Being a doctor shapes Dean's politics, manner

[Sean Reynolds]

This article runs in today's USA Today.

SNIP:

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Candy Moot recalls an incident she calls "quite typical" of Howard Dean, when he was governor. It was in the late 1990s, she was president of the Vermont Ski Area Association and she was in a dispute with Dean's natural resources secretary.

Dean sat them down and asked each to state her view. "He said 'OK, Candy's right, my secretary's wrong, draft an agreement,' " Moot says. "It felt very much like being in a doctor's office. He says, 'What are your symptoms?' He listens carefully. He makes the diagnosis. He says, 'Here's the remedy.' And that's it."

SNIP:

Medicine has also influenced Dean's priorities as a politician: child health programs, land conservation and a balanced budget. The idea, Dean says, is to avoid illness, abuse, sprawl, deficits and other problems. "Prevention is everything in medicine," he says. "It's much more expensive to treat something than prevent it."

Dean's doctor-like manner and choices don't please everyone. He readily volunteers that his medical background has helped him and hurt him in politics.

SNIP:

Some wonder if a state with so little racial and ethnic diversity is a realistic model. Keller, the policy analyst, admires Dean's work but says, "I've never agreed that if you can do it in Vermont, you can do it anywhere." Vermont doesn't have gang shootings, dangerous high rises and language barriers, she says.

Dean allies say his approach has promise for all states. Former state senator Cheryl Rivers was disappointed when the big insurance plans died and Dean did not revive them. She now appreciates the complexity of health issues and Dean's commitment.

"When you look around at the record in Washington and the other states," she says, "he's as good as it gets."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/2004-01-13-dean-cover-usat_x.htm

[slinkerwink]

1. great article! the doctor is in!

[dreissig]

2. Dean's Problem-Solving Methodology

Doctors by their nature can't get overly attached to any given theory. If the patient doesn't respond to treatment, the doctor has to try something else. Contrast this with Bush's stubborn insistence that all of his pet programs are working exactly as intended. Tax cuts for the wealthy have turned the economy around, he says. The war in Iraq has made us safer from terrorism.

[Melodybe]

3. Thanks for posting! It is nice to read a good article about Dean every

once in a while.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Doctorhood is not exactly a positive attribute

I used to work in the healthcare/research field. A lot of doctors -- physicians, that is -- are immature, arrogant pricks who wield their privilege like drunken frat boy with a dildo. (With my apologies to the young men of the Greek-Letter Community and to the Dildo Manufacturers of America -- but the Beer, Wine and Spirits lobby is on its own.)

I'm well impressed by Dean, but it's not because of his status as a physician. In fact, the "Doctor Dean" thing is beginning to get on my tender nerves. (Oh well, I'll survive.) He's running for the Presidency, not Surgeon General.

And yes, the health care problem is complex. It is "nuanced", as the hipster press likes to call it. But if you have any ongoing health problems (as I do), it's just as complex to figure out how to get treatment, afford medications, rent, food, and deal with daily calls from medical collection agencies.

Howard Dean's strengths are probably unique to Howard Dean. Some of them helped him as a physician, but he'll need all of them to succeed as President. I wish him luck -- but as Citizen Dean, not as Doctor Dean.

--bkl

[slinkerwink]

5. thank you

[Dogmudgeon]

10. That Darned Doctor!

If that was honest, you're welcome.

If that was sarcasm -- or even if it wasn't -- read this:

As for Bill Frist, the millionaire Tennessee sawbones, everthing you need to know about this unpleasing man was contained in one short paragraph of a profile of Frist by Michael Kranish in the Boston Globe Sunday magazine for October 27, 2002, covering the years when Frist was in Boston, first at Harvard Medical School and then at Mass General.

"Frist is an animal lover who said his decision to become a doctor was clinched when he helped heal a friend's dog. But Frist now found himself forced to kill animals during medical research. And his new dilemma was finding enough animals to kill. Soon, he began lying to obtain more animals. He went to the animal shelters around Boston and promised he would care for the cats as pets. Then he killed them during experiments. 'It was a heinous and dishonest thing to do,' Frist wrote. 'I was going a little crazy.'"

So now the US senate is going to be led by the cat world's answer to Dr Mengele! A man who can do that is capable of any infamy. Can't you just picture this oily Tennessean cooing and clucking over the tabbies and tortoise shells at the shelter, solemnly wagging his head as the shelter staff counselled him on proper cat procedures, then dragging the poor creatures into his lab and torturing them to death. I call on the Humane Society to demand that Frist publicly apologize for this appalling, indeed ineradicable stain on his character, and pay substantial reparations out of the vast fortune that has accrued from the Hospital Corporation of America, founded by his father and brother.

As noted by Andrew Cockburn on this site, while serving as an ardent toady of business, especially the health care and pharmaceutical cartels, Frist projected a "caring" image, accepted without demur by all except his former interns at the Vanderbilt Medical Center in Tennessee, where he amassed big bucks as a heart/lung transplant surgeon. "He was a complete asshole," recalled one to Andrew recently. "Arrogant and unhelpful."

(Source)

I'm sure that the Counterpuncher had his tongue embedded firmly in his cheek, but Dr. Frist has not been quite so attentive to human life, either. Since he replaced Trent "Grand Wizard" Lott, Frist has been a staunch supporter of everything that George Bush has ever wanted.

Incidentally, I'm pro-Dean. I just don't think being a physician makes a person Special-with-a-capital-S.

--bkl

[dkf]

6. Thank you for posting this...

It makes so much sense...that he is most interested in PREVENTING problems because it is less expensive and less painful that way.

[Don_G]

7. So?

Being a former member of the Telecom Industry during Regan's Reign shaped a lot of my attitudes too.

Since then, economics have been a determining factor in my attitudes in politics because it affected me and my Vietnam Vet friends I grew up with.

I help people whenever I can, but I can't compete with BushCo unless....

[ima_sinnic]

8. I made a similar connection at my web site, months ago:

I like the idea that he is a doctor. Doctors can’t become doctors without almost ten years of dedicated, grueling education and self-sacrifice. Without dwelling on the small proportion of people who are motivated by lust for money to become doctors, I like to think that, for the most part, doctors must have an altruistic streak, they must want to help people, to alleviate suffering. They must also develop an understanding of human weaknesses and needs and, coming into personal contact with so many, a tolerance and appreciation for diversity, for the characters and personalities that make up the daily life of the world.

So at some fundamental level he starts out in my eyes as a basically good person, a studious and probably kind person. . . .

[Dogmudgeon]

9. Maybe you should check out THIS doctor

Website of the Senate Majority Leader, M.D.

He's not a cat person, that's for sure.

There's all kinds of physicians out there. You have your Bill Frists, and you have your Howard Deans. A large enough proportion of physicians (though probably not a majority) are so caught up in the authority they wield that it makes me look twice.

I'd have no problem working for Citizen Dean. Or for Citizen Clark, for that matter.

But Doctor Dean or General Clark?

Only if it tweaks the Republicans.

--bkl

[SahaleArm]

11. I bet you most doctors lean Republican...

Tort Reform of malpractice insurance is a big thing within AMA circles.