Who's Killing the Doctors?. Alex Swift

       To all my patients. Their lives gave me empathy, experience, knowledge and wisdom…

       To my colleagues and friends who gave me trust, confidence, encouragement, some times against all odds.

      Introduction

      Over many months I struggled with the many scattered facts, events and people present in this story trying to give it an acceptable, enticing, comprehensive format as a single work, even a thriller. While many of the events described here did occur, the times,characters and places were diverse, even skewed, but interconnected. Started as a personal family saga, a true story much of it biographical, it soon acquired a wider base and a new, fighting scope. At some point, aiming for the large readership of those who enjoy fiction, I went for a novel,introducing color and twist to actual events and cases, adding more, and gluing them together as one work, still controversial, even contentious. This ’Who’s’ Killing the Doctors?’is based in the same historical data and atmosphere described in my non-fiction picture book ‘FRANKLY,’ now as a fictionalized prequel, a novel, its 2nd half embellished by imagination and by… wishful thinking!

      This novel Who’s Killing the Doctors?, tells of doctors in trouble with the US Establishment, many eliminated out of practice by a powerful and cruel process, medical organizations and complacent Courts. As an exposé of sad, questionable public policies -of doctors sackings, of arguable courtroom proceedings- it shows how difficult is to uncover and simply tell the true facts, what’s going on, and why I have written it as a novel with a pseudonym, as a Prequel to the non-fiction FRANKLY. Towards the end, the reader will see the effort of few brave men and women trying -the beginnings of an uprise- to change ‘The System.’ They gather together -a few judges, doctors and a large, stung family- to alter The Establishment, to change The System into a more humane, fair and kind process. Will they succeed?

      You’ll be meeting first three crucial characters, a judge and two doctors you will like; and you will see the first “killing” soon. Bear with me!…

      Part A

       Dr. Barbara Good & Husband Judge Kenneth Good; Dr. Nora Phillips

      (Chapters 1 though 7)

      1

      A Stupid Court Case

      It was late evening in the east coast that first Sunday of February. Payton Manning had just beaten Cameron Newton 24 to 10 in the 50th Super Bawl held at the Santa Clara stadium near San Francisco. Sitting in front of a huge flat TV as a U-shape family group around a large coffee table, all were overtly happy with the outcome of the game, all fairly calm and sober in a private home full of professionals, all seemingly satisfied with their various snacks-and-wine. They were content, though many football fans in the US probably were not, especially large groups of minorities – including President Obama who had entered in a card his prediction with a win for the Carolina Panthers-with-Cam-Newton to beat Payton and his Denver Broncos; his forecast sealed -we were told that he did not watch the game- was to be opened and aired later on CBS. He lost. Ah well! A minor matter for Mr. O, compared to how happy he was –and proud– of ‘his work and accomplishments for ordinary people’ in his 8th and last year in office as the first black President in America.

      The patriarch of this family, honorable Kenneth Good, a local State Supreme Court judge, did not care much for American football, or for most sports shown on TV as a regular form of enjoyable pastime, at least since his days in college; but he too had had a good three hours of family togetherness with wife and friends, all with shared fun and he was visibly pleased with that Super Bowl; it had been won by someone with a recognizable name -Payton- he had heard just a few times. Yet his mind at that point was not into football but on the particulars of a court case over which he was to preside over in the morning.

      “Anything wrong, dear?” Asked his wife Barbara. “You seem distracted and worried about something.”

      “Oh, nothing,” he said. “Just my mind busy with tomorrow’s case.”

      That Monday judge Good was up early, one hour before his wife, herself an orthopedic surgeon who normally got up earlier to prepare breakfast for both by 6. She would be in her medical office by 7, but he did not have to be in his chambers till 9. He still had a couple of quiet hours to himself.

      His court was going to have an uncomfortable, personal injury case disputed by the covering insurance company, case already bumped a couple of times from judge to judge and it had landed on him as he couldn’t find a reason valid enough to recuse himself as the other judges had. Actually his wife had also known of the case, though not directly, just through an orthopedic colleague of a competing medical group. Lately she had been asked by the insurance company involved in the case to do a second opinion on the patient-claimant; but she had declined. She had been further asked to at least give an independent opinion on just the existing written file to that point, but again, busy already with other cases, she had passed it up, aware of tied sensitive issues, people and demands. Such distant awareness of the case by his wife as a possible conflict of interest and built-in bias did not get judge Good off the hook. Barbara had made a point of not even taking a peak at the file which her husband had been bringing home in the preceding few days.

      The file consisted of the claim on record ‘by the suer’ describing her personal injury in the event (a ‘car-with-the-claimant-rear-ended-by-another’), the ambulance and ER reports, her subsequent visits to doctors – an orthopedist, a chiropractor, a neurologist and an ophthalmologist, plus X-Ray/CT/MRI reports. There was also a police report, notes and comments by the insurance adjustor, notes from her own lawyer, and a report from an IME (‘Independent Medical Evaluation’) carried out by a neurologist hired by the insurance company.

      With a somber face, judge Good had his two toasts with butter and orange marmalade and his strong but creamy instant coffee with lots of sugar, without hardly saying a word or raising his eyes to meet his wife’s. He barely acknowledged her waving bye-bye and leaving before him. He already had pictured the accident in his mind and had an inkling of its repercussions, actual