First and foremost, I am not telling anyone to self diagnose, including any physician - that would be damned well stupid, IMO. What I advocate is investigating decisions made by your doctors, which are not always accurate by a long shot. You don't need a couple letters at the end of your name - you just need to apply a grain of common sense.

For example, my last stay in The University of Maryland Hospital in Baltimore was to have a stent inserted inside an existing stent that had had been chemically treated with anti-neoplastic drugs to prevent clogging - it didn't work! Fortunately, I had sufficient collateral circulation to prevent any ischemic damage to the left Ventricle muscular structure. I was admitted for cardiac catheterization which would take place in the very same cath lab that I directed many years ago. Ironically, one of the ladies at the admitting desk remembered me from way back when.

The cardiac cath did not go well, and the cardiologist damned near lost me on the table. Fortunately, I was wide awake and watching the monitor, told him that my BP had drastically fallen to 30/0 and I was passing out. The nurse anesthetist wasn't paying attention to my vital signs, the cardiologist had me injected with a cardiac stimulant, then everything went smoothly.

The following morning, a group of cardiology residents entered my room with an instructor holding a large pile of charts. She introduced me saying "This is Mr Gary Diamond. He suffered a severe myocardial infarction and has significant ischemic heart damage to his left ventrical. Additionally, he has a disecting descending, abdominal, aortic aneurysm, which is quite pronounced." I told her she either had the wrong patient, wrong chart or didn't know that the hell she was talking about. I told her to take the students and leave my room immediately. As the chief resident passed my bed, I stopped him, told him to get my X-rays, EKG and cath results and bring them to me, which he did within a few minutes. I can still read EKGs and X-rays. I didn't note anything on the EKG other than normal sinus rythm, to which the resident concurred. My aortic shadow throughout its length is perfectly normal, which the resident also confirmed. I checked myself out an hour later.

Some folks think they have the best doctors on planet. In reality, the vast majority have absolutely no way of determining the quality of the health care they receive other than the doc didn't kill them, at least not yet. Most individuals go by what is known as bedside manner. Or, he or she spent more than 15 minutes talking with me, that's why they were so late in seeing me. When in reality, most physicians set their appointments on a 15 minute schedule, then overbook so they can jam more patients into each hour to make up for the low medicare pay schedule.

Tony, with all your have been through, medically , you have been extremely fortunate, indeed. Especially when you consider "FFCJ said the 10 most litigious states are New Jersey, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Montana, Michigan, Connecticut and California." Not exactly sure where Lil Ol Rhodey falls into the list, though.

Good luck, everyone,

Gary