Health care fix
Dr. Berglund's comments appear in green

Dear Reader,
Imagine finding a doctor who seemed able to heal almost any problem you had - from a back in complete spasm to a sinus infection. Add to that the fact that he would spend 30, 45, even 90 minutes taking care of you - not letting you leave the office until your pain was gone. But wait, it gets even better. Because he spends so much time with each patient, his office encourages you to call before you come so you don't spend too much time waiting and reading old magazines rather than actually accomplishing something.

So here we have a doctor who cares about actually helping patients, is capable of truly healing them, and knows their time is valuable.

What would you do if you found such an amazing doctor?

If you were the State of Maryland Board of Physicians (MBP), the answer is simple: you would revoke his license to practice medicine.

If he sinks, he's innocent... (like they used to do with witches in Salem, Mass)

So surely, this man whom I so admire, must have done something criminal or at least negligent. Patients must have been complaining, suffering or maybe dying. After all, they don't just randomly pull doctors out of practice.

Apparently, they do.

For years, the MBP has had Binyamin C. Rothstein, D.O., on probation for the crime of practicing alternative and complementary medicine. Without a single patient complaint, his treatment methods were deemed inappropriate by peer review.

During his probationary period, they ordered him to shut down his chelation practice - and he did. They demanded patient records, and they got them. (Dr. Rothstein's assistant told me the records didn't include the original form filled out by the patient because she thought that was privileged. Do we have a jail secure enough for this dangerous Bonnie and Clyde duo?!)

The only specific treatment he continued that the MBP had cited him for was...using IV vitamin cocktails. Oh, the horror! I hope there are no children in the room that might be reading this.

Sliding scales of justice
To give you the complete perspective of how grave these violations were, let me tell you about some of the other doctors who were disciplined by the MBP last month.

One of them had his license revoked because he was convicted of second-degree murder. Another doctor received only a suspension for "habitual intoxication and providing professional services while under the influence of alcohol." Another was suspended for leaving an anesthetized patient unattended and then, apparently, providing misleading testimony in an investigation of the incident.

My doctor wasn't lucky enough to receive a suspension. In fact, in Dr. Rothstein's case "the Board will not consider any reapplication for 5 years." In other words, for using unconventional treatments, he was put in the same group as a murderer. But a doctor who treated her patients while intoxicated received a suspension. When her suspension is lifted, she'll continue to practice while under probation.

It's beyond belief! You can be drunk while treating patients and receive a lighter punishment than if you effectively treat patients by using methods that are outside of the narrow mainstream definition of healthcare.

You call THAT medicine?

In the official ruling, Dr. Rothstein's license was revoked for practicing "substandard medicine." I personally have been a victim of his "substandard" treatments for almost 3 years now - and have been willing to pay out-of-pocket to subject myself to them.

My back and neck seized up so badly one weekend that I literally cried just trying to sit down on my bed. I had to cancel a speaking engagement and could barely move. My husband carefully got me into the car and took me to Dr. Rothstein's office, where this "quack" realized that my diaphragm was in spasm and released it. After 48 hours of being nearly immobile, my pain completely disappeared in less than 30 minutes. It was truly astonishing.

Dr. Rothstein isn't one of those doctors who knows what's wrong with you before you come in or has a prescription pad at the ready so he can send you on your way 10 minutes later and feel he's done his job. He takes an extraordinary amount of time to work with patients and listen to them - a skill few doctors exhibit these days.

Unfortunately, the belief that taking 15 extra minutes and releasing a diaphragm in spasm is actually better treatment than a handful of muscle relaxers and a week of lying in bed makes you dangerous in the state of Maryland - a state where if you go around healing people rather than medicating them you're punished as if you were a convicted murderer.

Legal eagles
It's important to note again that Dr. Rothstein has had no complaints from patients lodged against him. And I'm not surprised. Personally I am devastated that I can't go to his office for treatment anymore. Professionally, I am outraged that this skilled healer is being targeted by an overzealous medical establishment that is clearly threatened by any ideas outside of its very small box.

Speaking of boxes, I try not to use this e-Alert as a personal soapbox. I know I've failed to do that on more than one occasion and I hope you'll excuse my doing it now. But Dr. Rothstein is fighting the revocation of his license, as I believe wholeheartedly he should, and I promised I would to do everything I could to help. Since I do get to write to you every day, I wanted to take this opportunity to ask for your help. He is accepting donations for a legal defense fund in an effort to restore his practice.

If you'd like to help him fight this absurd injustice, please contribute any amount you can. (And please forward this e-mail to anyone you know who might want to support his fight.)

Checks can be made out to (you'll have to write small): Binyamin C. Rothstein, D.O., by Alan Dumoff, attorney trust. You should write "legal fund" in the memo field. Any payment or letters of support can be mailed to Alan Dumoff, 11140 Rockville Pike, Ste. 530, Rockville, MD 20852.

The truth is that Dr. Rothstein will likely go on and prosper regardless of how this chapter ends. He is a wonderfully talented man with a strong support network and an equally strong constitution. So the real victims of the Maryland Board of Physicians are the very patients they claim they are trying to protect - the ones who will no longer be able to get real, honest, caring medical treatment from a man they trust who knows that patients aren't just insurance ID numbers that appear in 15 minute increments.

Dr. Berglund's comments
June 22, 2005

ARE WE REALLY FREE TO CHOOSE?
I am really going to come and irritate you where you live today. I just finished reading an article from the Washington Post. A 12 year old girl in Texas AND her parents went to two different doctors and DECIDED on their own to not seek radiation (after a long course of chemotherapy) that the doctor indicated was preventive. Medical authorities and Child Protective Services called that action "medically neglectful."

The next question is: Does the government have the right to tell us for us or for our kids what the "proper" course of treatment is and to FORCE us to do the "right thing"?

I realize there are people to protect, but here's the thing. What health care looks like every couple of decades changes. They used to give mercury for syphilis. Now we give people poison and atom bomb type radiation to get rid of their cancer. Don't get me wrong. I know that it's the best we have for right now. But I know that we will look back and wonder, "What on earth we were thinking to do such an barbaric procedure back in the late 20th and early 21st century?"

We need to ALLOW people the freedom (especially with the all the information out on the internet) to search out and decide what type of treatments they want to do for whatever condition they have or their kids have. BOTTOM LINE.

Now, if something's a scam or a con, that's a whole different thing. But acupuncture is not a scam. All these alternative cancer therapies are not scams. Even magnet therapy is not a scam. It works on some people. We would have to let the practitioners do what they feel they need to do. If not, we are a dictatorship. There are several different paradigms of health care. Medical is just one. But since the U.S. ranks a paltry 17th out of 21 industrialized nations in overall health and outspends the other 20 by leaps and bounds, we need to have some humility to think that we don't have all the answers. Truthfully, we need to look at what we do and say, "We are clueless and this system could work much better, considering all the money we throw at it."

The best thing for costs and effectiveness of any industry is opening up the competition and making people concerned about costs. More innovative medical savings accounts (MSA's) are one way. Give them some of the money back at the end of the year that they don't spend. Any way you can make people THINK about how expensive their health care is (and how necessary based on the fact that some of it is going to come out of their pocket) you will reduce utilization and decrease expenses.

As for this freedom issue, even WTMJ was talking about it on Saturday (I even called in to speak my two cents worth). The government is on a very slippery slope when they start thinking they need to be in control of our health care decisions for us or even for our children. No-one should be allowed to do that except for the person who is responsible for that person/child.

Dr. Berglund's comments
June 30, 2005

WE ARE TRULY AFRAID OF THE DIFFERENT
The above article apparently is my new pet peeve. I am really having a hard time with the whining and complaining about how this health care system is breaking the back of America, and yet, we are unwilling to "open the system up" and investigate and correct the flaws. It needs reconstructive surgery. We just want to put band-aids on it.

In any area of business, we look at excessive costs and we know what we need to do. Two things:

Make sure people know and feel for what they are paying for (we tend to NOT know and NOT care what we are paying for when we have either insurance or government paying for things).

Open up more competition. Stop cracking down on the alternative practitioners and allow the free market economy to determine who is good and making people well and who isn't.

I know. The last one scares a bunch of people. Unverified and untested procedures (by the FDA) mean that some patients might die because they chose the wrong doctor or underwent the wrong treatment protocol. That's the party line. Right? That's why you have the Prime Time live people and 20/20 investigative news teams out looking into these questionable treatments and determining that they are "quacks" based on the medical doctors that they speak to. It's crazy. That's like asking a Republican if they can find anything wrong with the way the Democrats go about things. Or vice versa. Of course they will. They come at things from an entirely different perspective. Medical doctors are unqualified to comment on acupuncture, chiropractic, nutritional supplementation, herbology, food sensitivity testing, homeopathy, magnetic healing, reflexology, etc. Why? Because their paradigm is opposed to that methodology and they are UNTRAINED and many times UNFAMILIAR (personally) with those protocols.



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