I was unsurprised when I contacted the VA for evaluation of a torn MCL and waited six months for an appointment.
Anxious to get definitive treatment, as I noticed increasing pain while on the bike, I arrived to the VA facility early.
The Sergeant Major always emphasized such...
At any rate, I waited for about a half hour or so in a tiny office before the arrival of a tiny old man in a clinic jacket. I assumed this distinctly unmanly man was the orthopedic surgeon.
Yikes!
Slapping my radiograph on his viewer, he
spent five minutes with me, declaring the 'white stuff' observed on my radiograph was due to arthritis.
"My wife has arthritis..." and left the room.
I suppose he was implying 'get used to it...'(!).
I had no time to point out that this radiographic manifestation, condensing osteitis, also occurs with injury of a joint...
Especially after six months, asshole.
Sorry, Martha...
He looked eighty or so; I would not take advice from him for a stubbed toe.
90 % of military-associated physicians are unacceptable, in my view, from personal experience over a few decades.
The converse was true with the Army dental corps.
When I became active duty in 1981, after graduation from dental school, I joined a group of dentists who were exceptionally talented.
Further, all Lieutenant Colonels and above were board certified specialists; they were ubiquitous.
In 1981, the Army dental corps was only accepting dental graduates who were in the top 10% of their class.
The quality of those individuals who not only possessed outstanding clinical skills, but also a strong character, have endeared them as some of the most outstanding colleagues I have had in my life.
There were, of course, exceptions.
Those early efforts at D.E.I., an offshoot of Affirmative Action, placed race-based criteria on virtually every aspect of society.
Decades of this nonsense have increased the virulence of this racist dogma to the absurdity we see today.
President Trump will fight this.
Again, D.E.I. = DIE
I have previously alluded to the worst O-6 and O-1 Army officers I ever encountered during my years as a dental officer, both receiving commissions from HBCU ROTC programs.
I will never forget the laziness of the O-6 who rarely saw a patient...
And the young 2LT who bragged about stealing cassette tapes while he worked at
Montgomery Ward...
And who allowed his smelly water buffalo of a wife to spend the night in the BOQ where I was senior occupant and responsible for any violations...
...and that's a violation.
Get a hotel, you cheap SOB.
This dumbass second lieutenant had a chronic blatant disregard for regulations.
He wasn't even supposed to be in my BOQ, as it was designated for O-3 and O-4 occupants.
Probably Affirmative Action (!)...
Further, this POS officer raided our pantry and stole our food (!)...
Who does that?
After a week of tolerating his cow of a wife, wreaking of some sort of aroma and who, for five days, delayed our daily routines by
her early morning rush to the common bathroom, locking the door behind her...
and delaying our daily routines,
...it was time to get rid of this disgrace of an officer.
I was gentle at first, providing counselling to the ne'er-do-well, hoping to influence his behavior.
After discovering this bastard was stealing our food, I lowered the boom.
As I have described earlier, I contacted his battalion commander and informed him of the insubordinate 2LT.
Meeting him for lunch at the Officers' Club, the LTC smiled and thanked me for providing the proverbial straw that severely inured the camel...
The young lieutenant was on thin ice already due to a number of previous actions; this most recent and serious breach of security provided by the Affirmative Action beneficiary required separation from the Army...
Which prompted the subsequent outrage this dumbass expressed to me that evening when I returned to my BOQ from Carius dental clinic.
"How dare you!", he bellowed.
He rapidly approached me, parking himself inches from my chest.
Alvin was a good size man, about my size, standing eye to eye and poking his finger into my chest.
"Thanks, lieutenant. You just assaulted an officer."
The MP's arrived at the BOQ, handcuffed the young lieutenant and provided a few days of residence in the stockade while he awaited his court-martial.
From a clinical perspective, shoddy dentistry was infrequent from my observations, but I did learn about the 'NYU prep'.
Instead of having a few degrees of convergence of the crown preparation walls, the NYU prep featured the 'teepee' prep, lacking the proper convergence required for retention of the crown.
Further, I had personal clinical observations of a Meharry dental school graduate.
Uninspiring, let's say.
Again, there were very few exceptions to the quality of Army dentistry. Those rare dental officers who were worthless were directly attributable to policies from Jimmy Carter and the Dems.
The broader picture of the quality of Army dentists vs physicians...
No contest.