It was winter, and our 2 year old had an earache.  Even though both my wife and I are doctors, she’s always insisted that our children see the pediatrician when they’re sick.  I was working the swing shift, so daytime sick call fell to me. Fortunately, the pediatrician was able to see him right away, and neither of us were surprised when her exam revealed an ear infection.  I thanked her for her time, and after a brief chat, headed over to the pharmacy with my son in tow to pick up the an...

[Editor: Dr. Wheeler, a San Bernardino County Medical Society member for 35 years, received a member satisfaction survey.  This letter to Society president Michael Sequeira, MD resulted.] Dear Dr. Sequeira:                                                   November 1, 2016 I was dismayed to recently learn that the San Bernardino County Medical Society has officially gone on record as supporting Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ballot initiative, Proposition 63.  As you likely know, Proposition...

[Editor: The author's previous piece, Toddlers, Guns and Passion Politics, led to our desire to republish her piece from A Girl and a Gun; executive editor Robyn Sandoval graciously agreed.] One of the first questions I asked myself when I bought my first firearm, seven years ago was, “How am I going to store this thing safely when I’m not using it?” My children were not small anymore at that time, but I was still concerned about unauthorized access – whether during a burglary or simpl...

Hillary Clinton's intentionally misleading comments during the final Presidential candidate debate on October 19, implying that her opposition to the Heller decision was about the safety of toddlers, is just the latest in the gun-grabbers' arsenal of obfuscation. Prior to the Heller decision, District of Columbia law required firearms in the home to be kept essentially inoperable.  This was little more than politically-motivated suppression of residents' ability to defend themselves, masq...

[Editor's Note: We are pleased to welcome to DRGO authorship a good friend and colleague, intellectual and good guy Tom Gift, MD.  He knows research, teaching and clinical psychiatry, and keeps his pistol close to hand.]  Recent liberal media are agog about the “most definitive portrait of U.S. gun ownership in 2 decades” but—would you believe it?—the report is unpublished.  Rather, it was previewed to two media outlets known to be unfriendly to the idea of citizen gun owners.  (more&he...

In 1998, a group of physicians published a small case study involving just 12 patients in the respected medical journal Lancet, claiming that their results indicated a link between the mumps-measles-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.  The story received wide publicity in the media and spawned a tidal wave of public concern, as well as multiple large follow-up studies—none of which supported their conclusion. In the years since publication, Lancet and all of the authors have retracted the 1...

Early this month I attended a day-long seminar given by the San Bernardino (California) County Sheriff’s Medical Reserve Corps.  It was a sit-down class on dealing with active shooter attacks, and especially on one such attack with great meaning to us who live in this county.  The speakers were intimately involved in the San Bernardino terrorist attack of December 2, 2015. About 200 invitees listened as San Bernardino Police chief Jarrod Burguan spoke for nearly an hour about how a county...

The United States Congress has been described as the "greatest deliberative body in the world".  What does that mean?  To be deliberative, our representatives must follow certain procedures: Participants all have complete and accurate data. All views held by the public are considered. Participants sincerely weigh all arguments. Positions are taken based on evidence, not on who is doing the advocating. (more…)