Tag Archives: website

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website ethics and mine

Two days ago I wrote to the owner of the website that “separated” me for “not explicitly breaking the rules”.

I have not gotten an answer.

Doesn’t matter, you say. I disagree. I think our ethics matters and it matters on line. Isn’t that part of what we are fighting about?

Let’s drill down. The editors stated on this obscure not to be named site that they were tightening rules and removing write-ups that should be logs or are just not high enough quality, and letting the writers repost them as logs. So far they have removed over 250 of my writeups. Ironically, I was one of the two most prolific writers in the last year. Let’s kill the golden goose because she’s annoying, won’t we? The other writer has not been “separated”.

I note that they have removed my write up called “birth of ——–“. Now, this interests me. This was a well received write up, had up votes, and was the start of a category. The category was people explaining how they chose their on line name.

So: the editors are liars and abusing their power. They have removed a well received and well liked write up because they have personal animosity towards me. I have protested the removal of 250+ writeups and asked that they be reposted as logs. No answer.

The other writeups in the how I chose my name category are still there. So this is PERSONAL and the editors of the site are unethical.

Therefore, I hope the site dies. Or gets rid of those editors. I think I want it to die, even though it has writing by my sister. This does matter. As a species, we will either learn to be fair and human on line as well as off line, or we will end in conflagration. The site will certainly not be there if we start lobbing nuclear bombs at each other. The owner works for the US government. Why is he/she not paying attention to this obscure website that he/she owns?

Whether or not the world burns this month, if the editors are manifestly unfair on the site, the site will die and deserves to die. I wish that I could have my sister’s drafts before it shuts down.

I ended my email that is not answered with this: Good luck. I hope that ethics matters to both of us.

Thank you.

on line site name

_______________________

I will not name the site here or anywhere again, until and unless those editors are shut down and the site becomes ethical.

We are fighting this fight as a species, as humanity. We have to learn to be as ethical on line as we are in person. Well, you say, some people AREN’T ethical. Yes, that is true. As a rural physician, my goal is to take care of ANYONE WHO COMES IN. The emergency room physician cares for the family of four hit by the drunk and the drunk too, even if there is a dead child in the family of four. We set our judgement aside and do the best for each and every patient, regardless of the story. At least, that is the goal. It is the highest goal I know of.

Blessings and be your ethical self on line. As my children said to me when I threw their father out of the house once, “We don’t care what he does. We want you to be polite to dad no matter what.” And they were RIGHT! We answer to ourselves and to the Beloved and to our children.

Blessings.

The photo is me and my sister, dancing before my wedding in 1989. She died of cancer in 2012.

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USPSTF

USPSTF is the United States Preventative Services Task Force.

Here: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/.

This is a site I often use and frequently show to patients. For further reading….that is, if they want to know more about a topic. There is a nice two minute video about the Task Force right now, saying that it’s a volunteer organization that started 30 years ago, to review research about preventative care, agree on a recommendation and publish that recommendation.

Before they publish or update a recommendation, they ask for public comments and expert comments.

I have great respect for the USPSTF. Let’s take breast cancer screening. The current recommendation is here: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/RecommendationStatementFinal/breast-cancer-screening1. There was a big furor when this came out, because the recommendation is for biennial mammograms. Every other year, not every year. The USPSTF went through reams of data and papers and said that they could discern no difference between yearly and every other year screens in normal risk patients. The screening recommendations are different for people with abnormal BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.

So who yelled about that recommendation? Radiologists for one. Now, there is a financial incentive on their part to have women get the mammograms yearly. The American Cancer Society was annoyed and the Susan B. Komen Foundation too. But the USPSTF stand their ground. The guidelines get updated in a 5-10 year cycle.

Reasons that I like the guidelines:

1. They are online. My patients can look at them too.
2. They make recommendations for screening by age groups.
3. They rate their recommendation: A, B or C level evidence or I for Insufficient Evidence.
4. You can read the fine print. They put the article with all the detail and all the references on the website. The weight of evidence is apparent.
5. They say “We don’t know.” when there is insufficient evidence.
6. The site is pretty easy to use.

I have to weigh evidence in medicine. A functional medicine “study” that is not a randomized double blind clinical trial and that only has 20 patients is really more of a case report. Hey, we tried this supplement and they liked it. The recent study about alcohol from Europe with 599,912 patients has a lot more weight. The Women’s Health Initiative had 28,000 women in the estrogen/progesterone arm, and 21,000 in the estrogen only/had a hysterectomy arm. Length of study, design, all of these are important.

There is a recent headline about a study saying that coronary calcium scores have now had one study where they were useful. That is a study. The guideline from the USPSTF is here: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/UpdateSummaryFinal/cardiovascular-disease-screening-using-nontraditional-risk-assessment. The guideline says “insufficient evidence” and that’s what I tell patients who ask for it. I offer referral to a cardiologist to discuss it, but I am reluctant to do a test where I really don’t know what to do with the results. I pay very close attention to the guidelines and they are always changing. They have the strongest and least biased (by money and greed) evidence that I can find. And patients can read them too, which is wonderful.

Even though the USPSTF says that there is insufficient evidence for mammograms after age 75, we can still do them. That is, medicare will keep covering them. Some people keep doing them, some don’t. I discuss guidelines, but I will support the person continuing the care if that is what they want and they are informed. People are infinitely variable in their choices and logic.

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I voted

…after I spent about three hours going through paper and throwing it out… ok, like a total numbskull I mislaid my ballot. Have you mislaid your ballot? FIND IT! VOTE!

” …that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.“

When I went across the country as a Mad as Hell Doctor in 2009, we talked to people everywhere. I joined the group in Seattle. I had never met any of them and had only heard about them two weeks before. But we were on the road, talking about health care, talking about single payer healthcare, talking about Medicare for All.

Some people said, “I don’t want the government in healthcare.”

We would ask, “Are you against medicare?” “No!” “Medicaid?” “No!” “Active duty military health care?” “No! We must take care of our active duty!” “Veterans?”  “No! They have earned it!”

…but those are all administered by the government. More than half of health care in the US. So let’s go forward: let’s all join together and have Medicare for ALL! And if you don’t agree… so you don’t think you should vote? Hmmm, I am wrestling my conscience here….

We need one system, without 20 cents of every insurance paid dollar going to health insurance profit and advertising and refusing care and building 500++ websites that really, I do not have time to learn and that change all the time anyhow. How about ONE website? How about ONE set of rules? We are losing doctors. It’s not just me worrying: it’s in the latest issue of the American Academy of Family Practice.

Vote. For your health and for your neighbor’s health.

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Physicians for a National Healthcare Progam: http://pnhp.org/

Healthcare Now: https://www.healthcare-now.org/

I can’t credit the photograph, because I don’t remember who took it…. or if it was with my camera or phone or someone else’s! But thank you, whoever you are!