Doctor in the House

I don't understand the jubilation being expressed by many people over the Dr Conrad Murray verdict out in Los Angeles. Sure, the doctor who gave Michael Jackson his sleep medication, apparently way beyond what's normal, outside of a hospital setting, and absent the backup gear normally in place when Propofol is used, was found guilty of manslaughter, and seems to be headed for a four-year stretch in the Big House.  But these are people hurt by the loss of a favorite performer, and sending his dreammaker to jail for four years is not going to bring Michael back.

I come at this from a slightly different perspective. ("No!", you gasp in horror.) If you've ever enjoyed a colonoscopy, you've had the pleasure of being put under with what the anesthesiologists call "Milk of Amnesia."  That's why Michael Jackson kept asking the doctor for more "milk."  This stuff puts you out for a short spell, and then when you wake up, you can't remember a thing that happened while you were "hyp-mo-tized," as Mr Letterman used to say.  My greatest worry about colonoscopies is always that while I am in the Land of Nod, the witty techs and nurses will do something to make me strut around the room doing the Chicken Dance, as cameras record every pixel for YouTube mortification. 

Michael Jackson certainly had issues, did he not?  So he couldn't sleep.  Most of us just take another Tylenol PM or watch Craig Ferguson for five minutes and we're gone. The King of Prop had the money to wave $150,000 per WEEK in front of Dr Murray, and he bought himself a physician.


And that's what troubles me.  I have the highest regard for physicians.  Just wanting to become one is a daunting challenge, and the selection process is arduous, and the schooling and internships are in place to make sure that once a man or woman is able to hang out a shingle proclaiming themselves to be a Medical Doctor, they doggone well know what they're doing and what they're talking about.  This is your guarantee that when you seek treatment for anything ranging from eczema to necrosis, they will treat you properly and accurately.

If the name of this cutman isn't "Mickey," it ought to be!

To take the brain and talent that God gives one to become a physician, and become someone on the next rung up the medical ladder from the "cut man" at a boxing match is not the best way to use that brain and talent.  Maybe the salary was an incentive.   


But do you think he will wish he had taken another path, once he's in jail?