Negative Aspects of American Culture

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Dear All

I am in the UK. We rely on everything we know about American culture through the media, now that is probably the worse source of information you can get!! Always biased and never really reaches the crux of the matter, but unfortunately it does colour the imaginations of people from other countries.

From what you folks have said here, your culture suffers from similar problems we do here in the UK. I think we are all globally falling into a cesspool, but on the other hand the beauty of humanity is clear to see and love between people regardless of colour, nationality and creed.

It’s easy to dwell on the negatives, but sometimes it is necessary if improvements are to be made.

I also think that when other people’s cultures are not understood presumptions are made. I understand that in your country there is 4 time zones??? (correct me if I am wrong) Now that is extremely large, you can travel in one day from one end of my country to the other, no hassles! When I look at it this way, the pure size of your country does give some reasoning why you may appear held within the confines of your own country (France is just 21 miles across the ocean from us) The Uk is not far from any European country, France., Germany, Holland etc, so we HAVE to be able to mix with other nations and maintain relations with them, infact it is a MUST. Whereas you folks, just purely down to geography are have no real need to work on that as hard as we do.

I would say don’t give yourselves a hard time. We may live in countries with laws, but that doesn’t mean we agree with them. I don’t agree with all of the laws in this country…ie… abortion, mental incapacity bill (living wills etc…which will let Euthansia in via the back door, if passed in Parliament)

Anyways, don’t beat up on yourselves and maybe this examination of your countries conscience may inspire you to write to your senators,…

Off to examine my countries conscience…🙂

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
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Shoshana:
Code:
Hi Mac,

It has to be beautiful country…anything near Perth or Golden Lake is paradise. Let alone it butts near the Algonquin Park. Heaven on earth…except…in the winter when it is so c-o-l-d.

If I am off the mark, it’s ok, just Ottawa itself is a sight to see. My brother-in-law’s sister owns a home off the Gatineau River. Her front door is just grass and flowers that leads to the River…gorgeous? no words…can’t imagine the price though to live there.

I live closer to the Niagara Falls. Although it is a wonder of the world, I do not get there too often. Just too many tourists. The drive from Fort Erie along the Parkway to the Falls is breath taking though and worth a trip or two during the year.,…especially in the autumn when the leaves change. My spiritual director is now living on the Parkway and I must go and see him some day…:eek:

Anyway, thank you… smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_30_114.gif

Blessings,
Shoshana
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Our Cabin is near Perth, on a lake named Crow Lake. I visit Ottawa every year as well, I have friends who live there. I love the mall there, plus it is a pretty clean city. My friends mother lives on the Gatineau river in a place that sounds very similar to what you described.
 
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Norwich:
The problem is that if he doesn’t have $2500 in New York he can’t get a scan but he could in Canada. (or at least after 6 months).

All this self flagelation is OK but don’t do yourselves down too much, there are many many good things in the States,but, one thing seems to be missing. What about the inordinately high death rate due to gunshot wounds in the States, that strangely enough, is the one item the Eupropeans find most difficult to come to terms with. In most European countries the death rate from guns is lower in a year that the States in a day what gone wrong?
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Except that the gun crime in europe is on the rise with every new law banning guns (isn’t that what the Nazis did to the Jews first?? Took their guns?), gun crime in the US declines with every concealed weapons permit being allowed.
 
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JakeW:
Except that the gun crime in europe is on the rise with every new law banning guns (isn’t that what the Nazis did to the Jews first?? Took their guns?), gun crime in the US declines with every concealed weapons permit being allowed.
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What a remarkably strange comment. Very few people in Europe (including the Jews) owned any guns before the war. So it would be very difficult to take them away. Or is it that you are reffering to the articles in the Nazi papers that said that thousands of stockpiled arms had been found in the Jewish Quarters and therefore the German nation had to protect itself by illiminating those reponsible. That was just before Crystalnacht.

Interesting article in todays paper in the UK, it listed the number of deaths this past year (2004) from gunshot wounds and your right it has gone up, its now the sky rocketing figure of 81 (thats eighty one before anyone accuses me of mis-typing). Thats with a population of 60,000,000. Would anyone happen to have the LOWEST US state death figures for gunshots?

I think the logic that deaths go down as you permit more guns is brilliant!! Does that mean that if everyone has a gun nobody gets killed?
 
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JakeW:
Except that the gun crime in europe is on the rise with every new law banning guns (isn’t that what the Nazis did to the Jews first?? Took their guns?), gun crime in the US declines with every concealed weapons permit being allowed.
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Amen. If they are going to kill someone, what makes anyone think they care if the law says they can’t have a gun.
But I bet you money that if they know each and every mark cold blow a big ol’ hole in their chest, he is gonna think twice.
 
As a (resident) physician in the US, I have to add my two cents.

1)All ER’s and Urgent Care departments in the US are BY LAW required to provide care to anyone who comes in the door, regardless of ability to pay. Many uninsured use the ER’s as their primary care. They simply ignore any bills that come their way in the mail. Hospitals routinely have to write off (as a loss) 40% of the medical care that they provide because of refusal to pay. These costs are then passed on to those who can pay (either via insurance or privately). A friend of mine did his training in Emergency Medicine in a large inner-city county hospital. After starting his practice in the suburbs, he noted that a much greater proportion of the people coming in the doors of his ER with chest pain actually had heart attacks, compared to the place where he trained. There were two reasons for this. The suburban patients were more likely to be actually paying for their care, thus less likely to over-use a “free” service. And there were several patients who would come in the door in the city hospital complaining of “chest pain”, knowing full well that, regardless of inital labs, the hospital was obliged to keep them overnight for observation and provide a free bed and meals. That is one part of the puzzle as to why medical care in the US is so expensive.
2) American hospitals are, by and large lavishly supplied compared to their European counterparts. The average American hospital is much more likely to have its own CT scanners, MRI’s, cardiac catheterization suites etc. If you want that level of service provided all the way down to the community hospital-type setting, you have pay for it. By comparison, when I did a rotation in a hospital in Ireland, there was one facility in the whole country to provide radiation treatment for cancer patients.
3) Legal Liability: It is hard to underestimate the effects of the American legal system on the medical system. This goes beyond the well-publicized malpractice crisis. Medical malpractice lawsuits and malpractice insurance are, quite literally, driving certain high-risk specialties out of business in certain states. A local OB-GYN office that I am familiar with, that has never even had a claim made against it in its entire existence, has had its malpractice rates go up 150% in the past 2-3 years. That office is now paying over $120,000 a year just for malpractice insurance. That’s on top of paying staff, obtaining supplies etc. Many of the costs associated with medical supplies are due solely to legal liability, not actual production costs. 95% of the cost of childhood vaccines comes from legal liability. A small package of sterile cotton balls that you could buy of the shelf of a store for a few cents will run you $20 when it is used in context of a surgical suite. Documentation and paperwork have become extremely onerous, and compliance is expensive. The legal standard is that, if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen. As a result, some physicians spent more time documenting than they do actually seeing patients. I have come across 40 year old medical charts from the 1960’s that document in a few lines an entire surgical procedure. Such a thing would be unimaginable nowadays when the description of a single procedure could run you 2-3 pages easily. And there is the phenomenon of defensive medicine (which I have caught myself doing), where doctors will order loads of unneccessary tests, just to cover all their bases in case of lawsuit. We were all taught in medical school to expect to be sued at least once in our medical careers and, if we were going into certain high-risk specialties, more than once. The legal standard for malpractice is not to be error-free, but to perform within the standard of care, acknowledging that human errors will occur. This does not stop lawyers from suing whenever a mistake is made, regardless if it was honest or not and naming every single person associated with a case, however remotely. As a result, legal counsel given to physicians advises them never to acknowledge mistakes because such an admission could be used in a court of law. This is depsite the fact that studies have shown that hospitals where doctors are free to openly admit mistakes have much lower rates of lawsuits. Finally, despite what some on this thread have implied, there really aren’t that many horrendously bad doctors out there of the type for whom the term “malpractice” would apply. Most are just fallible human beings like the rest of us.

Off my soapbox for now…
 
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Norwich:
What a remarkably strange comment. Very few people in Europe (including the Jews) owned any guns before the war. So it would be very difficult to take them away. Or is it that you are reffering to the articles in the Nazi papers that said that thousands of stockpiled arms had been found in the Jewish Quarters and therefore the German nation had to protect itself by illiminating those reponsible. That was just before Crystalnacht.

Interesting article in todays paper in the UK, it listed the number of deaths this past year (2004) from gunshot wounds and your right it has gone up, its now the sky rocketing figure of 81 (thats eighty one before anyone accuses me of mis-typing). Thats with a population of 60,000,000. Would anyone happen to have the LOWEST US state death figures for gunshots?

I think the logic that deaths go down as you permit more guns is brilliant!! Does that mean that if everyone has a gun nobody gets killed?
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Here’s an interesting link re Nazis and gun control:

tsra.com/Halbrook2.htm

If more GOOD people have guns, then less BAD people will be able (or try less often) to rape, steal, or murder. The basic instinct of self-preservation.
 
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INRI:
As a (resident) physician in the US, I have to add my two cents.

1)All ER’s and Urgent Care departments in the US are BY LAW required to provide care to anyone who comes in the door, regardless of ability to pay. Many uninsured use the ER’s as their primary care. They simply ignore any bills that come their way in the mail. Hospitals routinely have to write off (as a loss) 40% of the medical care that they provide because of refusal to pay. These costs are then passed on to those who can pay (either via insurance or privately). A friend of mine did his training in Emergency Medicine in a large inner-city county hospital. After starting his practice in the suburbs, he noted that a much greater proportion of the people coming in the doors of his ER with chest pain actually had heart attacks, compared to the place where he trained. There were two reasons for this. The suburban patients were more likely to be actually paying for their care, thus less likely to over-use a “free” service. And there were several patients who would come in the door in the city hospital complaining of “chest pain”, knowing full well that, regardless of inital labs, the hospital was obliged to keep them overnight for observation and provide a free bed and meals. That is one part of the puzzle as to why medical care in the US is so expensive.
2) American hospitals are, by and large lavishly supplied compared to their European counterparts. The average American hospital is much more likely to have its own CT scanners, MRI’s, cardiac catheterization suites etc. If you want that level of service provided all the way down to the community hospital-type setting, you have pay for it. By comparison, when I did a rotation in a hospital in Ireland, there was one facility in the whole country to provide radiation treatment for cancer patients.
3) Legal Liability: It is hard to underestimate the effects of the American legal system on the medical system. This goes beyond the well-publicized malpractice crisis. Medical malpractice lawsuits and malpractice insurance are, quite literally, driving certain high-risk specialties out of business in certain states. A local OB-GYN office that I am familiar with, that has never even had a claim made against it in its entire existence, has had its malpractice rates go up 150% in the past 2-3 years. That office is now paying over $120,000 a year just for malpractice insurance. That’s on top of paying staff, obtaining supplies etc. Many of the costs associated with medical supplies are due solely to legal liability, not actual production costs. 95% of the cost of childhood vaccines comes from legal liability. A small package of sterile cotton balls that you could buy of the shelf of a store for a few cents will run you $20 when it is used in context of a surgical suite. Documentation and paperwork have become extremely onerous, and compliance is expensive. The legal standard is that, if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen. As a result, some physicians spent more time documenting than they do actually seeing patients. I have come across 40 year old medical charts from the 1960’s that document in a few lines an entire surgical procedure. Such a thing would be unimaginable nowadays when the description of a single procedure could run you 2-3 pages easily. And there is the phenomenon of defensive medicine (which I have caught myself doing), where doctors will order loads of unneccessary tests, just to cover all their bases in case of lawsuit. We were all taught in medical school to expect to be sued at least once in our medical careers and, if we were going into certain high-risk specialties, more than once. The legal standard for malpractice is not to be error-free, but to perform within the standard of care, acknowledging that human errors will occur. This does not stop lawyers from suing whenever a mistake is made, regardless if it was honest or not and naming every single person associated with a case, however remotely. As a result, legal counsel given to physicians advises them never to acknowledge mistakes because such an admission could be used in a court of law. This is depsite the fact that studies have shown that hospitals where doctors are free to openly admit mistakes have much lower rates of lawsuits. Finally, despite what some on this thread have implied, there really aren’t that many horrendously bad doctors out there of the type for whom the term “malpractice” would apply. Most are just fallible human beings like the rest of us.

Off my soapbox for now…
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Amen. And God bless you in your chosen career.

Can you do something for me and try to write halfway legibly? Im an eye bank technician so I have you read yalls writing all stinking day. Hurts my eyes. Thanks in advance. 😛
 
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INRI:
As a (resident) physician in the US, I have to add my two cents.
Off my soapbox for now…
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Sadly , with the exception of the non payment of bills this scenario seems to be becoming more and more common in Europe; particularly the UK, as well. It seems that nobody wants to take responsibility for themselves any more, if in doubt sue the pants of them seems to be the order of the day.
A case was reported in todays papers that sums up the so called “Compensation Culture” A motor cyclist was convicted for the offence of “Driving without due care and attention”, a lesser offence than dangerous driving or causing death by dangerous driving which is often substituted by the prosecuting authorities to gaurantee a conviction. This idiot had killed a young man of 17 or 18 by speeding along a road, losing control and wiping out not only his bike but the young lads car as well. The lad was the sole breadwinner for his family as his father has a debilitating condition and his mother looks after him full time. This idiot is now suing the family for the distress he suffered in the accident that he caused. So the family have not only lost a son but are now facing a law suite. Any wonder some of us despair of the legal profession and the antics some shyster lawyers get up to!!!
 
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springbreeze:
Dear All
I understand that in your country there is 4 time zones??? (correct me if I am wrong) Now that is extremely large, you can travel in one day from one end of my country to the other, no hassles!
Teresa
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Actually, we have 7 time zones. 4 in the Lower '48, 2 in Alaska, and 1 for Hawaii…although 1 of the Alaskan is more or less the same as Hawaii).

As to guns, I am VERY anti gun-control. And totally agree with JLW.

Most firearms homocides are commited against other criminals. 2/3 are drug related (ie drug dealers/users killing each other).

In 2000 there were 11099 firearms homocides, and 16592 firearms suicides. With total (all causes) suicides numbering 30662.

In comparison I found that in the EU, where guns are scarce there were 58000 suicides by all causes. I have had a very hard time finding any statistics on the EU websites…

Remember, Guns don’t kill people, PEOPLE kill people.
 
  1. Liberals
  2. High taxes
  3. Liberals
  4. People who drive 55mph in the left lane
  5. Liberals
  6. Randy Moss
  7. Liberals
  8. Dirty inner cities
    😃
 
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INRI:
As a (resident) physician in the US, I have to add my two cents.

1)All ER’s and Urgent Care departments in the US are BY LAW required to provide care to anyone who comes in the door, regardless of ability to pay. [refer to original post please]

Finally, despite what some on this thread have implied, there really aren’t that many horrendously bad doctors out there of the type for whom the term “malpractice” would apply. Most are just fallible human beings like the rest of us.

Off my soapbox for now…
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Thank you so much for the work you do. We owe our great care to people like yourself. I have never met a bad doctor or one that I would sue. I have a brother in law that was an ER doc for about 20 years, and now is in a health care center at a university. I also have a nephew that is an internist and he is wife is alos an internist. . We are blessed to have such educated dedicated souls working for us night and day. God Bless you and thank you.
 
Lance said:
1. Liberals
2. High taxes
3. Liberals
4. People who drive 55mph in the left lane
5. Liberals
6. Randy Moss
7. Liberals
8. Dirty inner cities
😃
Click to expand...

:rotfl:
 
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INRI:
As a (resident) physician in the US, I have to add my two cents.

…
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Code:
I thank God for people so dedicated like you in helping other people by giving many of their young years to do so…and at much expense and sacrifice. If it wasn’t for you, in general, I would be dead today. My boy also!

Canada is not prone to law suits so much but, my own surgeon smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/3/3_9_5v.gif who had been with me (and my son) through many medical problems, was sued by a patient and the patient won. The doctor was a surgical professor at a famous teaching hospital here and it was one of his students that foiled but, of course, the doctor is liable. I was in anguish as I have never met such an empathetic doctor-surgeon in my whole life. My son says the same thing. When he talked to you, the rest of the world did not exist…his whole attention was on you and you alone. He listened with his heart. I loved him so much. I advised many of my friends to go to him for surgery and I would still do that today. Except, he moved out East. My son is determined to go to him anyway if surgery is ever needed again.

So, in all of this you are … smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_13_3.gif

Blessings,
Shoshana
 
I find that a problem with many Americans is their tendency to be negative and pessamistic, without seeing the good in things.

Eamon
 
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turboEDvo:
I find that a problem with many Americans is their tendency to be negative and pessamistic, without seeing the good in things.

Eamon
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That’s just my point! Come on over to the Positive Aspects of American Culture and please add a positive. I am counting on all of you.
 
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