Dodo Eggs

One of the virtues of DodoEggs.com is our amazingly flexible standard of truth in reporting. If the facts don’t match the comic intensity, we stretch them. It allows us write with one foot in the cruel mud of reality and one in the leftover poo-poo of our imagination. As I mentioned in the DodoEggs.com’s very first post (Laying Dodo Eggs), it’s how I made it through college.

But this post is truth to the very last fiber. It’s the painful story of health care on the distant, high plains of central South Dakota. It’s the story of Peter Holms the standard bearer of the medical profession in a rural town.

If you think about it, it’s no huge surprise that there aren’t many doctors in Dakota. Think about a heady young man or woman fresh out of medical school and eager to do the things that mark a medical doctor’s existence. Here’s the priority rundown…

1) Buy a home that’s too big (Maybe two).

2) Buy a car that showcases your newfound status (Maybe two).

3) Begin forking out $$$$$ for malpractice insurance

(Here’s an idea, start a fund where you place 4/5ths of the money you would have paid in malpractice insurance. Then have your patients sign a waiver saying that they will not name you in a suit regardless of the circumstances and you’ll cut them a check from that account. That’s right buy off your patients! I’d sure consider going to a doctor that partially paid me back. It works for credit cards! Oops, I’m rambling…)

4) Begin doling out $$$$$ for the student loans you’ve accumulated.

5) Begin associating with birds of your feather.

(Bonus if you wind up in the society pages gingerly holding a plastic cup with some highbrow adult beverage in it.  I’m sure they’re smiling trying to  rationalize why any one should care that they attend parties and fund raisers.

Those magazines completely annoy me. WHAT’S THE POINT? Should the rest of us who don’t have money or time to hobnob cut out their pictures and laminate them? Try it with your friends then trade.

“Hey, I’ll trade you one Bob Stanford for your Susan Monroe. He’s the vice president of Waxford Woodard Investments you know but I think he’s about to be promoted.”

Oops, rambling again.)

Rural South and North Dakota really doesn’t offer the high volume / high dollar clientele that allow a new doctor to really cash in on his long years of school and take care of the above five priorities. So you can’t imagine that successful doctors are rushing to the bitter cold winters, lack of foreign car dealerships, and declining population (North and South Dakota as a whole are slowly growing but the rural areas have been losing people for years.).

Remember Peter Holms? I mentioned him as a long time doctor in a rural part of South Dakota. I have an interesting history with this man and it accentuates the somewhat unique nature of medical care where I grew up. I’ll share it with you in tomorrow’s post.

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