uThinkWhat.com » Editorial

Practicing Medicine in the Hometown

Admin — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 01:19:07 +0000

Many of us growing up had dreams of becoming a doctor, police officer, fireman, or major league baseball player. My personal dream was to become a lawyer. I never became a lawyer because I didn’t have the personal drive at the time. I was busy doing everything but studying and my dreams of passing the bar faded rather quickly as finals approached. Did the world lose something because I didn’t become a lawyer? I don’t think so. I’m glad Dr. Dabney did not take the same path as I did. My little town would have been the worse for it.

Richlands, NC: As of 2008, our population was 938 with a median household income of $25,300. We are rural but growing due to our proximity to Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base located 20 miles away in Jacksonville, NC. Our nearest hospital is in Jacksonville.

When I was a kid, we had one doctor servicing the town who was in his seventies. Respected and a liked by our town, Dr. Mease knew everyone and their history. He didn’t have to look at a chart. He didn’t have fancy medical devices. He was one who was trusted and never turned a patient away. He was the epitome of the “town doctor”. When his health started fading and he became too ill he stopped practicing medicine which left a void.

If you didn’t know, news travels like wild fire in a small town. If you want to know anything at all, go to the barber shop. That is where I learned that Dr. Dabney came to town. Not to sound stereotypical, but when we heard a new “doc” was a “she”, I didn’t exactly have a good feeling – I always had male doctors for some reason.

I remember needing to see a doctor one day so I made my first appointment and met her with some reservation. I can honestly say I very pleased with her professionalism, her staff, and more than that – her caring nature. She didn’t know me at all. That was years ago. Today, our entire family proudly calls her our personal physician.

She treated my mother-in-law when she was dying of cancer. As Laura laid in bed under hospice care, Dr. Dabney would stop by two to three times a week to “check on her”. Her visits were uplifting to Laura and meant so much to our family. She wasn’t playing favorites by visiting us or trying to drum up business. She was simply living up to her oath and making a dying woman’s last days better.

She’s caring. I’ve observed her in the local Piggly Wiggly deli greeting patrons and holding “office hours on the go” often instructing them to come in for an appointment because she detected a change in their health. Dr. Dabney doesn’t practice medicine – she improves lives through medicine as best she can.

Don’t be misled by my positive comments. She can be assertive too – but for you own good. My brother has been a long-time patient as well. It seems she told him to lose a certain amount of weight by his next appointment and to undergo some lifestyle changes. When he showed up with no positive results, she told him to stop coming to her and wasting his money if he wasn’t going to adhere to her treatment plans. That got his attention more than our nagging him.

The next time he showed up for an appointment, he made the mistake of telling her his chest was hurting. She excused herself for a moment and returned to the examining room a short time later. “Where are your keys?” she asked. Brother promptly gave them to her. “You’re going to the emergency room by ambulance. It will be here in a minute.” She knew better than to give brother any opportunity of leaving. Today, I remember that story and laugh. At the time, she could have saved his life.

I would assume that being a physician is hard – more so in a small town. A certain amount of personal sacrifice is to be expected and endured. Patients have high expectations of immediate cures. Everyone expects to know the exact cause of their malady. The simple act of walking through the bank, convenience store, or any place and being stopping for free medical advice is probably an everyday occurrence. Can you imagine having to deal with all of us who have diagnosed our ills by comparing our symptoms to Aunt June’s 10 years ago? When these things happen, she gives everyone the same professional, personal attention regardless of her schedule or time of day. The patient is the focus in the examining room and not maintaining a time table. All of these things make her special, respected, and our “home town doc”.

I can’t help but think that our little town would have been different without Dr. Dabney to some degree. Sure, another doctor would have come if fate hadn’t stepped in to place her here. But would they have ”fit in”as well as she does? Would they have assumed the same prominent position as the “home town doc” vacated by Dr. Mease? Knowing the impact we have on someone’s life is difficult at times. Knowing what might have been is impossible.

Thank you Dr. Dabney.

Does more time with the doctor reduce patient costs long-term? (medcitynews.com)
Chest pain to headaches: symptoms you shouldn’t ignore (ctv.ca)

Iran with Nuclear Weapons

Admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:59:46 +0000

I shake my head in frustration as the United States and the international community take another “last stand” concerning Iran and their obtaining nuclear weapons. One must go back to the beginning of the Iranian Revolution to understand what’s really happening today. My first memory of diplomatic problems with Iran occurred in 1979 when Iranians took Americans hostage and we did nothing. We being the United States, United Nations, and the international community as a whole.

The Iranian hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 53 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamic students and militants took over the American embassy in support of the Iranian Revolution.

The episode reached a climax when, after failed attempts to negotiate a release, the United States military attempted a rescue operation, Operation Eagle Claw, on April 24, 1980, which resulted in a failed mission, the crash of two aircraft and the deaths of eight American servicemen and one Iranian civilian. It ended with the signing of the Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19, 1981. The hostages were formally released into United States custody the following day, just minutes after the new American president Ronald Reagan was sworn in.

Since 1979, Iran’s leaders have shoved and pushed the United States and United Nations around with impunity. In fact the world, through the United Nations, has objected to their use of chemical weapons during the Iraq-Iran War and their development of nuclear weapons. Has any of this stopped Iran? No. They continue to defy the international community because history has shown nothing will happen. As a child learns their parent’s behavior and reactions so does Iran learn from the world. If I were a betting man, I’d say the world will continue to complain and speak loudly and shake their sabres but Iran will have nuclear weapons on their time schedule and nothing will happen.

“While you don’t take options off the table, I think there’s still room left for diplomacy”

Today, Mr. Gates restated his strong preference for a diplomatic solution. “While you don’t take options off the table, I think there’s still room left for diplomacy” Mr. Gates said on CNN’s Sunday program “State of the Union.”

“There is no military option that does anything more than buy time,” he added.

The Obama administration plans to tell Iran this week that it must open the site to international inspectors “within weeks,” senior administration officials said Saturday. The administration will also insist that the inspectors must have full access to the leading personnel who put together the clandestine plant and to documents on its construction.

We’ve been done this road before! Does anyone remember Saddam Hussein and Iraq’s continually delaying, stopping, starting, agreeing to, and helping with these same type of inspections? I’m afraid the Iranians are learning again. The problem I see with all of this is lack of resolve – a lack of action. A total lack of resolve and action on the part of the United Nations. Why is that? Partly because of China and few other members of the Security Council. If the UN is to be an international body of that polices these types of actions, then some action needs to be taken that has real consequences other than a harshly written multiple page speech. Failure by the UN to take a firm stand with severe consequences forces the United States, Great Britain, and other nations to take action outside the UN flag.

Read this exert from an article written sometime in late 2004:

Iran does not currently have nuclear weapons, and would appear to be about two years away from acquiring nuclear weapons. By some time in 2006, however, Iran could be producing fissile material for atomic bombs using both uranium enriched at Natanz and plutonium produced at Arak. The Natanz facility might produce enough uranium for about five bombs every year, and the Arak facility might produced enough plutonium for as many as three bombs every year.

Iran’s nuclear program began in the Shah’s era, including a plan to build 20 nuclear power reactors. Two power reactors in Bushehr, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, were started but remained unfinished when they were bombed and damaged by the Iraqis during the Iran-Iraq war. Following the revolution in 1979, all nuclear activity was suspended, though subsequently work was resumed on a somewhat more modest scale. As of late 2004, Iran planned to construct 15 power reactors and two research reactors.

Today, 5 years later, we learn that Iran successfully test-fired short-range missiles during military drills by the elite Revolutionary Guard, a show of force days after the U.S. and its allies warned Tehran over a newly revealed underground nuclear facility it was secretly constructing.

Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, said Iran also tested a multiple missile launcher for the first time. The official English-language Press TV showed pictures of at least two missiles being fired simultaneously and said they were from Sunday’s drill in a central Iran desert. In the clip, men could be heard shouting “Allahu Akbar” as the missiles were launched.

“We are going to respond to any military action in a crushing manner and it doesn’t make any difference which country or regime has launched the aggression,” state media quoted Salami as saying. He said the missiles successfully hit their targets.

“We are going to respond to any military action in a crushing manner and it doesn’t make any difference which country or regime has launched the aggression”

We know the direction Iran is headed. Iran has been on this course for almost 30 years. Does it bother anyone that a fanatical Islamic zealot will have multiple nuclear weapons in his closet? Does anyone see the danger this poses to not only Iran’s neighbors in the Middle East but to the world as a whole? Sure the missiles won’t be able to strike the US homeland, but their use can draw us into war as we support our allies.

How much longer will it be before the United Nations stops this madness? President Obama, if the United States, the UN, and many other US Presidents and foreign leaders haven’t been able to correct this in 30 years, what makes you think it will be resolved now?