The BMI of the Chicago Teachers

Last week, when I was looking at the news and the Chicago Teachers' Union strike showed the teachers on parade, on strike, it was striking how THEY ARE ALL OBESE. Not just a little chunky, a little zaftig...OBESE.

The devil in me thinks that the marching maybe did their health some good. Certainly not for the children...they were babysat and fed as per the Board of Ed. rules regarding school lunches (and breakfasts). Has it gotten so horrible in America that kids have to go to school to be fed? If you have kids, don't you have the commitment to feed and clothe the child? Oh wait, silly me, such a concern is downright Victorian. FDR fixed it.

Secret Shopper

One thing I really love to do is to be a patient and not say one word to anyone that I'm a physician. I want to see/feel/hear how regular patients are treated, and I don't want to be subjected to the hallway consults of dermatological issues that other patients in the office are having--and this has happened to me--once I was getting a physical and my doc asked me about a patients' rash in another room--I told him to have the patient call my office :-)

I went for a flu shot at a local walk in clinic. I perused their glossy brochures by the front desk. They have 3 MD's --older white men, medical school grads of the 70's--and 9 staff  "ARNP" with so many letters after their names I was wondering if they wanted to print an alphabet soup. CSH, ARNP, MSM, WTF?? What is all of this crap?
Now, I do not for a minute minimize nor belittle what RNP's do. However, to have a walk-in medical clinic staffed with them nearly 3 to 1, something is wrong. I thought all RNP's had to be supervised and present each patient's case to a licensed physician. I don't know what the regs are currently and I don't care. I do know that the vast horde of America believes that a white coat=doctor. You could be a janitor, or excuse me, "maintenance specialist" and if you're wearing a white coat people will fall over themselves to get your attention and curry favor. This clinic is clearly ramming thru 3 times the volume of patients for each MD, because each MD is the one that bills insurance. I do know an ARNP cannot be free standing and bill Medicare directly, they must do it under a physician's license number. So the clinic "pumps and dumps". They conveniently have an on-site pharmacy, lab, and x-ray. All geared to squeezing the most out of each patient encounter.

I hate that.

So I was just a regular, Joe Schmo patient getting my flu shot. No questions, no inane comments about my chosen specialty, and no nervousness afoot. I sense that if they know I'm a doctor, they get nervous. I don't want nervousness, I just wanted to get the damned shot and get out. I was treated well and had no complaints about the whole show.

Unlike an a&^&*%e last year who called my office declaring he was doctor-such-and-such and he demanded to be seen. When I interviewed him, the guy had a PhD in biochemistry and worked for a pharmaceutical company his whole life. A**&&**&! You're not a doctor to me. HA!