Blog for Oregon

Three years ago Dr. Gordon Smith approved invasive surgery on an unwilling patient. The tumors he sought (based on faulty diagnoses) were never found, but Dr. Smith and his team proceeded on anyway, against the wishes of the patient and the advice of other consulting physicians (who his colleagues ridiculed as “cut and runners”), with an aggressive course of debilitating radiological treatments. Finally, after three years of ignoring the devastating side-effects brought on by staying that course (and after the incidental deaths of over 2,800 of his attending nurses who he had neglected to provide with adequate protective radiation shielding), Dr. Smith conceded that his medical treatment had been wrong, even criminal, and that he and his fellow physicians should all be held accountable. (It was totally coincidental that many of Dr.Smith’s colleagues had recently lost their licenses due to malpractice and that his own tenure vote was approaching.)

Fortunately for Gordon Smith he is not a doctor, he is a Senator. He will not have his license revoked for his admission of criminal negligence, but rather he will be lauded for his “brave” change of heart. Why, if we would recoil in horror at the prospect of having ourselves, our families or our friends placed in the care of this Dr. Smith, are we willing to continue to entrust this same Senator Smith with the welfare of our state and its citizens?

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