Killeen-Ft. Hood

[peggyfromwastate]

The guy who told Rick to F off in front of the patient and his family (during fellowship) was ultimately removed from the fellowship (aka fired) but because he was USUHS and owed the military seven years, he ended up at the clinic at USUHS for the entire payback, under the watchful eye of the commanders.

So, it's possible to be removed but they'll never let someone not finish the payback. That would set a precedent that they don't want to see. EVER.

Jenn

OHHH, I think I know who he is... from the Clinic.

To answer the question- YES, you can be fired from med school. Many people in Mac's class year washed out. THey didn't perform well enough after the 2 year mark, so they failed them and made them pay back the time in other capacities. No more med school, no more degree.

Another thing they've done is to have the poorly performing doc have to do his payback strictly as a GMO. They never approve him to go on to a residency, and therefore the *MD* can't get board certified.

And, from what I've heard, some soldiers will say almost anything to keep from being deployed. It's not entirely surprising to me that the ARMY didn't *take him more seriously* when he said some outrageous things. I mean, some women get pregnant for the sole purpose of not deploying.

It seems to me that there's not enough information sharing going on. IF the FBI or CIA or someone was on to this guy's extremist posts, did they share that info with the upper ups?

ETA: Of course I'm not excusing that the serious red flags that this guy let fly should not have been ignored. I hope that this type of situation never repeats itself.

[peggyfromwastate]

PS- The Washington Post had some idiot on their website yesterday answering questions who was completely clueless about military medicine, the USUHS payback, residency, etc. It was so annoying to read. It started off with "I don't know of any military commitment that's longer than 6 years." ARGH. The level of disinformation out there in relation to how the medicine part all plays in to this is alarming.

I'm just waiting for a whole bunch of docs who just finished their IM or Peds or other residency to be expecting the Major promotion just as soon as they are board certified... Because, well, that's what some *expert* on military payback for USUHS grads said... You do your time at USU (All Expense Paid Education!) then you do a residency, then you take the board certification exam, then BOOM! you're a major.

Awesome.

Sucks that DH's residency is so long. It would've been nice to promote to major 3 years sooner than we thought he'd be eligible.

Seriously, though, it's not that complicated.

[scrub-jay]

I haven't heard whether he is talking yet or not, but it should be interesting to see what he has to say.

[DCJenn]

Wow Peggy- that's awesome- so I guess we should be expecting that Lt. Col. promotion any day now since you know, it happens "just like that."

It's really hard to explain to those of you who aren't in military medicine and more specifically ARMY military medicine how this could happen.

Honestly, I'm not surprised that it happened, I'm only surprised that it didn't happen sooner. I think as much as it may be convenient to lay blame at the feet of an imam who preached destruction, the Army system is also plays a part. I read a quote that said that unless he was sharpening knives and salivating about killing people, it's no surprise that he was graduated, promoted, accepted in the fellowship. Seriously, they are so short-staffed in behavioral sciences that if you have a pulse, it's likely that you'll at least be given a mediocre eval- enough to delay immediate promotion but you'll get it eventually.

It's clear that he did all that he could do to delay being deployed. He couldn't get much more subspecialized.

It's an incredibly overworked and overstressed time in military medicine. At any given time a vast number of providers are deployed so those left behind are always playing catch-up. At to that a national shortage of primary care providers anyway, extrapolate that down to the microcosm that is the military, Army specific and it IS an incredibly stressful place to work.

So, my point is this, the "whys" of how this could have happened may never be answered to anyone's satisfaction. You can't make any one reason more important than any of the others. They're all wrapped up into a very sick and sad man.

Jenn

[DCJenn]

Here- this guy explains it better than anyplace else that I've read so far:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-..._b_350242.html

Great article Jenn, I hadn't seen that one. Thanks for posting it.

[Rapunzel]

DH pointed out tonight that there is such a thing as treason (and sedition). And, honestly it sounds like the guy crossed that line loooong before this mass murder:

"He was a lightning rod. He made his views known and he was very vocal, he had extremely radical jihadist views," Finnell said. "When you're a military officer you take an oath to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic.

"They should've confronted him — our professors, officers — but they were too concerned about being politically correct."

Finnell said the warning signs were clear to many, not just classmates. Faculty members, including many high-ranking military officers, witnessed firsthand his anti-Americanism, he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573469,00.html

This is what I believe about any government organization - military included - that fear of being politically "incorrect" trumps all (and, I have seen it and heard of it with dh being in the military). This seems to be the clearest reason why nobody did much of anything despite there being very clear statements and actions from this, well, murderer before he started killing. In fact, the only person who seemed to DO something to block this guy was an imam who wasn't in the military (he recommended that this man NOT be a lay Muslim leader at Ft. Hood per the article I cited).

This is one of the reasons I like Lieberman - he has the courage to say and do the things that he believes are right without regard for party affiliation or what is politically correct:

On Sunday Sen. Joe Lieberman announced his intention to lead a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood murders, saying there were "strong warning signs" that Hasan was an "Islamic extremist."

"The U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone," said Lieberman, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

[Chrisada]

One of my mom's good friend's daughter is in psychiatry in the armed forces and was in his class and knew him. She said everyone knew he was off and that the talked openly about not wanting to get deployed and having to kill his brothers. She is actually know getting deployed to take his place. So off to Afghanistan she goes.

[GrayMatterWife]

This is one of the reasons I like Lieberman - he has the courage to say and do the things that he believes are right without regard for party affiliation or what is politically correct:

I've always admired this about him, too.

I don't know if Hasan suffered a psychiatric condition that caused a psychotic break, or if he simply genuinely believes in the version of Islam that prescribes such violence and acted in accordance with that belief, but I do know this: having a true religious belief that is unpopular or seems to be an affront to societal standards, alone, does not make you crazy. It makes you a true believer. I think it would serve our society well to start giving people who are different than us the credit of being sane and MEANING WHAT THEY SAY, unless and until it can be established that they are not sane and thus not able, from a medical and legal understanding, of making rational decisions.

Believing in radical interpretations of Islam does not, in and of itself, make you crazy. Yet, that seems to be the condescending, implied starting point here in the West: we just can't understand why anyone would believe this stuff, so there must be something wrong with someone who believes it. It is a reflection of the postmodern West's self-centric inability to relate to a foreign culture that embraces deeply held religious conviction.

Despite the obvious need for judgment and action according with that judgment, no one had the courage to judge Hasan't beliefs. We lacked the courage because we as a society don't like to sound like we are "judging" other people's religious convictions--it makes us feel uneasy. It makes us sound like we believe in certain truths that are exclusive of other truths, and that we are being arrogant in that belief. We fear that we might be called the most politically weaponized word in the English language: "racist" (which, for precision, really should be "religionist" in this context). And we believe this even when judgment is completely appropriate and important for purposes of safety and acknowledgment of reality.

Let's face it: people who believe in an interpretation of a religion that compels them to hurt innocent people SHOULD have that faith judged for purposes of determining whether they pose a threat, for heaven's sake. But employing this obvious and basic common sense in the context of a religion that is basically "foreign" to Western culture makes people feel uncomfortable--as though passing judgment on people who believe that Allah is calling them to kill innocent Americans is the equivalent of saying anyone who believes in Islam deserves this same judgment. Why would we think this? Because we as a society have so little understanding of Islam that it is just easier to treat Muslims as the one, amorphous group, and to hide behind facile platitudes of "It's a religion of peace!" to deny the fact that a radicalized offshoot of the faith is NOT peaceful. (At least, by our Western definition of "peace"--another presumption we make from our ignorance of that faith.) And in that igorance, we jeopardize our own security.

Shamefully, we aren't really interested in learning about Islam. We just want to know how to "brand" Islam, so that it can be packaged for Western consumption in a nonoffensive way. Calling it a "religion of peace" with no deeper understanding of how that concept is understood WITHIN ISLAM AND ITS DIFFERENT PERMUTATIONS, results in nothing more than a slogan--a bumpersticker. And it's a very appealing one: after all, that sounds consistent with what we generally believe, so it's a convenient way of framing a foreign religion without requiring that we actually invest in understanding that religion. We've "Westernized" it and reduced it appetizing terms for our Western digestion. So, if we just say that all Muslims are practitioners of a "religion of peace," then (by our logic and our values) any Muslim who isn't peaceful clearly must be misunderstanding his own faith or be mentally ill. Ah, nicely compartmentalized for our Western comfort.

Ugh. We are so caught up in ourselves, our understanding of how religion should be practiced and and our need for faux-tolerance that we can't take other people's beliefs seriously. A dangerous reality, when some beliefs have no tolerance for us.

My 2 cents.

I've always admired this about him, too.

I don't know if Hasan suffered a psychiatric condition that caused a psychotic break, or if he simply genuinely believes in the version of Islam that prescribes such violence and acted in accordance with that belief, but I do know this: having a true religious belief that is unpopular or seems to be an affront to societal standards, alone, does not make you crazy. It makes you a true believer. I think it would serve our society well to start giving people who are different than us the credit of being sane and MEANING WHAT THEY SAY, unless and until it can be established that they are not sane and thus not able, from a medical and legal understanding, of making rational decisions.

Believing in radical interpretations of Islam does not, in and of itself, make you crazy. Yet, that seems to be the condescending, implied starting point here in the West: we just can't understand why anyone would believe this stuff, so there must be something wrong with someone who believes it. It is a reflection of the postmodern West's self-centric inability to relate to a foreign culture that embraces deeply held religious conviction.

Despite the obvious need for judgment and action according with that judgment, no one had the courage to judge Hasan't beliefs. We lacked the courage because we as a society don't like to sound like we are "judging" other people's religious convictions--it makes us feel uneasy. It makes us sound like we believe in certain truths that are exclusive of other truths, and that we are being arrogant in that belief. We fear that we might be called the most politically weaponized word in the English language: "racist" (which, for precision, really should be "religionist" in this context). And we believe this even when judgment is completely appropriate and important for purposes of safety and acknowledgment of reality.

Let's face it: people who believe in an interpretation of a religion that compels them to hurt innocent people SHOULD have that faith judged for purposes of determining whether they pose a threat, for heaven's sake. But employing this obvious and basic common sense in the context of a religion that is basically "foreign" to Western culture makes people feel uncomfortable--as though passing judgment on people who believe that Allah is calling them to kill innocent Americans is the equivalent of saying anyone who believes in Islam deserves this same judgment. Why would we think this? Because we as a society have so little understanding of Islam that it is just easier to treat Muslims as the one, amorphous group, and to hide behind facile platitudes of "It's a religion of peace!" to deny the fact that a radicalized offshoot of the faith is NOT peaceful. (At least, by our Western definition of "peace"--another presumption we make from our ignorance of that faith.) And in that igorance, we jeopardize our own security.

Shamefully, we aren't really interested in learning about Islam. We just want to know how to "brand" Islam, so that it can be packaged for Western consumption in a nonoffensive way. Calling it a "religion of peace" with no deeper understanding of how that concept is understood WITHIN ISLAM AND ITS DIFFERENT PERMUTATIONS, results in nothing more than a slogan--a bumpersticker. And it's a very appealing one: after all, that sounds consistent with what we generally believe, so it's a convenient way of framing a foreign religion without requiring that we actually invest in understanding that religion. We've "Westernized" it and reduced it appetizing terms for our Western digestion. So, if we just say that all Muslims are practitioners of a "religion of peace," then (by our logic and our values) any Muslim who isn't peaceful clearly must be misunderstanding his own faith or be mentally ill. Ah, nicely compartmentalized for our Western comfort.

Ugh. We are so caught up in ourselves, our understanding of how religion should be practiced and and our need for faux-tolerance that we can't take other people's beliefs seriously. A dangerous reality, when some beliefs have no tolerance for us.

My 2 cents.

I agree with you 110% on this.