D

Leading Off (11/20/09): Patently Unfair Media Criticism Edition

1. The Dallas Observer’s Sam Merten nearly derailed the entire City Hall corruption case.

2. Some people would say that the appearance of the word “some” in a headline is a sure sign of a newspaper covering for a thin local angle on a national story.

3. If a fire breaks out in east Fort Worth, and NBC5 isn’t there to provide “team coverage,” does anybody care?

Dallas Thinks it Looks Good in Skinny Jeans

According to a new report, a good number of the fat people of our fair city don’t think there’s anything wrong with them:

The study, based on survey data collected in Dallas, found that one in 10 participants — all of whom were classified as obese — were satisfied with their body size and didn’t think they needed to lose a few.

“That is a sizeable percentage who don’t understand they are overweight and believe they are healthy,” said lead researcher Tiffany Powell, a cardiology fellow at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Dallas County Expected to Run Out of H1N1 Vaccine Today (Probably)

So, go ahead and panic, if that’s your thing. My thing? An unnatural, inexplicable cockiness, and constant thumb drumming on my legs (not a euphemism).

Leading Off (10/27/09)

1. MAVS DAY! MAVS DAY! MAVS DAY!

2. Mayor Leppert is trying to rush through a complicated package of ethics reforms, in the wake of former Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill’s corruption conviction. Some council members want to take more time, some don’t think the reforms are needed, and none have answered my e-mails about how they think Erick Dampier will react to his new role occasionally coming off the bench. Where is your fancy talk of transparency now, city hall?

3. Southlake Carroll ISD is ditching its perfect attendance award so sick kids stay home. I, however, am still planning on maintaining perfect attendance at the games on my Dallas Mavericks ticket plan, starting with tonight against the Washington Wizards.

Signs of the Times On Health Care Reform

Demonstrators for and against health care reform are continuing to snarl traffic around Sen. John Cornyn’s office at Spring Valley and the tollway, DallasDirt’s Candy Evans reports. Three cop cars were parked there keeping watch around noon today, Candy says, when the “aginners” outnumbered the “fers” by about 150 to 12. It’s been closer to 50/50 since the demonstrations began several months ago, she adds, but rainy weather has tended to keep the reform proponents away.

A Rash of Cheese Overdoses at Parkland

Awhile back, Angela Gardner tweeted: “Apparently there is a new batch of ‘cheese’ on the street.” Gardner is the president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians, and she works at Parkland. I got her on the phone to explain what’s happening down there.

Gardner has worked at Parkland for about five months. In the first four, she says, she saw only a few cheese overdoses come through the ER. But in the last couple of weeks, she has seen about half a dozen. She stresses that her count is anecdotal. The patients have all been males in their early 20s. They all say they did the drug at a party. “I’m struck that these kids think that because they’re snorting the cheese, it’s not as bad for them as injecting heroin,” Gardner says. “They don’t know that it can stop your breathing and kill you.” Her patients have all survived.

Side note: I asked her how the flu is looking at Parkland. Gardner’s response: “The flu is looking terrible! It’s terrible!” She thinks Dallas will get the H1N1 vaccine the first part of November, and she encourages everyone to get a shot.

Guests Get Two Bushes for One

Laura Bush showed up with a surprise guest today at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center luncheon in Dallas: her husband George W. in tow. SweetCharity has the details.

Baylor, Harris Methodist, Beryl Best Places to Work

Congratulations to local outfits  Baylor Health Care System, the Harris Methodist Southlake Center for Diagnostics & Surgery, and the Beryl Cos. (in Bedford), for being among the 100 Best Places to Work in Health Care, according to Modern Healthcare Magazine.

Baylor President and CEO Joel Allison was recently named the 29th Most Powerful Man in Health Care by the same publication. Beryl Cos. CEO Paul Spiegelman was one of 34 Great Entrepreneurs recognized in the July issue of D CEO. And I’m sure the folks over at Harris Methodist Southlake are good people.

OK, any disgruntled employees of these companies, our comments are open for your horror stories.

Everyone in Dallas Will Die From the Flu, Ctd.

Well, we have a diagnosis. The boy has the flu. Is it the dreaded and feared swine flu? As his pediatrician put it (shout out to Dr. Bergman!), the swine flu is the only flu in town. I’m headed off now to get Tamiflu for the whole family.

What does this mean to you, the dear, sweet, healthy FrontBurnervian? Remember that the swine flu is just the flu. It’s no more dangerous than regular flu flu. Thing is, no one has immunity to it, making it very contageous. Got that? Our pediatrician says the hard part of his job is deciding whom to treat with Tamiflu. Treat those who’ve been exposed to it now, and they’ll likely just be exposed again in a few weeks or a few months (he’s expecting a lot of people will get sick this year). And down the road, we’re almost certain to run out of the stuff. Right now, he says he’s only prescribing for family members of those who’ve got it. If your kid has a fever, get him to the doc pronto. Get it early, and Tamiflu lessens the severity of the flu. Wait a couple days, and it does nothing.

Finally, if you’ve French-kissed either me or my son recently, you’re probably going to die. Watch out.

Dallas Invented Health Insurance

Maybe all you wise FrontBurnervians already knew this, but I’m reading this morning that the first health insurance plan in the country originated right here in Dallas, at Baylor University Medical Center:

For its beginnings we need to go back to 1929 to a man named Justin Ford Kimball when he became vice president of Baylor University in Dallas, Texas. He was an experienced administrator, as he headed the College of Medicine, School of Nursing, College of Dentistry, and the university hospital.

Soon after taking the job, he developed a health plan that guaranteed teachers 21 days of hospital care for 50 cents a month. The plan soon spread to other employee groups in Dallas, and then similar plans began to crop up nation-wide.

Yes, that Justin F. Kimball. And I read about it on two different websites, so come on, it’s got to be true, right? Maybe Dallas is the best place to figure out a new model of health care.

Most Powerful Men in Dallas Health Care, Ctd.

A medicine-practicing FrontBurnervian says Baylor orchestrated a carefully controlled campaign of intimidation and fear-mongering asked employees politely to vote to get their guy high up the list:

You do need to be aware that the Baylor website when any employee or doc signed in implored you to vote for Joel…it included the web link as well.  I guarantee Trevor did not do that…the guy is way too humble for that.

So there we have it, folks. Empirical evidence that nice guys finish last. Or at least 53rd.

Most Powerful Men in Dallas Health Care

Let the great debate begin.  Modern Healthcare  has released its annual 100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare, and I count four locals on their list.

The highest ranking is Joel Allison, president and CEO of Baylor Health Care System, at No. 29. Right behind him are Doug Hawthorne, CEO of Texas Health Resources (No. 31), and Dean Wilkerson, executive director of the American College of Emergency Physicians (No. 37).

But poor Trevor Fetter. The president and CEO of Tenet Healthcare was the 14th most powerful person in health care just last year. Now he’s fallen all the way to No. 53. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family today.

Houston Disses Downtown Dallas

Ouch,  Jeff Moseley, CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership. Sure, you can brag about your fancy medical center, but did you have to pick on the size of downtown Dallas while you did it? You better watch yourself or we’ll ask Jerry to launch his giant space turtle to swallow downtown Houston whole.

Whole Foods CEO, Ctd.

Weighing in on the Whole Foods controversy–which was also tackled today by D contributor Trey Garrison on his blog–a boycott-skewering FBvian makes two points:

1. Where was the outcry when Safeway CEO Steven Burd wrote an Op-Ed in the WSJ back in June? The underlying message was the same in both pieces. Perhaps the arugula isn’t up to par at the neighborhood Tom Thumb?
2. Assuming Whole Foods CEO John Mackey practices what he preaches (by implementing his ideas into the Whole Foods group health plan, which appears to be the case), wouldn’t it be appropriate to ask the rank and file Whole Foods employee how satisfied they are with this health care arrangement? Or does the voice of the ignorant carry more weight?

Whole Foods CEO is Ripped and Praised for Health Care Stance

Most CEOs clam up about anything too political, for fear of driving off customers. Not John Mackey of Austin-based Whole Foods Market, which has several stores in North Texas. Mackey wrote an op-ed piece this week for The Wall Street Journal criticizing Obamacare. That enraged some members of the socks-and-Birkenstocks set, who typically flock to places like Whole Foods to bag their goat’s-milk brie and $4 tomatoes. Some of them are vowing to boycott the organic grocer; others say they’ll shop there more often in support of Mackey’s free-market views.

Texas Ranks High in Gallup “Well-Being” Index

We’re not in the top ten but Texas is doing fine, according to the fine folks at Gallup-Healthway. We rank 16th among the states; our “well-being” is down only a tenth of a percent even during the Great Recession. Hawaii tops the list (big surprise), and Mormons generally must be a happy people: Utah ranks second. (Lighter green is good; darker green is grumpy.)

AARP Squelches Dallas Health Care ‘Town Hall’

It looks like Dallas is playing a role this week in the national debate over health care. According to this Breitbart video via Drudge, the AARP pulled the plug on a “town hall” meeting on the subject here after the attendees started speaking up. Don’t they know they’re supposed to keep their traps shut?

Dallas Dentist Offers ‘Cash For Chompers’ Program

Never underestimate the power of a dumb marketing idea. In this case, a Dallas dentist’s said to be getting national attention riffing on the federal “Cash for Clunkers” program with a “Cash for Chompers” offer: Turn in your old false teeth and get a $250 rebate on a new set. Hey; whatever works.

Why Dallas Residents Are Likely To Die Younger

How’s that for a headline. The bad news comes from the Journal of the Public Library of Science. Maps A show life expectacy at birth for blacks (counties with more than five deaths for any 5-y age group were included to prevent statistical distortions) . Maps B show the same for whites.

The various shades of red mark the lowest life expectancy, and what is glaringly obvious at a glance is that Dallas is deep red, red, or reddish (except maybe for black males; I can’t figure out if that red county is Dallas or not).

The next question is why. The Gene Expression blog compares the maps of white males to one of Scotch-Irish ancestry by county and deduces a correlation. He particularly notes the purplish counties in Central Texas were settled by Germans (and Czechs). The incidence for blacks may reflect genetic intermixing in the South.

I have always — until a few moments ago, anyway — been proud of my Scots ancestry. Anyone named Lodowick Brodie Cobb Allison has little choice. But, really, it ought to come with a warning label.

Lower Drinking Age Back to 18?

The evidence continues to come in. Now one of the architects of forcing states like Texas to raise the drinking age back in 1984 thinks it ought to be lowered. The law was one of the most egregious extensions of federal power in modern history — signed by none other than Ronald Reagan.

Komen Founder Nancy Brinker To Receive Presidential Medal Of Freedom

The White House says that Nancy Goodman Brinker, founder of Dallas’ Susan G. Komen for the Cure, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on Aug. 12. Kudos!

Perot Systems Foresees A Bonanza In Computerizing Health Records

To say that the government campaign to computerize medical records is being “closely watched” by outfits like Perot Systems, as the DMN did today, is a bit of an understatement. In fact, Perot insiders believe the effort could lead to a major bonanza for the Plano company, which is already a huge player in health care technology. So major, some think, it may wind up rivaling the success that Ross Sr.’s EDS enjoyed while feasting on Medicare and Medicaid business back in the ’60s.

Michael Jackson’s Dallas Rhinoplasties

A FrontBurnervian in the know tells us that Michael Jackson’s nose had a Dallas connection:

Michael Jackson had at least two rhinoplasty surgeries in Dallas. I know this because my mother worked for an anesthesiologist at Presby. The first was in 1982, and a revision procedure followed in 1983 at the height of the success from Thriller. The surgeon refused to do additional procedures citing that Jackson had unrealistic expectations of outcomes. (Common in people with repeated cosmetic procedures, often called “dysmorphic syndrome.”) Ethical plastic surgeons require full psychological evaluation before radical procedures, and do not attempt to change features associated with someone’s race or heritage.

My mom’s employer refused to do the anesthesia because 1) Jackson was painfully thin (anorexic, and therefore at risk for cardiac arrest), 2) he believed he was “altered” (on drugs, and use of amphetamines, even by prescription can prevent healing of surgical wounds), and 3) he felt that Jackson was not going to be happy with any result. The doctor my mother worked for was Dominican, and he was disgusted by Jackson’s desire to “look Caucasian.”

The procedures were not done at Presby, but rather at a private surgical suite on LBJ Fwy. Jackson had an entire entourage in Dallas for a week each time.

The Texas Paradox: What Really Goes On In McAllen

A FrontBurnervian sends us a fascinating case from McAllen which highlights almost everything wrong with our healthcare system.  In fact, the problems are so obvious the solutions present themselves. I really, really think it’s worth reading:

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A Texas Paradox, Ctd.

A South Texan-living-in-Dallas FrontBurnervian thinks the New Yorker didn’t do its homework:

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