Kevin, there is a flip side to this type of story.

My blog exists because I am an “angry client” and “disgruntled former employee/colleague” . . . of lawyers who did not play fair . . . of “non-profit” executives who lied repeatedly and broke every rule of common professional decency in the book (not to mention a few laws) . . . of physicians whose necks froze stiff looking the other way (maintaining their own very comfortable status quo).

I played by the rules FOR YEARS . . . always believing that “the system” would somehow ultimately work . . . and that truth and justice will prevail.

It was incredibly naive. And I was an idiot.

The game was fixed and stacked FROM DAY ONE. Demanding any kind of accountability from the Feds and the state and JCAHO and the NC State Bar and even the NC Medical Board is a black hole of apathy and do-nothingness. Of course, now everyone knows the legal system in North Carolina is a joke (God can at least bless Mike Nifong for bringing that to light).

The biggest problem as far as I am concerned was a local press that lived in the hospital’s pocket. We all think that newspapers are supposed to be our last line of defense against government/industry/whatever gone bad. After all, local newspapers still matter in rural areas. Places still exist in our world where no one goes on the Internet. But my case certainly demonstrates that newspapers these days are part of the problem . . . because most of them have sold out to business special interests and the Chamber of Commerce just to keep their presses running.

Turning first to a website (that got no traffic), then to a blog was the only way I had to even the scales. And I suffer under no illusion that the scales are ever going to be even . . . even if I eventually get the happiest ending I could imagine.

Whatever happens, my reputation was trashed long ago . . . courtesy of a hometown hospital that simply did not want me around to compete with them. A whistle-blowing doctor before whistle-blowing was cool, I was black-balled and called a “liar” long before the Google searches started killing me.

And I say again (to you), my blog should be required reading for anyone contemplating public service or an employement arrangement with a (rural) hospital.

It should be on your blogroll.