There are the Victims of Bullies....and there are the Nightmares of Bullies......

Well, I lamented earlier on Bullying, which was heartfelt because my eldest daughter spent a big portion of this past year being victimized by it. Things have gotten a lot better with my daughter's self esteem finally being nurtured by her Mother and I to a robust and decreasingly delicate pillar in her life......

.....And then I have my littlest daughter....my delicate little flower.......who MAY or MAY not have been involved as the victim of a bad bullying incident during recess recently (in case the Principal is reading this).

Allegedly, a much larger boy than her wanted her recess snack - so he grabbed her leg and wrenched it up painfully, causing her to allegedly fall violently and painfully onto her back on the pavement of the playground.

She had the breath knocked out of her and laid there in shock for a second before getting up to challenge the offender. When she reached for her snack, he pushed her back again.

Then, she may or may not have wound up and socked him hard in the mouth - possibly splitting his lip (or it could have happened when he walked into a door) and shocking him into running away, crying out of shock and embarrassment.

My "delicate little flower" then noticed that she might or might not have split her knuckle open on what could have been his teeth - or possibly a "graze from the swing set on the playground"....and she marched into the school and inquired as to where she could obtain a rabies shot.

I only discovered the above that might or might not have happened upon my inquiries that I made of her when I came home from work and noticed her carefully washing her knuckles in the sink and then applying antibiotic ointment (she is quite familiar with wound care after having been patched up no few times from various accidents on mountain hikes, etc.)

So I suppose that there are some people that can be the natural victims of bullies....and there are those that can be the natural nightmares of bullies.......

I'm still laughing.....

Bullying in Teenage Girls is aweful

I have had patients in my office over the years - teenaged girls and their parents - complaining of their horrific experiences with bullying by other teenaged girls. The problem appears to be getting worse over the years. I suspect that the worsening of bullying in teenaged girls might be a result of the fact of several things:

1) The ubiquity of access to texting, facebook and twitter.

2) No direct consequences for bullying through texting, facebook or twitter.

3) An increased divorce rate, resulting in single parent families that leave teenaged girls relatively unsupervised.

4) The decline of the "stay at home Mom (or Dad)", with both parents' attention engaged at work and not in their daughters.

5) The fact that girls are physically, but not mentally, maturing younger and looking much older than they are between their ears. This is a virtual recipe for poor self esteem.

6) The decline of the community: people no longer know their neighbours. Community support with "friends" in the community is increasingly a thing of the past. People are, now more than ever, living like islands unto themselves. Group support and self policing of kids.

7) Teachers that have been increasingly marginalized by a growing culture of entitlement that does not let teachers discipline kids when it is necessary.

8) A second generation of people that have no idea about how to impart a culture of discipline, honour and respect to their kids - because their parents never taught them these lessons either.

9) An increasingly common belief by uninformed parents that their teenagers are entitled to privacy in their lives and correspondences via twitter, facebook and texting.

10) Parents find it difficult to view their teenage daughters objectively.

It is easy for these teenage girl bullies to do their damage through texting, facebook and twitter.

Bullying from afar through a digital medium is easy, because consequences are rare.

When I grew up, if you said something rude to a person - or within earshot of a person - you risked being rightfully punched in the nose. This doesn't happen any more. There are no consequences for an evil Facebook post, twitter post or text. Broken noses are getting more rare as bullying is getting more common!

It is now safer than ever to be a bully. Consequences are rare, and you can do it safely at home from the couch.

An unbelievable number of teenaged girls are living with one parent after their parents divorce. Inevitably, one or more of these parents ends up in a new relationship - and tends to focus on that relationship rather than their teenager, in the false belief (or hope) that "the kids are older now, and don't need my attention so much any more".

Even when their parents are "still married", an amazing number of teenaged girls are completely unsupervised. Their parents are both working in demanding jobs, and one of them may have returned to work after years of being home for the kids. The parents believe - erroneously - that their teenaged girls no longer need so much time and attention.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Teenaged girls are more insecure than ever in history. Their parents may not know that their teenaged girl is a bully.....or being bullied.

The fact is that - the cause of being a bully is insecurity. And the cause of being bullied is insecurity.

So where does this insecurity come from?

In short - insecurity comes from everywhere. It is inevitable - and each girl will respond to it differently. Their only hope is their parents and guardians (because friends at this age tend to come and go) - who they NEED to provide guidance. When girls don't have parents or guardians that can defend them from insecurity.....these girls need more resources. A friend, a friend's parent(s), a teacher, a counsellor, a clergy person, etc.

If your teenaged girls are getting bullied, try these books & sources:

How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teenage Girls by Donna Carnegie

Odd girl out: The hidden culture of aggression in girls by Rachel Simmons

A post on Bullying in Girls

A review on Bullying in Teenaged Girls

An E-Book Titles "Why Me" on Bullying in Teenaged Girls.

Alberta Health Care at an all time low

Well, I take care of my fair share of Health Care workers - ranging from cleaners to executives....and they all report the same thing. They are all highly demoralized. They perceive no leadership, vision, responsibility, support or competence from their leaders.

There appears to be no hope that things are getting better - at all. The state of Health Care appears to continue to decline, despite various occasional puff pieces handed to the popular media by one politician, adminsitrator or another. These politicians are not bad people - I actually admire them. Who on Earth would paint such tempting targets on their backs for paltry sums of money and the collective derision of society? They HAVE to be doing this because they believe that they are good people that are trying to do a good thing.

They just aren't doing a good thing.....

At the very least, these people are brave souls that are being tasked with a delicate operation with no training, tools or support. Albertans generally seem to want Health Care - but they don't want to pay for it (ie. they don't want to pay 50% taxes). Health Care is a bottomless pit of costs that will never end. The culture of "free health care" is admirable - but wrought with a risk of development of a sense of collective entitlement.

Ever been to Detroit? How about Greece this past summer? This is what a culture of entitlement gets you. Our politicians - at the very least - should be brave enough to acknowledge this and to make policies that provide care while fighting a culture of entitlement. It can be done - just ask the folks at the Mayo clinic in Rochester. This is a non-profit medical wonder that still makes billions in revenue every year. I'm proud to have met and worked with these Mayo folks. They really do "get it".

We can fix Health Care in Alberta by looking at successes like the Mayo model and building upon them.

This past week, I sent a patient of mine to the hospital with horrible abdominal pain. The initial hospital that I sent him to via EMR, said "no more people!". So he was diverted to another Hospital. He then spent more than a day in the E.R. waiting for a bed in a hallway. He made it into an E.R. bed after more than a day....then he made it on day 3 into a hospital bed in a shared room after a 24 hour hallway wait. During all this time, he was unable to eat due to his pancreatitis. He had to pee in a bottle under a sheet in the hallway whenever he sensed that nobody was really looking.....then he made it to his room once his spot was made available.

He stayed in that room for 5 days until they could take out his gallbladder. He did fine in surgery and his surgeons and nurses were excellent. But his room was filthy. His bathroom was filthy. The tap in the bathroom ran full time from a severe leak. Nursing staff stated that the leak probably leaked over 100 gallons per day and that this had been happening for at least the past 6 months....along with over a dozen other taps in the same hospital ward. This was just the tip of the iceberg on a list of maintenance items that were very necessary in this very busy hospital.

This lack of upkeep has drastically affected staff morale as well as patient well being - and I hate to think of how many hospital infections are caused by the increasingly filthy and improperly cleaned and maintained hospital wards.

Mr. S. went home early with the promise that he would follow up with me asap. I visited him several times in the hospital....and no, I don't think that my payment from Alberta Health for the hospital visits, will even cover the costs I paid for my parking.

So what do we do?

This is, in my opinion, the cure to the Health Care System in Alberta:

1) Attach all health care funding to individual patients and make hospitals and clinic compete for this funding.

2) Allow patients to top up this funding to be able to attend private medical services and clinics if they choose to.

3) Make sure that public hospitals and clinics meet and even exceed the capabilities and service options of the private clinics.....by funding these public hospitals and clinics appropriately.

4) Legislate long term health care plans for the people of the province - and keep this long term plan protected from political meddling. Keep this long term plan administered mostly by Physicians and Nurses. And a few "smart" members of the public.

5) Put the Physicians and Nurses back in charge. Of EVERYTHING IN HEALTH CARE. They are all amazing efficiency experts as part of their work and training, and they know VASTLY more about health care delivery than any politician or administrator. Put a few smart citizens on these boards to work with them.

Hope that helps.