out when we have to see them in fear of more hurt). I hope your new doc is a good one. There are good ones out there.

Drew, here's hoping you're starting to feel better.

Car bomb in Northern Ireland. Horrible. Praying the cycle of violence doesn't start up again.

Car bomb in Northern Ireland. Horrible. Praying the cycle of violence doesn't start up again.

Wow. It's been a while now, hasn't it?

Too bad Katie Bee was never treated by Drew's folks. I bet it would have been win all around.

Dad was a pathologist so was very often the bearer of very bad news. He probably would have been hated too.

It used to take a certain quality of person to go into a medical specialty that laymen consider, well, icky. Pathology, oncology, proctology.

A neighbor was an orthopedic resident, and in fact treated StY for a slight clubfoot in his first year. He mentioned that he would have loved to be a pediatrician, but it was two more years of school, and his folks had subsidized his education long enough, he had a family and it was time to get to work. I mused that it must be very hard to be a pediatrician, because it must hurt terribly when there was nothing you could do. He nodded. "But compared to the difference you can make in the vast majority of lives--it's an amazing profession to practice."

I think the surge in litigation, the incorporation of medical care and the regimentation and rules that surround the practice of medicine today remove the practicioner--particularly the MD--from meaningful contact with hir patients, and diminish the realization that these are people, with full lives and people who love and depend on them.

And I think rather than going into a profession to be of service, a lot of students go into medicine for the status, and the income. The nature of the profession--or rather, the nature of the corporately managed profession--has changed, to the point that "service" is often an unfamiliar idea.

Or so it seems to me.

Drew, I'm sorry you feel your family are being attacked and maligned. And I'm sorry that so many of us fat people feel like we are under attack when dealing with medical professionals.

More Ryan photos! They start here, with a 1st birthday party: [link]

Picnic baby: [link]

Chilling at my brother Keiran's: [link]

Invasion of the rellies! [link]

In today's instalment of 'Wake Up With Fry and Laurie', Hugh has a bandaged head.