From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Dr.'s Andrew Chung and Steven Harris - EXCELLENT CONTRIBUTORS to 
	Humanity
Date: 17 Feb 1999 09:06:21 GMT

In <36ca6c99.8203170@news.cadvision.com>
YOURSHOESwinklerj@cadvision.com. (Jay Winkler) writes:

>I predict that someday these two humanitarians will receive a very
>prestigious award recognizing the help they have given others.


    Why thank you, and I'm glad you think so.  However, this is not the
way the universe works.  Rather, one is generally gently punshished for
one's "good deeds," (ie, altruistic deeds) naturally because one has by
definition spent time on them, instead of bettering one's own lot.
That's the road to bitterness.  I remember that fact, and live
accordingly.  Which is to say, I live my life mostly a day at a time,
and try to keep my rewards and vacations ever caught up.  The idea
being that whenever I reach the end-- which, you never know, could be
any time-- I won't have much owing or owed.  Or much experience I
wanted to have, and missed.  Since, as an agnostic, I very much suspect
that the books will have to balance then, because after that, nothing
will survive of me, except for those parts of my thought I manage to
infect the world with.  An perhaps my frozen corpse if the cryonics
team isn't too crazy, drugged, or fagged out.   Hopefully, when all is
said and done, the world will be just a TAD better overall, than when I
found it.  But about like picking up one or two of the previous
occupant's beer cans at a campsite-- no more.  More than that, and you
start to feel like the Park Service should be paying you.

    So. I'm paid in many kinds of intangibles and get, on average, as
much from being here as it costs me.  Although, on some Guidospam days,
I feel the mainspring of of the universe winding up just a bit in the
direction of "sucks more than not," on other days things are fun, and
we convince somebody who's going to try to drink 5 gallons in 24 hours
on a bet, that buying dinner would be better than being the subject of
a coroner's investigation.  Or I get one more dig in at the FDA for
being such controlling twits, and help others to understand what they
are missing out on because of the FDA, in terms of medical progress.
It evens out.  Net converstation is infinitely more rewarding than
passively watching TV, or even reading many kinds of books.  Or talking
informally to any one person.  "Conversation maketh the ready man;
reading matheth the whole man; writing maketh the exact man."  A guy
who died from stuffing snow in a frozen chicken once said that, too.

   There's nothing like the net to help you lose your conservativism.
Things change.  OH MY GOD, say my colleagues.  "You give out what could
be construed as advice?"   Well, yes.   And we'll see more of it.  Once
upon a time a dozen years ago, I sat at a party with a prescription
pad, and wrote anybody who wanted one, a scrip to buy Nicoret gum.
Some professional colleages were horrified.  You haven't established a
doctor-patient relationship!  They're strangers!  They could have heart
disease!  You don't know what will happen to these people!  "Nothing
that won't happen worse if they don't quit," I said.  "I think they
ought to sell this stuff over the counter, anyway."  My colleages were
shocked at my immorality.  My stupidity.  My arrogance.

    Well, the world changes.  In 10 years you'll be able to buy
*Prozac* over the counter--- it's probably not as scary as treating
what you hope isn't a deep stomach ulcer with Tagamet HB, or breeding
super yeast with that OTC cream for candidal itch.  In 100 years the
concept of mind altering drug and electronic interface will be so
intertwined that the concept of over the counter *drug* won't even
apply.  And genetic evolution will have long since become a matter of
cultural evolution-- what phenotype's the fashion this year?  Get used
to it.  As for the mind altering drug, some of that drug is now.  Some
of it is here.  On the net.

                                      Tim Leary

From: David Rind <rind@enterprise.bidmc.harvard.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Ignorant Steve B. Harris
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 10:44:54 -0500

guidonospam wrote:
>      People tend to flame Stevie because most of us tend to think his
> medical license is non-existant or numbered "007", licensed to kill.

What's with the royal "we" here?  Dr. Harris is clearly an MD (there's
plenty of evidence that's been posted showing this).  He also seems
more knowledgeable about more areas of medicine than almost anyone
I've ever dealt with.  He makes occasional mistakes, but admits them,
and he justifies most things he writes with primary literature.  What
exactly, Dr. Guidotti, have you done to inspire similar confidence
among readers of sci.med?

--
David Rind
rind@enterprise.bidmc.harvard.edu

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.cardiology,alt.activism,talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: Resident Training Costs and Subsidies (was: The Patients' Bill of  
	Rights (was Backlash against HMOs: a declaration of war)
Date: 24 Apr 1999 08:44:08 GMT

In <37217B53.B715F544@cs.uoregon.edu> Bret Wood
<bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu> writes:
>
>
>
>"Steven B. Harris" wrote:
>>
>
>>     I'm glad to know that researchers are more intelligent than mere
>> M.D.'s, since I spend more than half my time doing basic medical
>> research.  And I'm an M.D. also, which must make me twice as smart,
>> hey?
>
>Wow, you're amazing.  You teach medicine to family practitioners, yet
>your specialty is geriatrics.  And you have time to do surgery on
>humans _and_ animals, AND you spend OVER HALF your time doing basic
>medical research, yet you are one of the most active posters to
>sci.med.  Do you ever sleep, or are you just God?
>
>-Bret Wood
>-bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu
>


    I am not God.  I sleep but watch no TV.  I spend far less time on
the internet than you seem to.  I type fast.

    I do teach geriatrics to family practice residents.  Odd as that
may sound, it's quite necessary.  They also learn pediatrics from
pediatricians, gynecology from gynecologists, etc.

    Since my current animal research involves doing a lot of cardiac
bypass on dogs, I've gotten to do a fair amount of surgery on animals.
And to have seen some of the best veterinary surgeons in action (one of
our teachers ran a company which tested heart valves in dogs).

   I'm an internist and geriatrician, but I did get the usual surgical
experience in medical school, which doesn't involve use of the scalpel,
but certainly allows a lot of observation at close hand in many
situations and many institutions (when you're not holding retractors
from under somebody's armpit, anyway).  Later, moonlighting in
industrial clinics, urgent care centers, small ERs, and so on, I
learned to do minor surgery and repair, and have done a fair amount of
it in the past.

   Remember, I didn't claim to be a surgeon.  Only to have done surgery
in a wide variety of settings, and seen it done.  I've done far more
animal surgery than most human surgeons, and I've certainly done more
human surgery than nearly all vetrinary surgeons.  So, yes, I know
whereof I speak in comparing them.

                                         Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,misc.consumers.frugal-living,talk.politics.medicine,
	sci.med
Subject: Re: Medicare and Bret's Reality (was: Disappointed and confused--don't
Date: 30 Apr 1999 11:10:07 GMT

In <37298358.D03BBAAE@cs.uoregon.edu> Bret Wood
<bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu> writes:
>
>
>
>"Steven B. Harris" wrote:
>>
>>    Golly, thanks.  But I suppose that on Usenet I'd rather be mean but
>> not pointless than pointless but not mean.
>
>Too bad you don't have the skills to be _both_ at the same time.
>Just because you can make a point doesn't mean you're doing something
>positive.  Is it better to "win" an argument by intimidating your
>opponents into submission, or to perhaps come to understand their
>position and reach a middle ground?


   My "opponents" are sometimes hopeless cases.  In that case, debate
mostly benefits onlookers.  When my opponents come up with something
good, it benefits me.

   As for skills, the question is irrelevent.  "I don't give em Hell,"
quoth Harry, "I just tell the truth and my opponents think it's Hell."
And some of the time one finds one must be mean to mean people.  Just
as one must be intolerant of intolerant people.  It's not a luxury but
a necessity in this world.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,misc.consumers.frugal-living,talk.politics.medicine,
	sci.med
Subject: Re: Steve's Dishonesty (Was: Medicare and Bret's Reality)
Date: 1 May 1999 00:34:48 GMT

In <7gc7ak$sgp$2@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net> "mjdgdc"
<mjdgdc@worldnet.att.net> writes:

>Dr. Harris,
>
>References to Bret's illness, regardless of the type, as a means of
>jest, pointed or not, are profoundly unprofessional.


    Comment: Only if I knew, as a professional secret, what he had.
I'm afraid that if he comes here with bum hanging out in the public
wind, I am allowed as a citizen to comment on his nakedness without a
professional opinion being expressed or implied.

    Again, I'm not here in a professional capacity, and you-all are not
my patients.  No more than you personally are here to represent
chiropractic, build up your liability, or manipulate spines.  As I've
said many times before, I use the title to save time and
misunderstanding of where I'm coming from.  It's not an advertisement,
and ity's not a Kick Me sign.  There is no warrantee, and your milage
may vary.  You get what you pay for.  There's no such thing as a free
lunch.  Can you think of any more?  Title, tax, shipping, freight,
options extra.  See your local dealer for more.


> There is a line that should not be crossed. Professional standards  >
>expect more than that from you.


   I'm afraid that professional standards are irrelevent here, as I
happen to be off work.  Like your neighbor the cop, that means that out
of uniform I'm free to express political and legal opinions over the
back yard fence which it would be rather shocking to hear from an
officer who'd just pulled you over for speeding.


>For a doctor to make a "joke" about anyone's mental illness is beyond
>inappropriate, and borders on cruel.


    I'm sorry you feel that way.  Thank you for sharing.  However, your
comments are incorrect and off-base for reasons cited above.


> You and Bret disagree. Fine. But a jab
>at his disorder comes pretty damn close to justifying a call to your
>Board.


    Again, only if somehow I knew as professional secret what his
disorder was.  It doesn't take a weatherman to tell you when it's
raining.

   As for notifying the board, be my guest.  That's the California
Medical Board and the The State of Utah Department of Commerce.  Be to
let me know what they say.


>You seem to pride yourself on the knowledge of a physician and
>scientist. Now try showing us the compassion of one.
>Jon Garzillo DC

    Are you suggesting we grant Bret now a special status, or degree of
childlike license, now that he's notified us in public of his certified
diagnosis of mental illness?  At least when I employ condescension I do
it honestly.  Give us all a break.

                                  Steve Harris, -->M.D.<--  Red Light
                                                 ARRUGGAHH

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: The wisdom of S B Harris
Date: 3 May 1999 03:52:08 GMT

In <372CA990.E6DBFE60@cs.uoregon.edu> Bret Wood
<bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu> writes:
>
>
>
>Carey Gregory wrote:
>>
>> sick@harris.com wrote:
>>
>>>>You simply have to ask yourself, why would someone post so many
>>>messages to
>>>news groups from someone who seriously has no manners whatsoever?
>>
>> You must be new to usenet if you think Harris is lacking in manners.
>
>You are joking, right?
>
>-Bret Wood
>-bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu
>>




   No, he's not joking.  You must be new to Usenet if you think I'm
comparitively lacking in politeness.  Might I suggest a sojurn in
misc.weights.fitness a while?  If you haven't soiled your Lt. Warf
underwear the first 15 minutes, you will have learned something.

                                       Ms. Manners

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: milk carcinogenic in microwave?
Date: 9 May 1999 12:54:58 GMT

In <37355BE2.639D8CA1@cs.uoregon.edu> Bret Wood
<bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu> writes:

>And the post you made about the electronic structure of oxygen was
>either complete BS, or if it was correct, it was DEFINITELY not
>from your personal recollection.  A PhD physical chemist who wasn't
>personally interested in molecular oxygen probably couldn't pull
>together that much detail about the electronic structure of O2
>without checking references.  If you wrote it from your memories of
>your days as an undergraduate chemistry major, I am absolutely
>flabbergasted.  (Unless you really weren't concerned about
>correctness, in which case I'm appalled.)


  Well, seems I can't win either way, then, huh?  I have had, in the
course of studying reperfusion ischemic injury (a big research interest
just now), some reason to review the chemistry of oxygen radicals since
college.   Nearly all of that was from memory, though of course I had
to look up numbers for things like bond enthalpies.

   That's the trouble with Usenet: get it right from memory and
somebody figures you just looked it up.  Get it from wrong from memory
and some dweeb is always there to say "Heat capacity is dQ/dT not dT/dQ
like you wrote, nah, nah, and I sure wouldn't have a doctor like YOU
treat MY fever..."   That's the entertainment value of this medium.
People like that are actually serious.


>Personally, I just skimmed your quantum mechanics post, because I
>really don't need a lecture on it.  The issue was that you claimed
>that on a daily baiss I post authoritative sounding commentary on
>subjects I have no expertise or personal experience with.  You then
>proceeded to give a lengthy diatribe on QM, which I assumed was
>based on a reference.  But you were mistaken, I do have some level
>of expertise on QM.  Not as a physicist who understands all of the
>fundamental issues, but as a chemist who has used it in his daily
>research.
>
>So, I repeat,
>
>Tell me WHEN I have done this thing which you have implicitly
>admitted to,

   Tell WHEN I implicitly admitted to this.


> but which I claim to have rarely (if ever) done.
>(except for the Federal Reserve stuff.  Which you didn't respond
>to anyway.  Didn't you realize that the Federal Reserve Board
>is government, but the Federal Reserve Banks are not?)
>
>-Bret Wood
>-bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu


   Rather than get into a debate about the difference between
familiarity and expertise (lemesee: you're an expert in mental illness
diagnosis and national Medicaid availability?), I think it better to
focus on relatives.  Are you out there trying to teach granny to suck
eggs?  My money says you are.

   Post on the Fed follows in the appropriate thread.  I'll trying to
trim headers and add one with some financial people on it who can put
one of us straight, since one of us has some serious misconceptions.
And as for my understanding that the member banks of the Fed are mostly
private and the governors are mostly "government", you apparently
failed to read my last message on the subject, even thought you quoted
from it and replied to it.  It really doesn't matter if the member
banks are privately owned on paper.  I say again: If their major
banking activities with regard to the money supply are completely
controlled by government appointees, and they have to turn ALL their
profits into the treasury in consequence, then it's no different from
Fascism.  Fascism, you will remember, is where means of production are
privately "owned" also, but ownership is mostly on paper, since it
carries none of the priveleges we ordinarily expect from ownership.  If
you "owned" a taxicab which you could not drive for yourself, and could
not drive for hire without my permission; and when you did, I took
every nickel away from you but your overhead and salary; and even the
sales money if you sold the car-- I think you would probably begin to
wonder after a while what the difference was if you kept the title, or
I did.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Gregory demonstrates that Medical denial is a reality!
Date: 9 May 1999 16:27:56 GMT

In <373563B5.87845ED@cs.uoregon.edu> Bret Wood
<bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu> writes:
>
>
>
>"Steven B. Harris" wrote:
>>
>>   Sure.  Helps me deal with folks like you.  Mithradates and all that.
>
>Ya know, I'd always heard that med school is more about memorization
>than comprehension.


   Of course you have.  But you don't really know, because you haven't
been there.  This does not really keep you from expounding the theory
here, however.



>Perhaps that's where I've made my mistake in
>my interpretation of your posts.  Maybe you just have a phenomenal
>memory, and you enjoy using it to belittle other people, and mesmerize
>them with your awesome knowledge.

   And perhaps I understand the things I talk about.  That would be
unique, would it not?  Can you tell the difference?  Think of it as a
sort of Turing problem.  You test me and I test you.  Right now you're
not doing so hot.



>Myself, I've always had a fairly average memory, but an excellent
>knack for comprehending the underlying structure of a system.
>No wonder we don't get along well.  You are the antithesis of
>everything which I consider intelligence and reasoning to be
>based on.

   I am the antithesis of your Aristotelian fundamentalist binary mind.
No doubt.  I have a shocker for you, though: seeing things in black and
white is not what intelligence is about.  It's one of the reasons
machine intelligence is still such an oxymoron.



>
>> Junior high is good training for Usenet, and vice versa.
>
>Even junior high school students know that the surface of a rock
>is a discontinuity.  Most of them don't know the words, but they
>sure know the concept.

   Yes, they are young and inexperienced. They think a balloon is a
discontinuity and cannot figure out what a helium balloon is on the
floor in 3 days.  Must've been a leak.  They are what make creationists
when older.  You know-- they guys you can never get to understand the
Ar-40 leaks out of some "solid" rocks, so some of them cannot be
adequately K-Ar dated?  Does a piece of paladium have the same
discontinuity if you are a man, as if you are a hydrogen molecule?
Where is the reality?  Is a paladium disk really really objectively
porous, or is it really, really objectively solid?

>Should I be honored to be one of the people you are arguing a
>"non-juvenile" topic with?


Not really.


>Yeah, I suspect you are the type of person who would have tormented
>his classmates into shooting up the school.

   No, since I wasn't a jock, in theory it might have gone more the
other way.  But the jocks did not pick on me, and I didn't pick on
anyone else.  In general my memories of high school are quite sweet.
Of course, I went to high school in a small Mormon town 25 years ago.
We all had guns from the get go, but nobody ever shot anybody.  I don't
even remember a shooting accident.  I still shoot on the range with
some of these guys (one postman I hope never goes berserk, because he's
a dead shot of the kind to make Wild Bill Hickock turn green).

>Since you can't pick on your schoolmates anymore, I guess you just
>turn to usenet for that thrill now.

   The thrill of pointing out to someone when they're full of it?  It's
not a thrill, but somebody's got to do it.


>Others of us actually TRY to use it for work, school, or to educate
>ourselves on important issues.  Too bad the crap which ruins school
>for so many people has to filter here too.


   You're the largest crap server here at the moment.  Pot, kettle,
black.

   Mr. Barron (esq?), I notice, has still not answered as to whether or
not he's a lawyer, in the process of suing.  Interesting, eh?  I'm
going to nominate him for #2.

   Say, I've an idea.  Why don't YOU ask him politely, and then rub my
nose in it.  Go on and on about my own lack of perspicacity when it
comes to the personalities we see banging around the newsgroups.
Should be fun.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.kids.health,sci.med,misc.health.aids,sci.skeptic,
	soc.culture.south-africa
Subject: Re: Steve's salary
Date: 11 Aug 2000 18:24:10 GMT

In <8n0pbi$slm$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk> "John"
<whale@whaleto.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
>
>
>Steven B. Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>news:8n0bt0$9k5$1@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...
>> In <8mu3ou$sj9$1@news5.svr.pol.co.uk> "John"
>> <whale@whaleto.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
>> >>
>> >That is your choice.  Don't tell me you can't run a decent car on
>> >195,000--250,000 $$ oncologist average yearly salary?
>>
>>
>>     I'm not an oncologist. I'm a medical researcher who does geriatrics
>> and internal medicine part time.
>
>Care to tell me if I am warm as to your earnings?
>
>John
>
>

  Not even close. I made less than half that, last year.  How much less
than half, I'm embarrassed to say.   Research does not pay well.

  Full-time clinical geriatricians in working for salary in this part
of the country make about $125,000/yr.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: MD career question
Date: 3 Sep 2000 08:30:09 GMT

In <8opq43$omj$3@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net> "CBI"
<c_ishnospam@mindspring.com> writes:
>>
>I think you are forgetting med school (about a $250,000-$300,000 swing)
>and student loans (another $20,000 or so per year for up to 20 years
>unless you pay more to pay them off early). The specialists that you
>refer to with the high ends of your salary ranges also go for fellowship
>training where they frequently make less than the interns. Don't forget
>that every year you defer entering the work force the interest is
>accumulating on the loans.


   Yep. I just finished paying my own off, at age 43. And at that, I
got off really cheap. When I tell young docs that I had it tough
because I borrowed $33,000 for medical school, they laugh like hyenas.

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: More demonization of fat
Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 08:53:00 -0700

Quentin Grady wrote in message
<11ekgtga1kpaf4tvvd7k7b783np1voeqcn@4ax.com>...
>This post not CC'd by email
> On 21 May 2001 21:48:56 -0600, lewitt@swcp.com (Martin E. Lewitt)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <858jgtcsimav79c98vd2hde8ih7vi7ob73@4ax.com>,
>>Quentin Grady  <quentin@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>>><sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>>>SBH
>>
>>>Are you an MD or not?
>>
>>I don't think it should matter, but after years of observation, I've
>>seen no reason to doubt that he is.
>
>My hunch is that he is not in general practice since patients wouldn't
>tolerate such out bursts for long.  Anyway Steve himself can tell us.



First, y'all are not my patients. Get rid of any sense of entitlement you
may have in that direction. If you think I *owe* anybody here
anything at all, you need a severe attitude adjustment.  I have
only one thing to say to those who entertain this thought: go to hell.

Second, let me let you in on a little secret: getting rid of crazy patients
generally helps a medical practice. They never, never, never pay for the
time they waste-- not only the doctor's time, but the time of the other
patients
as well. Unless, of course, they are paying fee-for-service to some
alternative shaman who is treating their anxieties when they
think he's detoxifying them, or adjusting them, or some damn thing.
If you're going to an HMO or paying by insurance or other
government program, unless you're seeing a shrink whose
job it is to see patients with mental illnesses, you had better hope
for your sake that  the doctor you DO see has a policy of carrying
only a certain limited load of crazies and medicare patients.
Even if you happen to be one of them.

I've been in practice until very recently, when I switched to 90% research.
The reason had nothing to do with my patients, who were very happy
with me. The reason had to do with the fact that I am a geriatrician who
was going broke on medicare, and didn't have enough time to start
running a chain of nursing homes.  And alas, my patients never seemed
to go to the hospital enough. If the medicare HMO ever arrives it
might be possible to make a living at outpatient geriatrics. Meanwhile
I've got patents and papers to write, and engineers to see.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Another Negative Antioxidant Life Span Study in Rodents
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 14:18:03 -0700
Message-ID: <a70d01$54i$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>

"Dave B" <wired123@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:4NAk8.15726
> > But I see that the dopey spirit of Pearson and Shaw is still alive and
> > well on at least one newsgroup.
>
> They seem to be doing pretty well judging by the recent issue of Life
> Extension Magazine. And you too. :-)
>
> Dave B.


Now, now.  Taking resuscitation research money from the LEF (which I do)
doesn't mean I set their policies, or endorse each and every one of their
stands on supplementation (gee, if I did, you'd question my integrity about
THAT, would you not?).  I do think LEF is in general a force for health and
not harm, so it's not like taking money from the tobacco industry.  And yes,
when the LEF starts pushing PBN, NtBHA, and some of the wilder
non-biochemicals things you've heard about on this group, for the average
person, they'll be hearing from me.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition,alt.food
Subject: Re: Hot food = higher calories?
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 20:18:13 -0800
Message-ID: <a7eb81$rj3$1@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>

Jay Tanzman wrote in message <3C9A8161.4F076341@sph.llu.edu>...
>
>
>Steve Harris wrote:
>
>> mbansch314 wrote in message ...
>>
>> >I've never seen a study comparing eating cold food with the same food
>> >that is hot to see what happens to energy balance.
>>
>> That's because if you work out the amount of energy required to heat
>> food, it's usually small compared to the energy you get in burning it.
>
>Steve, were you, like, one of those sick P-Chem majors, or something?


I did major in chem, minor in physics, intending to become a medicinal
chemist. Didn't decide to go to medical school until my last year in
college, then had to scramble and take a life sciences classes to meet the
requirements.  As a result, never many classes with pre-meds as an
undergrad.  Lucky me.

SBH

--
I welcome email from any being clever enough to fix my address. It's open
book.  A prize to the first spambot that passes my Turing test.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com (Steve Harris  sbharris@ROMAN9.netcom.com)
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.cardiology,sci.med,sci.med.nursing,
	alt.support.diabetes,misc.health.diabetes
Subject: Re: The Bullshit Parade
Date: 7 Aug 2004 20:50:58 -0700
Message-ID: <79cf0a8.0408071950.74bf9741@posting.google.com>

banmilk@hotmail.com (Ron) wrote in message
news:<436a5d81.0408071202.ed89c07@posting.google.com>...
> > > No-one has had to go into massive personal debt and/or bankruptcy to
> > > get necessary medical care in Canada.
> >
> >
> > Nor in the US. Once you get down to close to zero money in the US, you
> > qualify for Medicaid, and get a pretty good medical care system. It's
> > the working lower middle class that have a hard time, in the US. And
> > yes, I think this needs to be fixed.  And yes, for the record, I think
> > the US wastes a lot of health care dollars doing things like MRIs on
> > back pain. But I don't run it.
> >
>
>
>
>  "Once you get down to close to zero money"....hmmmm....isn't that the
> same as saying "massive personal debt and/or bankruptcy"?



COMMENT:

Noooo.  Can you count?  Massive debt is not "close to zero money,"
it's a lot of negative money. As in "in the hole".

Personal bankrupcy is a special state in which, as you can enter, your
net worth can be negative, zero, or something positive. And as you
leave it's usually positive, as the courts cancel your debts (except
to the IRS, so I'm told) and let you keep some kind of housing and
transportation and a few bucks in your checking. It varies.


>  Are you still pretending to be a doctor Steve?


Yes. So well that the states of California and Utah are actually
playing along with me.

BTW, I got to be a doctor by going into "massive personal debt". Which
I entirely repaid with much interest over the course of more than a
decade. And did not ever declare bankrupcy, though at one time my FICO
score was not enviable.

After which time I passed through the virtual state of zero net worth,
following which my net worth become positive. Blessed be.

For a long time I did scientific work for little money, and practiced
medicine part time, and thus did not qualify for health insurance
through the academic system that employed me, and couldn't afford it
on my own because the rates were so ridiculous, due to having to pay
for free-riders in hospital care.  During that time, I had the rare
pleasure of delivering health care as a physician to poor people and
elderly people who were all much better medically insured than I was.
The irony of this was not lost on me. Fortunately, I never had to be
hospitalized during that time, and as for the minor stuff, I got by,
by treating myself.

(Do you know the real reason physicians aren't supposed to treat
themselves? Because when the outcome is bad, it's just that much more
difficult to blame the patient.)

Yes, the US medical care system is totally screwed up, but it's all
pretty much in the way of Robin Hood in the old movie:

"I rob from the rich to give to the poor
Then take from the poor when the rich want more;
I rob from the rich and the poor
But alas.....
I don't give a thing to the middle class."



SBH