Posts Tagged With: Poverty

More of my rants against Roger Starner Jones, M.D.  My venom is just as legitimate!!  lol 😉

The Man I MUST Avoid In An Emergency Situation!!!

In my blog “What Happened To Compassion” I suggested Roger Starner Jones, MD needed an editor.  With posting and re-posting,  maybe some things were changed from the original creating the spelling and grammatical errors that even I with horrible grammar skills noticed.  But the content and message remained clear – a black girl on government assistance brought him sarcastic pleasure at the ER that night and he felt compelled to share an exaggerated version of the nights events.  If he did not intend to be racially biased – he also needs an editor to correct that.  About the only stereotypes he did not use were: she was in the ER delivering her 8th welfare baby or that she was choking while trying to eat fried chicken and watermelon at the same time.

What If He Was Referring To Gold Toothed, Tattooed Immigrants?? Oh... But They Would Have Ricky Martin Ringtones Instead of R&B!! Nevermind!

I have read many blogs and comments about this letter trying to defend it as not being racist because he never says specifically the girl is black.  With his choice of descriptive stereotypes he wants the girl’s race to be known or he would have made better choices in describing the situation.   This is where I will offer my assistance to edit the letter he wrote to convey the same message without racially charged descriptions – while still conveying the heart of the message.

First – is my version of the letter had I written it (calling myself Dr. John Doe):

Dear Sirs,

While working the night shift in the ER, I was evaluating a patient.  This patient caught my attention for having exceptional dental work, contemporary clothes & shoes, elaborate tattoos and a first-class cellphone.  Noticing these items, I felt they were extravagant for someone listing Medicaid as the payer status.  Following through on the patient’s evaluation, I also discovered this patient was a smoker and may also have an issue with alcohol, both costly vices.    My concern was not only the patient’s health, but the commentary of how this situation speaks to societal woes.

As the President and Congress address health care issues, using our tax dollars to finance them; I hope that education of lifestyle choices could be also addressed.  I understand many have not had the advantages in life I have had and feel education of how to make healthy lifestyle choices could help to begin addressing some of these cultural issues that concern me as a health professional.  Living in a state with high poverty and unemployment; making these educational and life skills training mandatory with accepting government assistance could begin to improve our nations health as well as societal conditions as a whole.

I feel that my version is not only racially unbiased but also is even gender nonspecific but most importantly offers a possible solution instead of just complaining.

Second – is Dr. Roger Starner Jones’ original letter with my interpretation injected as a narrative in red showing how I perceive what he really wanted say based on the attitude in his writing:

I Would Rather Take My Chances With This Guy!

Dear Sirs: (Anyone that will listen)

During my last night’s shift in the ER (I did not want to work last night), I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient (and I actually had to do some work with a patient while there.) with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ringtone (She was a stereotypical black girl.). Glancing over the chart (To confirm my prejudice,), one could not help noticing (I stuck my nose in her business to see her payer status.) her payer status: Medicaid (It was MY tax money giving her medical attention and no one else… just my tax dollars alone.). She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes (She has a perfectly legal bad habit that is really none of my business but I will comment on it anyway because it adds to my point because she does not smoke those generic less expensive cigarettes but smokes something high-end like Virginia Slims or Benson & Hedges) every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer (and she still manages to use alcohol to escape the misery her life must be.). And our Congress expects me to pay for this woman’s health care? (As a medical professional, I am supposed to help someone like this?  I should care about someone like this?) Our nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. (Our nations heath care crisis has nothing to do with me and is all to be blamed on poor people like her.) It is a crisis of culture (In this culture I never have been a part of,)—a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one’s self (this 20 something attitude, I never got to experience because I had Daddy’s money and chose med school. I was studying and never got to have any cool life experiences.) or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance (My Dad always paid my health insurance until I had a job that covered me and I never had to worry about health insurance so I cannot understand why poor people can’t just buy health insurance of their own.). It is a culture that thinks “I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me” (I am jealous for never getting to feel carefree because I am soooo responsible and no one has ever helped me.). Life is really not that hard. (Again, I have had an easy life and have no concept of a life of poverty so I feel free to condemn it.) Most of us reap what we sow (As I say this sh*t I hope there is no such thing as Karma). Don’t you agree? (Are there other narrow-minded jerks that can only think of themselves and validate my hostility about those less fortunate whom I can blame all of society’s problems?)

STARNER JONES,MD (AND ME SARCASTICALLY INTERPRETING)
Jackson, MS                     (Aactually I live in Mississippi also)

I am attempting to be sarcastic, but he was not – that is what is so sad to me!

Doctor Roger Starner Jones is a seventh generation Mississippian and his extracurricular interests are golf, hunting, fishing and college football. He specializes in emergency medicine at  The University of Mississippi medical Center. (http://spotlight.vitals.com/2009/10/dr-roger-starner-jones-muses-crisis-culture/)

He is a doctor that plays golf from Mississippi, that enjoys hunting and fishing!! lol  He is such a stereotypical cliché himself!!  lol  😀

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