He had a blood clot in his lung and spent a lot of the last few months in the hospital. He checked himself into the hospital, was given his medication and got dizzy and passed out. They were unable to revive him.

The holiday season has not been kind to our family and now there is even another reason to dread them again next year. My mother died two years ago Dec. 2, my father died two days later on Dec. 4, and my two year old nephew died in his crib on Jan. 5 about 14 years ago. Now this. Merry Christmas.

Other surgeons disagree with this suggested new policy saying that surgeons should make the judgement for themselves and deal with the problem if there is one, on their own.

I’m not comfortable with with them suggesting that it only be elective surgeries. I know those can be as deadly as other surgeries, but I’d be more interested in all kinds of surgeries and not just elective.

We’ve all heard about doctors working for days without more than a short nap or two and this fact does not inspire confidence in my opinion. It’s almost like a drunk driver thinking they can handle driving a car without a problem. Sometimes there is a problem.

First of all, no one in their right mind wants unqualified people hired to be nurses. That being said let’s just deal with illegal aliens being hired as nurses.

That brings us to the second point hiring illegals is illegal, so if you know that a hospital is doing this you should report them.

I think the real concern here is that you think people from another country are not as well trained or educated as we are in the US. To be honest I really don’t know what to say about that. In my experience nationality hasn’t made a difference. I have had both good and bad nursing care by all nationalities. I think it’s a matter of training, experience, and natural talent. Oh and let’s not forget common sense.

It also may surprise you that many people come from other countries and attend our colleges and medical schools. I hope I’ve answered your question.

Some were holding beers, condoms, and saws next to people who were bloody, hurt, and half dressed.

Puerto Rico is investigating the doctors for ethics vialations. They say they have already punished the soldiers who offered up their guns to the docs to pose for these photos.

Some of the Haitian earthquake victims were transported to the Dominican Republic and about 60 doctors from PR went there to aid these people.

Maybe someone should explain to the “doctors” what aid really means.

To me and I’m sure many others around the world this is beyond ethics violations. It’s heartless, inhumane, and unforgivable. I certainly would not see a doctor who thought this kind of human suffering was funny or see it as a photogenic moment.

You might say this is a mere handful of doctors out of thousands, but who knows how many more that are this way and just haven’t gotten caught yet?

As I understand the story, the family was often the target of a gang of 16 teens who constantly threw rocks and eggs at their home and in general made life a living hell for this family. Obviously the attacks and abuse were so severe they simply could not live through it anymore.

The problem is that this mother tried to get help from authorities who not only didn’t take it seriously enough, but also wanted the family to take responsibility for the attacks themselves. They know the mom was suicidal yet no one thought to sit down with them and listen to her and maybe even do something about it.

The same thing occurs here time after time. The victims of bullying are ignored till some of them snap and either kill themselves or take revenge out on others. Then we talk about the poor victims, some of whom might have been the bullies or even those who watched and observed the bullying and did or said nothing. It’s a disgrace.

These same people tend to put all their faith and responsibility into their doctors which I believe is a wrong approach to health care. We as the public need to take some responsibility for our own health by learning how our bodies work and how injuries and illnesses are treated.

If you have some doubts about the treatment or diagnosis you are getting from your doctor don’t be afraid to question it or get a second opinion.

A number of years ago I cut my hand and got 8 stitches at the E.R.. That doctor explained to me that he gave me one continuous stitch instead of 8 individual stitches and that when I went to my doctor it was important to let them know that. I didn’t have a regular doctor so one was recommended to me. When it came time to get them out I went to the doctor and told her what the ER doctor had said. She then began to remove the stitches by snipping the first one and pulling on it. She pulled and pulled and the more she did so, the more pain I was in. She then went and got another older doctor to look at it and he did the same thing, even after I repeated what the ER doctor had said. I was in agony and my hand began to bleed. He then told me and the woman doctor that my cut was probably not ready to have the stitiches out yet. They covered it up and told me to come back in a few days. They also billed me for a hundred dollars.

Of course I went home and simple snipped them one by one and gently pulled them out, painlessly and easily. The point is they don’t all know what they are doing, and no, I did not pay that one hundred dollar bill.

Many of these vets have already spent up to $3000 of their own money to get second opinions to see if they really had the illness.

Some vets have called a Gulf War Vets Group who looked into this. They want the VA to reimburse those that have shelled out money for second opinions, and to retest those that have not had second opinions yet.

Getting a letter with that kind of news has to not only be scary , but devestating as well. The vets that got those letters do deserve the VA putting this right, computer error or not.

There are plenty of other jobs where there are limits on the amount of hours they can work in a shift and in a pay period, like airline pilots, air traffic control, and truck driviers, to name a few. Seems to me doctors should be right up there in that list.

Beside money, which is always the very bottom line, the other reasoning for these long shifts is that when a person comes in and is seen by one of the doctors, tests have to be done and most of the time these tests take hours. If a doctor or resident only works 8 to 10 hour shifts, they may be off duty by the time the test results come back, which means another doctor would be on duty and not familiar with the case.

I’m not sure whether I agree that it’s a valid point for working long shifts, but I do know that I find it troublesome that doctors know the body needs the proper amount of sleep and yet they go about life without it themselves.

They do have restictions on shift hours, however they are still too long, and if one life is lost because of this it’s one life too many. Stick to a max of 16 hours at a time, and call it a day.

How would you like to be told that the colonoscopy you had five years ago may have had body fluids from another person on the equipment that was inserted into your body, and that you now have to get tested for HIV, and hepititis.

They are saying that the tubing on the machine was cleaned only at the end of the day and not in between patients, and that some of these machines had wrong valves on them that could promote contamination.

The VA seems none too willing to discuss this but hundreds of people are having to now be tested for diseases they may have picked up from the VA hospitals. If you have had a colonoscopy within the past five years at a Veterans Hospital call and find out if you need to come in for some additional testing. Remember, better safe than sorry.

We had hospice take my dad to a hospice unit in a hospital, where they were better staffed and equiped to care for him. I believe that my mother felt so much better and relaxed that he was being taken care of, she just let go of her own struggle.

I spent the afternoon with my dad the next day and brought him a nice picture of mom. My sister and I saw he was suffering so much we told him mom went peacefully in her sleep and it was time for him to let go and be with her. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. Hours later he took his last breath.

He was cleaned and turned on his side when we visisted him, however when I asked when the last time he got his morphine was they responded 10:30 that morning, it was after 1:00 in the afternoon. When I pointed that out, the hospice nurse said he was resting comfortably. The man was given no food and water and could not speak or hardly even moan. He was far to weak to move even a finger.

I told her that just because he can’t tell you he’s in pain doesn’t mean he isn’t and she better go get some morphine for him unless she wanted me to do the scene from “Terms of Endearment” where Shirley McClaine has to scream for her daughters meds. She immediately got the meds and administered them to him. That made me wonder how they cared for him during the long night when we weren’t there. His mouth was so dry and cracked from lack of moisture. He couldn’t swallow they said but he could have someone wet a cloth and wipe the inside of his mouth and lips. We did it for him while we were there but what did they do? I don’t know, I’ll never know.