According to the Huffington Post, you were unhappy that one of your patients did not show up on time for her appointments:

An OB-GYN in St. Louis is under fire after posting a Facebook status about one of her patients. According to KMOV, Amy Dunbar, a physician at Mercy Hospital, was so frustrated with an expecting mother’s lateness that she ranted about it online.

Did you really “rant” about a patient being late? Surely you realize we “regular” people have to wait 40-80 minutes in uncomfortable waiting areas every time we have a medical appointment. Surely your medical school taught you to schedule your days so you never wait for patients, even if that means they have to wait for you — 20 minutes in the lobby and 30 minutes or more in the exam room.

Cut the Crap

I love the irony of an MD being unhappy because someone was late.

Dear MDs:

It’s simple, if you want your patients to be on time, be on time!  And don’t give me that “we are short of doctors” crap.  If we are short of doctors it’s because your medical schools limit enrollments so we ARE short of doctors. And the AMA keeps it that way, not because it is difficult to become a doctor, but so you can charge ridiculous prices for the marginal services you provide.

Or if you did more to educate the public about prevention, your patient load might decrease enough that you could be on time once in a while. But that would blow your cover — the great myth of the busy, devoted MD, whose time is more important than everyone else’s.

What a crock!  If you want veneration, be on time once in a while.

With Facebook going public we have been inundated with reports about how social media (Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Linked In, etc.) are revolutionizing how we communicate. Two recent NPR programs featured guests making the following claims. (I can’t remember the programs. I was in the car.)

1. “Social media are revolutionizing how we communicate”  — Really?

Cut the Crap

They are not. We have communicated via text since the invention of writing, through music since the playing of musical instruments, and through images since the invention of photography.  Those were revolutionary inventions. Facebook and Twitter allow us to share in these formats WITHOUT being social.

2.  “Social media (Facebook) are changing teenage life”  — Really?

A Stanford professor found that teenagers are lonely, even though they spend a lot of time “presenting themselves” on Facebook — posting pictures and stories, constantly changing their order and their “presentation.”

Cut the Crap

No change here. Teens have always been self-absorbed and lonely.  By the way, teens have always bullied, too. (I am not excusing it.) We now call it cyber-bullying, but it is what teens have always done, just with another tool.

3.  “Social media are ubiquitous; but, we are not more social”  — Really?

Cut the Crap

Calling something “social” does not make it so. Technology writers had to find an appealing name for a new technology. They called it “social media” because nobody would use it, if they called it “narcissistic media.” There is nothing “social” about social media. Facebook, Twitter, and the others make life better in some ways; but “social” life is not one of them.