Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Who wants to play "Doctor?"

Evidently, GOP candidate for Senator Ayn "Rand" Paul does!

Dr. Paul: Not board-certified, but self-certified

Asked by a Louisville reporter when he would explain his dubious certification, Rand Paul said: "Uh ... never"

Libertarian ideology rejects most of the modern regulatory systems that protect consumers, because everyone should be responsible for determining whether the hamburger contains E. coli on his own. But does that do-it-yourself dogma apply to the regulation of medicine, too? If you're Dr. Rand Paul, practicing ophthalmologist, the answer is emphatically yes.

According to an amusing story in today's Louisville Courier-Journal, the Kentucky Republican Senate candidate bills himself as a "board-certified" physician even though he is not actually certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology -- the only recognized body that certifies doctors in his specialty.

Paul's only certification was provided instead by something called the National Board of Ophthalmology, which is very convenient because he operates that organization himself. As the Courier-Journal explains drily, the American Board of Ophthalmology, which maintains a fully staffed headquarters in Philadelphia, has existed for roughly a century and currently lists about 16,000 doctors on its rolls. (Most hospitals and insurance companies strongly prefer doctors who are board-certified because certification indicates that they have kept up with changes in technology, best practices and so on.) The National Board of Ophthalmology has existed since 1999, when Paul "founded" it, lists no more than seven doctors, and its address is a post-office box in Bowling Green, Ky. He had claimed to be certified by both boards, but Courier-Journal reporter Joseph Gerth quickly discovered that claim was false.

The rest (via).

(x-posted)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hilarious.

Reminds me of many scenes in Doctor Who, where the title character would introduce himself as "the Doctor" and the hapless confused Earthling would inevitably ask "a Doctor of what?" The Doctor of course invariably dodges the question and redirects the conversation elsewhere.

Sounds like the senator could learn a thing or two.

Montana said...

You gotta love all the conservatives in Kentucky who voted for Rand Paul and brought him to national exposure, priceless. Let’s face it they will try to vote this liar in but we can only wait and see if there is other skeletons in his closet, oh yeah he is not a racist, I repeat, he is not a racist. Great thing is we are talking about Kentucky, so being a racist maybe a positive, we will see. Yee Haw!

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