I had the worst medical experience in a long time today.

I write this in the simple hope that I might save someone else from the dehumanizing and somewhat humiliating experience of seeing a doctor who seems to believe he is too good for his patients.

My primary care doctor, who I love, referred me to an ear specialist to get this lingering problem checked out. She gave me two cards and told me that one was better but they were both great. I picked the wrong one.

First, I had to reschedule my appointment. Then, two days later, I got a call from an automated system to remind me of the appointment I had canceled. The robot gave me no option to talk to a person, no way to tell it that I had already canceled.

OK, simple mistake, this sort of thing happens, especially when you over-automate your office.

However, when I called the office I was given a nasty attitude, it seemed that I had only canceled my appointment, not the hearing test they decided I needed. One would think that when canceling, that they would have rescheduled both -- especially since I was never made aware that there was a second part when I made my appointment.

When I finally got to see the doctor, he was an arrogant jerk who seems to think he's so much better than his patients that he does not even need to listen to them explain their problem. Just push them through the process and refer them to unnecessary and expensive tests. I told him twice that I had accidentally put a q-tip in my ear that was covered in tiger balm, which contains menthol and camphor (two ingredients that are really bad to put in your ear). After telling me that it was totally impossible that this was the cause of my problems he sent me off to get a hearing test.

When I returned he once again told me in this condescending tone that my problem had to have existed for a long time but I never noticed it until recently, then he looked at me and said "by the way, what is tiger balm?" The nurse looked at him with a "my god you are a jerk" look and said "it's for muscles, it's like vicks vapor rub only stronger." I reminded him of the dangerous-to-the-ear ingredients and he just put my file down, gave the nurse instructions for what medication I should take an walked away.

The nurse then informed me that he wanted me to take a medication for a week, I asked the nurse for the prescription and she rudely told me that they would call it in "we don't give prescriptions, we call them in, that's how it's done here" she said and then walked away. I then asked the woman who took my payment about it and she treated me as if I was some whiny child.

Well, I got a call a few hours later from someone at the doctor's office. She wanted to know why I left without my prescription. Finally they called it in to my pharmacy.

I then went looking on yelp to see if anyone had put in a review. The only one showing looks like it was written by the doctor's PR agency.

Then I noticed the "show filtered reviews" link. After filling out a form to prove I was not a robot, yelp showed me the real reviews. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks Dr Godin is a jack ass.

For your reading pleasure, and for the google searchers out there, here are the reviews that yelp did not disclose to the casual reader:

R D. Manhattan, NY
1.0 star rating
3/27/2011

I had really bad experience with Dr. Godin. I have seen him once, and that's all I can take. As a doctor, I don't think he really cares about his patient. He is arrogant, loud (discussing my medical issues loudly with the door wide open) and often times impatiently stopped me while I was trying to explain my ailment. Anyway, I am very disappointed and don't believe I will see him again.
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Lynn B. Manhattan, NY
1.0 star rating
3/12/2011

There are many good, honest, caring and compassionate ENT doctors in NYC. I implore you to find another doctor. I had a horrible experience with Dr. Godin and ENT & Allergy Associates.

Dr. Godin and ENT & Allergy Associates are an excellent example of the failure of the health care system in this country.

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nothing to see here, move on.

I'm making knishes for Passover and figured for once I'd write down the recipe I'm using so I can remember it next time.

You can use this recipe to make normal/full sized knishes, but I like to make them small. You get a better ratio of crispy baked "skin" to fluffy filling.

The ones on the right are the vegan batch

First slice and boil a bunch of potatoes and then mash them. While the potatoes are boiling, cut up an onion (or two if you're using a lot of potatoes) and fry it up until they are mushy or caramelized .

Mix the onions in as you mash the potatoes.

For every 2.5 cups of mashed potatoes you end up with add

2 eggs (or two eggs worth of powdered egg replacer)
2/3 cup matzoh meal
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutritional yeast

mix it all up, oil (or use spray to grease) a baking sheet or aluminum foil

make knishes of whatever size you want

bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes, turning them over about 5 minutes before they are done

enjoy.

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I'm still (yes, still) in the process of shaking off the after effects of whatever illness hit me last month. It's just crazy, I get a few good hours a day. The worst thing at this point is the ringing in my ear, it's so loud that I really can't keep a complex train of thought going for more than a few minutes.

So, today there is no story to tell, no links to post, just a couple photos of the local pickle guy. It's a great place to go any time of year, but right before Passover is the best because that's when they have a guy (in serious gasmask) grinding fresh horseradish on the sidewalk.

There is no crisis, there's a lack of courage.

We need to do two things, first start taxing the rich again. If we simply go back to the tax rates that were in effect when the middle class was strong and growing; when this country actually built infrastructure and pushed the envelope on scientific discovery, we could do all those things again.

Combine that with shifting spending towards things that benefit society and not the military and amazing things could happen. However, our representatives are all looking out for their own class interests and have no courage to do the right thing.

Some facts worth note:

http://www.sipri.org/media/pressreleases/milex
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, The USA has increased its military spending by 81 per cent since 2001, and now accounts for 43 per cent of the global total, six times its nearest rival China.

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Off-the-charts income gains for super-rich
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110408/ts_yblog_thelookout/of...
the 30 years following the Second World War were a time of broadly shared prosperity: Income for the bottom 90 percent of American households roughly kept pace with economic growth.

But over the last 35 years, there's been an abrupt shift: Total growth has slowed marginally, but the real change has been in how the results of that growth are distributed. Now, the bottom 90 percent have seen their income rise only by a tiny fraction of total growth, while income for the richest 1 percent has exploded by upwards of 275 percent.

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