I recently had to take my mother to the doctor for a procedure. It wasn't a major procedure, home the same day, but it did require anesthesia, a minor surgery, and a two hour trip from Michigan to Fort Wayne and the VA hospital located there.
The hospital staff were great! The people were friendly, the nurses knowledgeable and smiling. A very nice gentleman kept peeking in on mom, making sure she was comfortable and relaxed before her procedure. At this point, our experience was great.
Then mom's doctor entered, and things took a turn for the worse.
Dr. Fox (not his real name) entered the room and began asking Mom the same health questions she had already been asked several times. That wasn't the problem. The problem began when he bellowed for his nurse. "Patty! (not her real name, either) Come here quick!"
What the hell? I remember thinking. Is something wrong with Mom?
Nope. Dr. Fox just wanted to ask Patty if she saw that Beyoncé was Time's most influential person. Then he started spewing hatred toward Beyoncé, basically parroting Bill O. He stated she had a responsibility to tell young black girls not to have babies, and that she was a bad role model. Take a note: Building a business, then marrying a man with a career, then having children is being a bad role model. Because Obama.
Yes, in the next breath, Dr. Fox blamed Mrs. Obama for not telling young black girls not to get pregnant, apparently forgetting the shitstorm that evolved when she tried to get kids to eat healthier. I don't seem to recall Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush, or Nancy Reagan even addressing teen births, but Michelle Obama is supposed to because...I guess his gist is that she's black. Dr. Fox must not have seen that study that shows black teen births decreasing and white teen births increasing because he kept specifically saying black girls.
Things took a very ugly turn when racist, right wing hero, Cliven Bundy entered the conversation. Dr. Fox threw up his arms while he stated that everyone in the country was behind him until he made those racist remarks. That was his bitch with Bundy: that he ruined the support he had not that he said racist things and doesn't pay his bills.
And, no, the entire country wasn't behind Bundy. I don't like moochers.
According to Dr. Fox, Obama, Hillary and Holder are assholes. His words, right there in my mom's hospital room. Because that's appropriate. He also thinks race relations are worse now that Obama's president, which he's right about. However, he wants to blame Obama for racists' behavior.
How dare Obama be president while black!
When he uttered in one breath the words 'Benghazi' 'IRS' and 'Syria' I had to squelch my deepest instinct and not walk out and leave my mother there alone. Every time doc referred to Putin, he called him, 'my buddy Vlad'.
Everything about this doctor's behavior was inappropriate for any hospital, but a VA hospital? Come on! Every veteran is not a conservative, though leadership skews conservative. Enlisted ranks skew liberal.
Mom later told me Patty rolled her eyes as she wheeled Mom out of the room for her procedure, so this is obviously nothing new. Dr. Fox stood in Mom's room for 45 minutes reciting Fox News talking points. I bet there were better ways he could have spent his time in a VA hospital.
Instead, this doctor chose to basically hold my mother and me hostage to his rantings. After all, who is going to cross the doctor who will soon have his hands literally inside your mother? Who wants to piss off the doctor who can choose to be as gentle or as rough as he chooses with your mother?
This was inappropriate, no matter what your political leanings, and I'm surprised the Fort Wayne VA keeps this unprofessional man on staff.