The Skinny on the AMA and Obesity

The American Medical Association has just announced that it has recognized obesity as a disease.

[Disclosure:  I am married to an obese physician, whose activities with the AMA have, over the years, declined from sparse to zero.].

There is no doubt that fat people are extremely predisposed to a wide range of illnesses and medical issues, that the ranks of the fatsos are growing (individually and collectively), and that it is a major public health issue.

Be that as it may, I'm not so sure that the AMA's latest action is such a great thing.  Changing labels does not, in and of itself, address the root causes of any problem, and what the AMA is doing is updating labels if not creating them.  And once the labels are in place and utilized by the population in general and the healthcare industry in particular, obese patients, having been labeled (synonym:  Stereotyped), will likely be subjected to treatment based upon the label and not based upon their individualized medical situation and lifestyle.

The insinuation of Obamacare into the healthcare equation (including the IRS) can only exacerbate the negative attributes of the foregoing dynamic.

What bothers me the most, however, is not whether obesity is or is not a disease, but rather, the political dynamic behind the whole thing.  Politics has usually done more harm than good to the delivery and efficacy of healthcare, whether in the prevention of administering the polio vaccine by the jihadis in Muslim countries, or the politicization of the AIDS/HIV epidemic.  And in that regard, the medical profession's politicoes have already shown that designation or nondesignation of a condition as a "disease" is based more upon political than health considerations when political correctness induced the declassification of homosexuality as a disease.

Whether a given person's weight, sexual preferences, or eating or drinking habits are or are not a disease is a red-herring issue.  The real issue here is the corruption of the healthcare delivery system, and the doctor-patient relationship, by political agendas, and the squelching of patient autonomy and informed consent.

The Dead Coming Back To Haunt

This Blog's posting of 4 March 2007 critiques Dr. Ahmed Rashed, a medical resident who removed a hand from a cadaver, and provided said hand to a stripper acquaintance, whose purpose in procuring the cadaver hand is not clear but certainly of zero or less social value. Said posting, in turn, mentions a Dr. Ivan Oransky, a medical resident who leaked to the New York Times the medical records of a particular patient with whom the resident had no doctor-patient relationship.

Well, the sawbones are at it again! A number of years ago, med student (now MD) Aaron Hartman posed giving the double thumbs-up sign next to his cadaver, and the photo was placed by resident physician Dr. Erica Katz on her Facebook page. Dr. Katz has, of course, been called onto the carpet, and has removed the offending and offensive photo. There is, of course, speculation as to whether the family of the deceased cadaver might seek redress in the courts, and the legal eagles and risk management wonks at the University Hospital at Stony Brook are, no doubt, cracking the law books in preparation for the legal defense they most likely will need to mount.

UHSB cannot do nothing to Dr. Katz because giving her a complete pass would make potential donors think twice before willing their bodies to UHSB. On the other hand, they also do not want to waste any more than necessary (oxymoron intentional) their investment (largely the taxpayers' money) in Dr. Katz.

If Dr. Rashed's misbehavior is worth a 10, then Dr. Oransky's rates about 8.5 or 9, and Dr. Katz's rates about a 2 or 3.

My wife, who is a physician, seems to think that Dr Katz will be slapped with a suspension for a week or two or three, provided that this is Dr. Katz's only significant transgression during her residency. I would tend to agree that a penalty of that magnitude would be appropriate.

But it would seem to me that Dr. Katz's indiscretion is more the stuff of undergrad students (or, possibly, 1st year med students) than a graduated physician who has obtained the MD.

I did see the original photo without the photoshopping out of the cadaver. The cadaver's facial features are more likely than not recognizable to the decedent's family. I would not be surprised if there were a lawsuit, and if the defendants include not only Dr. Katz, but also UHSB and Dr. Hartman.

And when (not if) Drs. Katz and Hartman get sued for malpractice at some points in their respective careers (such is an inevitability for a physician), this fiasco will likely be mentioned in the settlement negotiations if not in the evidence at trial.

Note to Drs. Hartman and Katz:

"Those who have no respect for the dead can have but little appreciation of the dignity of man, either living or dead."

Kotal v. Goldberg, 375 Pa. 397, 404-05, 100 A.2d 630, 634 (Pa. 1953) (Musmanno, J.).

Susan Atkins (Part 2)

The 13 June 2008 posting on this Blog was about Susan Atkins, one of Charlie Manson's girls, and California's most senior woman inmate. You will recall that Ms. Atkins sought compassionate release because she had been diagnosed with terminal illness (and that previous March had, according to the medical pundits, three months remaining). The folks on the California Parole Board, in their wisdom, denied the compassionate release for the brutal mutilatrix-murderess.

Well, it is already more than a week into 2009, and Susie Q still hasn't clocked out.

My compliments and plaudits to the able medical staff at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, for the fine care they have thus far rendered. Who says that the government doctors don't know how to practice medicine?