City partners with Spectrum to offer Moderna booster clinic

Thank you Dr. JJ for your incredible knowledge, insightful reasoning, and answers based in truth and science. Im not sure what I would do without your advice?

HI Sandra,
I know you and others in our community don’t personally know me even though I have lived here since 2001. So let me help you understand where my question is really coming from. And I state here, no matter what rhetoric may come as a resullt of my question – I would still like to know the answer to my question from those actually involved.

I am 72 years young. I grew up witnessing modern medicine through my father’s eyes. He was an MD – with an Internal Medical Practice he called Preventative Medicine. Over the years I worked with his lab assistant typing up results for his office lab’s blood and urine tests and also his in-office x-ray reports. I placed the EKG tapes into the patient records. In my high school years I went through all his patient files making sense of the information at his request. He wanted to see whether there were possible trends in the health of his steel workers or perhaps the farmers who drove an hour to get to his office in the city. He looked into nutrition and environmental issues in particular. He talked with his patients alot. We sometimes drove out into the country to visit some of them with his portabble EKG machine to save them a trip into the city and for him to get a real feel for their lives. He understood very well that there are many factors in obtaining, maintaining, and sustaining one’s health and well-being.

My father was a hard worker from a very young age. When he lost a patient he stayed on into the wee hours of the night reviewing and searching to see if there was anything he could have done differently that may have extended the quality of that patient’s life. I remember local newspaper articles being written about him right up to the closing of his office at age 96. One article comes to mind now – it was a reporter who said Dad would surely die young with the hours he spent working. Well, truth is, the reporter died young and Dad lived a full and active life … passing on at age 99 in 2018. He kept Mom pretty healthy, too, as she is approaching 100 and still managing to help prepare meals, pay her own bills, and travel. She fractured a neck bone a year ago and healed well.

As a child, my brothers and I would go on hospital rounds with Dad. He often did his rounds late in evening or at night when the patients were calm and uninterupted by all the procedures. I also attended many conventions where the pharmaceutical companies and soda companies were vendors. Dad was also active in the politics of medicine. He served as an officer in many medical organizations, county, state, and federal, even served on the AMA legal committee for the JFK assination investigations.

I could write volumes here – but let’s stay on point.

Closing his office and having to refer patients to other recently trained medical physicians was one of the hardest things in his life. You see, in the recent history of medical care there was a big shift into Corporate Control. In the earlier days, a physician watched over their patient and managed their care – when they admitted them and throughout their discharge. The doctors were often on the hospital board and had a say in how care was given. The doctor felt responsible for the patient’s health and only used the hospital services when needed to help supplement that care.

History shows – changes did come. Hospitals and care facilities were now corporations. Doctors and staff were no longer in charge of patient care. It was solely up to the corporate structure … all steered by and held accountable by the money… even at the expense of the patient. My Dad pointed out many times to me and to those “in charge” that his patients did not need this or that medical test or procedure based on his extensive knowledge base and wisdom. He understood the harm that could occur from needless testing. He was constantly reading journals and watching all that was unfolding.

Patient care was being driven by the money – by what tests would be approved and paid for by the medical industry. He watched the hospital with its paid doctors prescribing accordingly. He saw it as greed. From his earliest days he was always being pressured to raise his rates. He charged less than the going rates and he gave more time to interact and understand his patients. That was frowned on by the establishment and yet they could not deny the results for each patient.

I have witnessed drug reps providing nice lunches for the doctors and their staff on a regular basis. I have witnessed many things that do not need to be mentioned here. I remember Dad’s frustrations with some patients as he would say, “All they want is a pill!” I give my Dad a lot of credit for being the best I have ever found at knowing what each drug does and does not do – and holding them accountable whenever he could.

My Dad dedicated his life to caring for his patients. When he had to refer his patients to others and finally close his office, he tried his best to find suitable matches. Sadly, he witnessed tragedy. One after another. His words still hold true to this day – he said to me “They are killing my patients.” I felt the sting of those words deeply.

You see, my life work has primarily been more about the metaphysical than the physical. I was professionally trained and certified in what got termed “alternative therapies”. This is where my father and I often collided – we were each other’s nemesis!

And it is also where we came together – even working together with a person or two along the way to bring about desired outcomes. My Dad knew the power of the mind and the benefits of breath and movement, of a positive outlook, and in the end knew way more about nutrition than I ever did – and I dare say even more than the trained nutritionists in his hospital settings. I remember listening to his calls with nutritionists explaining that while the guidelines they suggested might suit some – it was not appropriate for his patient because he knew things that were not written on the file they had access to. He understood the short-comings of compartmentalization in patient care.

After I became a Professional Hypnotherapist – the AMA and powers that were – actually made it illegal in some states for us to do our work. We organized with other alternative practitioners as a Union and won back our rights to provide services. Dad smiled, for he knew all too well the power of the mind.

I went on to Professionally Teach and Certify Advanced Levels of Hypnotherapy – Certification courses that included a variety of medical practitioners as students as well. In my advanced course “Birth, Death, and Transitions Into Higher Consciousness”, I included the history of hypnotherapy – complete with newspaper articles with Headlines from medical establishment proclaiming Hypnotherapy as the greatest cure!! They added a basic level hypnotherapy class in their medical curriculum. That was the early days of medicine when the focus was more on Health and less on control of health care. It was the lay hypnotherapy professionals that went on to require three times or more training for their certification programs. Perhaps the number of successes became cause for concern – hence the push to make it illegal outside of their profession?

Although I paint the life of my father here honestly in regards to what I have witnessed through his life work … he was not a saint. He came into a hard life and realized the amount of work he came to do… and went about doing it. At the time of his passing, at age 99, there were no plans for a viewing. He had not wanted one.

The folks from Jefferson College of Population Health and others, also from a distance, began calling, wanting to attend. So an evening viewing and a private service and burial the following day were planned. We kids pulled out photos and created a video and also photo boards for the viewing. We were deeply humbled when receiving a long line of family and friends… and an even longer line of Dad’s elderly patients who proudly stood outside in the freezing rain until there was room to enter to pay their respects. There we were gathering with some of Dad’s patients we knew as little children!! A big family reunion!! What an evening of honoring, celebration, and connection!! The following year our family attended the 27th Annual Lecture in my father’s name – Future of Healthcare: Managing Innovation and Culture. They spoke of the kind of doctor Dad was and of meeting his patients at his funeral, They endeavored for all their students to know this role model.

Looking back, I realize how much those shared experiences have influenced/shaped my life. I think about the young ones today who do not remember or know of how things were – or might have been.

I do have Gratitude – perhaps the greatest gift from my parents in this life – and I remember the real value of personal growth. That journey has led me to my personal sense of truth and the confidence to speak it openly. I also know that many, perhaps, most will not readily agree. And – most importantly from my perspective – I do not know everything!! It is through the interaction with others that we open to discover more than either or any of us knew alone.

I do not stand at this point in my life pointing a finger to blame any or all… myself included. I do not need to put someone else’s experssions above or beneath my own. I look for truth where I can find it. There is a feeling we have inside when things don’t feel right. We all start out with that capability of discerning truth – and sometimes it gets silenced by others or by ourselves. That feeling can get twisted and mixed in with other experiences and become confused. After a while of denying our innate intelligence – we may begin to question ourselves and the world around us. We may look inside and start unraveling the fabric of our reality. I have found that journey worthy of my efforts. I recognize that in many others in our community as well.

I don’t know you by name and I surely would not want to take away any of your beliefs or questions. I would listen and be open to discovering more truth. We live in a time when we are finding ourselves growing outside of all the boxes of what any of us “thought we knew”. Now is a good time to ask questions – as we are charged with bringing forth new new.

I know where my questions are rooted – and at times they may indeed also align with that found in what is termed as “alternative media”. It doesn’t make it wrong – or any less beneficial – or even less accurate.

And for the record, I sign my legal name here – not writing under any pseudonyms.
Thank you for the opportunity to let you know me more – so as not to be simply written off as a “disregard – a conspiracy theorist”.