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Doctors or guns?

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Carpe Diem
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Doctors or guns?

Post by Carpe Diem » Fri, 26 Aug 2005 9:21 am

Doctors:
(A) The number of doctors in the U.S. is 700,000
(B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 17.14%
Statistics courtesy of the U.S.Dept of Health & Human Services

Guns:
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000 (yes that's 80 million)
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.001875%
Statistics courtesy of the FBI

So statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, guns don't kill people, doctors do.

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!

Out of concern for the public at large, I have withheld statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.
La vie est trop courte, profitons de chaque instant

ezbitz

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Post by ezbitz » Fri, 09 Sep 2005 2:02 pm

Your article is interesting but unfortunately lame. To compare the profession to an object is absolutely naive. Your numbers while alarming, does not absolutely show negligence. You are obviously not a doctor my friend and as such possess a rather blurred view of the whole health process.
If you are a gun owner then you would know that it does not breathe life. Its power to protect or kill is entirely dependent on the sanity (or insanity for that matter) of its owner. Each bullet, each trigger pressure, each aim and trajectory is exact. And each one of these factors are largely and greatly affected by its owner. It naturally won't kill if you don't aim it on a living being!
The practice of medicine on the other hand is more complex than that. And contrary to popular belief this science is not exact. Disease is very dynamic and is not subservient to the doctor. It has a life of its own and its capacity to harm a person even to the point of death is independent of the practitioner tasked to cure it. It harms a patient at will. Medicine in all its resilience, unfortunately is not able to provide us with all the answers we seek.
Another gray area is the person afflicted with the disease. Man is not illness-proof, something which I am sure you are aware of. Man, being a sovereign being, likewise has control over his or her body. It is the patient who dictates when to seek treatment and what forms he is willing to undertake, and that right is protected by the belief that in the final analysis the patient knows his body best. Unfortunately, even that is not absolute. How many times have we seen this in clinical practice! For example, most people will claim to be not allergic to anything only to find out that they are once the medications are given, to the doctors horror! So who's fault is that? the doctors? Not to mention the willfull omission of information on the part of the patient for reasons known only to them. This practice of omission is pervasive. I would agree that upholding the rights of a patient is of utmost concern but we seem to forget that equipotent to our rights are our obligations to the practice as patients. The practice of medicine entails having to decide between two evils on a daily basis. There is no good or bad in the practice of this profession. there is no black and white. Everything is in a gray area which at times require the constant use of trial and error. Doctors do not have the monopoly on negligence. Patients also practice this, even you.
Corollary to the practice of medicine is the observance of ethics. Ethics guides physicians to a certain moral standard. At the backbone of that standard is their commitment to practice their profession beyond race, color or creed, and to the best of their abilities consequent to the tools that the science has to offer. Let us also not forget that our doctors are not God. After all is said and done, He gets to decide who dies and who lives in this profession. Our doctors are only there to prolong and promote life just in case God has not yet decided on our fate.

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Post by banana » Fri, 09 Sep 2005 2:56 pm

Internet: It's Serious Business
some signatures are more equal than others

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beenhere10years
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Post by beenhere10years » Sat, 10 Sep 2005 12:45 pm

CD,

I liked your post and I think read it in the spirit it was intended. I think exbiz took the whole thing a bit too seriously.

People focus on news stories and generally forget that we all are playing the odds. Like flying: you are much more likely to be killed driving to the airport than on the plane.

Parents are the worst I'm afraid. Seems they would rather smother their children with 'protection' and scare them from striking out on their own because of a few high profile kidnappings.

How will these kids ever learn to do anything on their own? To take risks?

One thing your statistics didn't refelct: it is estimated that there are 200,000,000 guns in the US, so often more than one per household. Your chances of killing a member of your own family is 20 times higher than using it to shoot a stranger.

:wink:
When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to ask is if they ever press charges.

-- jack handy

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Post by Matney » Sat, 10 Sep 2005 5:15 pm

Some people take things TOO serious. It was posted under "Leisure Chat, Jokes, Rubbish. What did he/she expect? :???:

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Post by Carpe Diem » Sat, 10 Sep 2005 11:15 pm

Thank you Matney.
I was wondering if I did not post in the wrong section!
La vie est trop courte, profitons de chaque instant

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Post by Guest » Mon, 12 Sep 2005 4:59 pm

Still offensive.

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