I Work With Doctors, Behind The Veil Is A Lot More Than You Think

Of course, I'm talking about Howard Dean.

:)

Not to knock being a doctor. I think it's great and I have a tremendous amount of respect for people who choose to go into medicine.

But having observed them for a while, I've come to realize that medicine is only 50% of their job.

Politics is the other 50%.

Internal politics, politics among colleagues, administration, department heads, other hospitals, ect. It's absolutely shocking to me that the field of medicine has such a stab-or-be-backstabbed underbelly to it. And they all do it with smiles on their faces, as forced as they may be, althewhile secretly wishing they were doing something else other than being a doctor.

Now, that relates to Dean how?

Well I believe that Dean has a great resume to run on by being a doctor. But, knowing the common personality traits of people who go into medicine they can also be ruthless and manipulative, and have many qualities that wouldn't make them especially great people to be put in the spotlight.

Dean, to me, seems to have some of that.

I started following Dean about as soon as he started running. And from following his campaign I've determined that he shines in small groups. He is well adapted to speaking, and wowing, small audiences.

He probably first honed this as a doctor, and then later as a small state governor. Then he started his campaign going basically house-to-house. And he worked his ass off. His audiences started to grow and he started to hone his speeches to fit the size of the crowd. He was adapting and making changes on the fly and excelling at it.

But then came time when the tv cameras started to arrive and he kinda struggles. But his supporters, those small groups of people who met him and who heard about him through word-of-mouth kept contributing money to him.

And they believed in him, because they trust him and what he says. And that's a quality that only a doctor can probably have when he speaks to you. The ability to say something in such a way that just feels like the brutal truth - which, is what you generally want to hear when your life or someone close to you is at stake.

Thus, he has the speaking and oratory skills of a doctor, and the political skills too. He wants to be No. 1 - I doubt he'd accept a VP nod - and he wouldn't say he was from the "democratic wing of the democratic party" if he realistically thought any of his opponents were gonna pick him to run with against Bush.

So Dean has a lot of things going for him. His drive, his passion and his will to get by on little sleep. All qualities you have to have to be a sucsessful doctor.

His flaws, I believe, will get him into trouble (he IS running for president afterall) and it will be up to the mass of humanity that is now behind him to carry Dean to the finish line.

That gravey train that Dean is riding needs to pump him full of money as often as they can and then get a whole lot of foot soldiers to do the heavy lifting.

Then Dean can come down, give a speech, shake some hands, schmooze.

You know, basically do all the things doctors do.

Replace the donators with administrators, foot soldiers with nurses and Dean's speeches and schmoozing with popping into a room and checking to see if everything is okay.

Personally, I think if he ever gets better in tv interviews he'll be a lock for 2004. But one of the qualities he has is the ability to adapt. And as the field narrows and it's just him and Candidate X and Y, he should improve with more exposure and experience.

Just like a doctor does after they have a rather difficult patient.

Guess that be Dean, then.

The great thing about doctors is that they deal with facts, with science, with interpretation, with decision-making, with following up the results and modifying the decision if the facts show a need to.

They don't do "denial" like * does, pretending something is different from what it really is. They don't goof off and let somebody else do all the real work.

They know that science and policies can help people and can hurt people. They pay attention to that.

professors? Doctors are almost angelic by comparison. I have worked in a lowly clerical capacity with both. I think this goes with the territory of being a professional of any discipline. This is why they have to spend at least one day a week hitting little balls with clubs to maintain their sanity.

You can't run a grass roots campaign if you're John Kerry or John Edwards or Dick Gephardt.

You're tied down by the Washington system. You have to (although I know a lot haven't done it enough) go back to vote on legaislation.

You have to campaign night and day and stay awake for 19, 20, 21 hours a day.

Experienced doctors can do this.

I don't think John Kerry can. I don't think any other Democrat, maybe other than Kucinich, could do what Dean is doing.

And because governor of a state is a higher position than a congressman, Dean attracted the grass roots that Kucinich couldn't.

How do I know? Well, my grandfather is a doctor, and four of my mother's five brothers are doctors. One of them is the head of a medical science univ. in Texas, and the other sits on the South Texas Education Board, and the rest on local education boards in South Texas.

My grandfather's got schools named after him and his brother because of the philanthropist work he did for his town, so in order to be a successful doctor, you have to cultivate the traits of a politician.