At 03:38 PM 11/19/2009, Jake de Villiers wrote:
>Are you a doctor David?  If not, why would you make such a statement?

I am not a doctor.  I was a US Navy Hospital Corpsman for about six
years and worked in civilian medical laboratories for a number of
years more.  I did *not* have the special "Independent Duty" training
that turns a Corpsman into the equivalent of a Physician's Assistant
or better; but the Navy considered me perfectly qualified to be the
sole medical presence on board a small ship.  When I go into a
hospital I feel perfectly at home -- I understand the language, the
attitudes, the gear, the different personality stereotypes of various
sorts of doctors and so forth.  I would not hesitate to perform an
emergency tracheotomy/tracheostomy on the street with a scalpel,
razor blade, pocket knife, broken glass or if necessary a ball-point
pen.  I keep one small blade on my pocket knife close to razor-sharp
and that's one of the reasons why.

Because of this considerable and broad-based background I believe
myself capable of judging whether I can fitly render a "professional"
opinion in certain particular circumstances.  Having seen, worked
with, taken to the morgue and assisted in autopsies on patients for
whom "everything turned to cr*p" I do have some informed
understanding of the degree and types of insult the human body can
expect to withstand without vital systems being overpowered.

Since you asked...

Yours,
David