So, I was checking to see if our doctors practice in the new health insurance network and was almost immediately drawn to the interweb’s vast realm of “Confucius’s Struggle for Sobriety,” which was right next to a picture advertising “Liposuction in Tibet” and about three clicks away from “Accepted Health Networks,” in the “Search Engine for People with the Attention Span of a Goldfish.”
Normal folks call this “Google.” I call it a vast world of insane information, sprinkled with the research powers of a warlock. I alone control my intake, which I should most definitely limit to real things. We don’t have time or space to discuss the difference between my “real” and your “real.”
Back to the regularly scheduled program. (For at least a minute.)
A quick Google search can provide you vast amounts of information about the people you literally trust your life with. There are websites like Doctor’s Scorecard that give you all the starting points you need in your state. It’s not entirely fair to say it’s easy to find this information everywhere, sometimes you have to request it. Most states have a website you can check validity of medical professional licenses practicing within them, and lists of restricted licenses are usually available.
When you’re making a choice that might save your own life, you would probably refrain from choosing the list of practitioners who did things like leave surgical instruments inside people. And I’m not talking a gauze pad with a clamp, I’m talking an entire MRI machine.
OK, I’m not really talking about the MRI machine part, it’s a filthy lie to make you keep reading, but I am talking about making good choices when it comes to your personal safety. The information is available.
Here’s where I got surprised. Also in the sidebar was an ad for Trucking Alliance. Click on their ad, go to the “about us” page and lo and behold, two of the three companies on the aforementioned ambulance chasers’ list of “pots of gold” were present, right under the logo “Freight Transportation’s Safety Advocate.”
Now, I’m not hating on The Alliance, although I will admit to saying more than once their name is creepy as hell. I didn’t make this search up, I just followed it to the part where it gets really weird, as my internet searches generally do.
I followed it to the part where the Trucking Alliance is feeding the gubmint the illusion of “what trucking should be,” with one hand, while crash rates picked by the ambulance chasers are actually giving the general public an image 80 percent of the industry would love to shed. There’s duplicity there, I would say, something you should be extremely wary of when choosing things that affect your safety. It also means there’s some ‘splainin’ to do, Lucy, about why the guys who leave MRI machines in people are being touted as safety advocates.
