[Ed: No, this is not 'Dr. Latebloomer' pictured.] There are many people in society who are working extremely hard to violate my civil rights. Many of those people, to my disgust, are physicians. Never mind that I am a physician myself. My right to be my true and authentic self is being actively suppressed by members of my own professional community. In an age where "coming out" is a social phenomenon, I have had to pull myself further "into the closet" because of who I am. In a time...

We are just back from the sights and sounds of one of the largest conventions in these United States.  Our Membership Director, Dr. John Edeen and I met up on Friday and got to work, along with 81,834 others (yes, another record attendance). Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center is a multi-building complex that takes up the area of many city centers themselves. It’s a spotless, tolerably modernistic, very functional and welcoming set of enormous spaces in several gigantic, inter-connect...

Many years ago, as a starving graduate student in New York City, I would regularly visit the Bronx Zoo. What a great Zoo it was! Back in Uni, we were regularly tasked by our professor to create video-graphic content and then, to share it online with our followers which allowed us to create comprehensive feedback. As a kid, I had one issue. I wasn't into social media so I had to get free instagram followers so I could get the feedback needed to pass the course. But of course, the zoo held man...

Many of us want to teach our children about guns the right way—with appreciation for the good they can do in our individual lives and  for what they mean to our nation. Teaching them about the harm they can do and how to avoid that is an even higher priority, so that firearms can serve and protect, not cause trauma being handled wrongly. Good and usual recommendations include seeking out programs like Eddie Eagle from the National Rifle Association or Project ChildSafe from the National S...

[Ed: Contributor Miguel A. Faria, Jr., MD, participated in testimony opposing the CDC's anti-gun propaganda in 1996. We've told this story before, but we are pleased to present Dr. Faria's contemporaneous report about the times, the trouble and the testimony. For more context, see his Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, originally in his Hacienda Publishing blog.] As a physician, I have always been a staunch supporter of public health in its traditional role of fighting pestilential diseases and ...

Of all the devices commonly used in modern society, firearms alone are subject to serious moral judgment.  It's not unusual to hear the terms “Good” and “Evil” applied to owning guns. I confess to being uncomfortable with this terminology. For one thing, in today's world pronouncing absolutes, like explaining The Meaning of Life, is received suspiciously. Could it be that there are no absolutes? Are the post-modernists right?  Is one's position on gun control just narrative? Are all narrativ...

I enjoy shooting, but that’s not why I carry a gun.  I carry to protect myself and the people I love, although it’s not my primary method of insuring our safety.  Safe driving, a safe home, and situational awareness are our primary defenses—the gun is there only if everything else fails. Minor mistakes in routine safety practices rarely produce a catastrophe—it usually takes multiple failures to create a significant problem.  But if all my safety firewalls do fail, a gun may be the only t...

[Ed: Sorensen's study has been trumpeted by anti-gun media for implying greater incidence of PTSD in domestic violence involving guns. But there is far more (and less) to these findings than that.] Guns are almost never involved in incidents of Intimate Partner Violence (or “domestic violence” as more commonly termed). This is according to a new report, “Guns in Intimate Partner Violence: Comparing Incidents by Type of Weapon” by Susan Sorensen, PhD of the University of Pennsylvania. Us...