Tioga Herald

Lawyers, Accountants & Doctors, Oh MY!

Teachers and professors are often not on salaries as high as many other professions. For instance, in comparison to lawyers, accountants, and doctors (not to mention medical specialists). But then, is it not a better thing to have an interest in people, as do clergy, nurses and many other healthcare workers? As some have said, we work with people and don’t do it for the money. What about lawyers, accountants, and doctors, oh my?

In proposing solutions for America by way of this blog, I have often mentioned that lawyers are so over-paid they can afford hordes of stupid commercials advertising their personal injury lawsuits and perhaps workman’s comp work? Florida has a more liberal divorce law than a liberal state like New York. However, if there is a disagreement in settling a divorce in Florida, the clock ticks away for one side, ticking away $25K, $35K or more once done.

Accountants make plenty of money working for tax collection agencies plus doing the taxes for individuals and businesses. Lawyers do as well. Conservatives from years ago promoted a value added tax (VAT), rather than sales taxes and income taxes. There are many reasons for promoting such a tax, but one of the reasons was the promotion of paper-shuffling businesses which add to the overhead of business and reduce profits. Same with sales taxes. Think of what happened before these taxes were in place? There was likely a higher profit margin, right? Or am I wrong?

For small business, rather than big corporate conglomerates, there is a larger dip in the profit margins. Thus, when an across-the-board Federal minimum wage is proposed, a small locally owned diner in one town which competes with four fast-food “big box” restaurants of corporate conglomerates, the fast-food corporate conglomerates have a better way, in a centrally planned economy like that of the former Soviet Union, to pay the higher minimum wages to a slew of people who essentially are like slaves and have few opportunities for advancement to be self-employed and running their own business. That is, unless they end up moving up a ladder in a hierarchy. The smaller “mom and pop” diners have more difficulty paying a larger minimum wage which does not bother the big business, so more small businesses are crushed. Close to slave labour and crushing defeat of opportunities for all. Sounds depressing, right? So why do I say it? It’s not out of my own selfish self-interests. It is out of interest for what is best for America.

Doctors. In days gone by, I recall the “general physicians” we called the “country doctors.” Less specialists. More general physicians with an overall view of the patients. They did not often make more money than most others in the community, did they? Or am I barking up the wrong tree in the memories I retrieve? Then the era when it was difficult to find enough general physicians because all were seeking more money in the world of specialists. Private medicine which Trumpicans claim is so much better, while ignoring the fact that many of us, teachers, nurses, and other healthcare workers, are more concerned about people than about money. We just wish to be paid a fair livable wage, rather than expectation of a high over-paid salary, as lawyers, accountants, and doctors expect.

So, to fill the high-paid jobs for lawyers, accountants, and doctors (oh my!), we encourage EVERYONE to go to college and forget the availability of the trades people and the skills which need to be developed for such. Lawyers and accountants do tax jobs which eat up profits for small business, shuffle a hell of a lot of paper, and get paid quite well to do such red-tape bureaucracy. How do economists measure these jobs in the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP? We ship productive jobs overseas, reduce the vocational skills training for work in the trades which require the use of hands and not necessarily an emphasis on brains. And what happens? We don’t have people to do such work anymore. No more opportunities for people to develop their own private self-employed business, while there are lawyers, accountants and doctors (oh my!) galore.

We have new technologies, you say? How wonderful! Yes, new developments in medical care and pharmaceuticals. Pharmacists, too, making more money, many times, than people helping people (teachers, professors, nurses, etc.). With all this new technology, we are all blessed at having new meds available for us. Yes, sir.

So, in my life, since 2001, I have had three times when I came close to losing my own life, due to this wonderful new technology handed out with little knowledge about how chemicals interact with nutrients and proper diets. When Claritin was first available, then it was wonderful to enable me to clear my sinuses, right? With small doses of that and Allegra, my primary care physician discovered I was allergic to it. It was left to me, the patient, to tell the ENT specialist about this. Never any communication or coordination between PCPs and specialists, in this world created with wonderful technology and specialists making much more money. The ENT specialist, not taking the word of the patient (as Gore with his Patient bill of rights SUPPOSEDLY lost the election in Florida – NOT) when this patient mentioned his allergy to Claritin. The ENT prescribed it anyway. Within several days, the patient ended up in the hospital with severe heart attack symptoms. Fortunately, the patient survived.

In 2012, this same patient (me) had been taking metformin. Then a doctor was enamored with a “new” drug called Jentadueto. Jentadueto, as it was discovered later, doubles the amount of metformin already being taken to more than a safe amount in totality. Such an overdose leads to lactic acidosis, which can be fatal. The symptoms of lactic acidosis are heart problems and gastro problems. This patient ended up with both. Seeing a cardiologist and medication checkup was made, confirming the correct amounts of meds for the heart and blood pressure were being taken. Never a look at the patient’s list of prescriptions. The gastro man did an upper and lower GI. Nothing found, according to money-loving gastro man. This man INVENTED a problem with hemorrhoids, in order to try to push surgery. Yet, the patient expressed the fact that it was not hemorrhoids causing the pain and discomfort in stomach and intestines. Did not matter.

In this case of lactic acidosis, three doctors and a Publix pharmacist had access to my medication list. None of them bothered to check the medication doses to determine if they were correct. Not one of these high-paid individuals did such a thing. Meanwhile, the patient, over time, was suffering more and more, especially with cardio-pulmonary problems, but also with gastro problems. In January 2013, just after New Year’s Day, I was losing my ability to breathe. I was rushed to the hospital, once again. They put me through tests and put a catheter up through my leg into my heart. They were going to do a cardioversion, but then, with some medications, the atrial fibrillation which had begun stopped. They did not have to go further than that. I was released.

Then, in 2017, it was determined that, perhaps, there was a need for an ablation and perhaps a pacemaker. To do the ablation scheduled for late January 2018, there was a need to take me off a medication which I was prescribed and do so within weeks prior to the ablation. Another med was substituted. Within a week or so (January 18) of taking this other med, I went unconscious at home and slammed my skull on the concrete floor at home. I was rushed by helicopter to a trauma center where I remained in a coma for several days, with the expectation that I might not survive. I did survive, though. I came out and had a heart monitor on me.

By March, though, my dad was taken to the hospital in Melbourne, Florida, with heart problems and other problems. He was 92 years of age. My spouse and I spent several weeks by Dad’s sign, with hope he would be able to pull through. On April 1, Dad died.

On June 28, I retired. The next day, once again, I was having problems with breathing and heart palpitations once again. I was rushed, once again, to the hospital. This time, they performed the ablation and a cardioversion. Things were looking quite well for the patient, once released.

I have rarely seen doctors or pharmacists who are interested in the patient who is a HUMAN BEING. They just act like they wish to do their job so as to get paid. The reason? Fear of the other part of the trio of “lawyers, accountants and doctors, oh my.” The lawyers. A wealthy person playing tennis each day, with other wealthy ones which usually included lawyers, accountants and doctors, oh my! The person fell on the court and injured some part of leg, knee or foot. Lying on the floor and grimacing in pain, he noticed how all the doctors escaped to the locker rooms and he was surrounded by lawyers who were giving him their business cards. What I have observed by so many in this group is the same thing, but not while grimacing in pain on a floor.

Only a nurse shared with me the observation that there was an overdose in my metformin. Having health databases and Medline available at the college library where I worked, I confirmed what the nurse told me. I had been in the hospital with the heart problem, due to an overdose of metformin. Not one doctor or pharmacist has confirmed this for me. Not one. Why? Because of a fear of lawyers. Not one doctor has even listed any of this, but have lied in the notes more recently in my medical records that “I am allergic to metformin.” No doctor has EVER mentioned this, but it gets entered into my medical record? What is the reason for the lies? If anything, the ONLY thing I have been told verbally is metformin can only have a “side effect.” Side effect. Liar, liar, pants on fire. Overdose is the word and that never appears in the medical records.

In all my situations, nurses, on the lower end of the pay ladder, have treated me so very well. When I was in a hospital, I was only allowed to receive the meds the hospital would allow and my diets were FULL of nothing but carbs. A very kind nurse allowed me to have the diabetes meds from home and helped me arrange the “troublemaker” meals which would help me reduce my sugar numbers. I was running glucose levels the highest in my life – 300 to 400. The nurse happened to have a husband who was like me in suffering from diabetes. She knew better how to deal with it than most of the others on the staff, especially the doctors.

At the same hospital, I asked for water at one time and a nurse who had reacted with disdain about the fact that I was in a same-sex marriage, refused to give me water and yelled at me for asking. In a hospital, a person in the ER admitting began to preach about “sin” of homosexuals. Since then, I have heard the suffering black people have endured over time, in hospitals, due to the color of their skin. Hateful Americans inspired by Rush Limbaugh, Trump, Giuliani, and others. Despicable hateful people.

Now I mention these things at the same time I hear Phil Keoghan of New Zealand mention the very thing many of us have been saying about the lack of people skilled in the trades and those who are in the trades, being made to feel bad as if they are inferior to academics. Keoghan mentioned his grandfather who was in the trades (blue collar) but did more reading than many who think they are experts in academics. I had a father who was the same way. Every day, he read TWO, not ONE, newspapers.

Meanwhile, privatized Medicare prescription costs force me not to be able to take the best for me and pharmacists, doctors, lawyers, accountants don’t give one damn. In fact, a pharmacist prefers to point the finger of blame, not at the wealthy of America who control the strings of those in Congress, so as to do more for each of their egos than to be concerned about WE THE PEOPLE and our pocketbooks. A reality dictated by wealthy fat cats for wealthy fat cats and no concern for WE THE PEOPLE. Justice will not happen until unaffected people stand up for those who are affected. Perhaps if I say this fact over and over again, it will become the truth and the reality! “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free!”

But do those in America give one damn about any of this, as they display their hatred for one another and their individualistic egotism and narcissism? No. They love to follow the path of hatred and love of money. Whether Trump or lawyers, accountants, and doctors oh my, they just don’t follow the ways laid down by the representative of God on earth – the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He is the model for all of us to follow because He gives us the word of God, which is to love one another. Lawyers, accountants, doctors (and pharmacists) oh my – and no love for one another in sight. Only a love of money. Shameful people. To our Creator and GOD, forgive them, please, for they know not how to love and know not what they do in the process.