The Paiute Indians had a lot of great ideas that we should have adopted into our culture, especially when it came to medical care. Should three or more Paiute patients die of unexplained causes while under the care of a tribal medicine man, the punishment was that the medicine man must forfeit his life. A common method of punishment was to tie up the quack doc in the bottom of a canyon and launch boulders at him from above. I think if we adopted this code today, the care we receive from the medical profession would improve drastically.

I have a friend up in Washington state who was told by his doctor when he hit the magic age of 50 that he should have his plumbing checked out. Please understand that before going to the doctor my friend was in excellent health.

It seems that the good doctor wanted to make a television star out of my friend's colon. Now the task of getting a television camera inside this remote region of the body cannot be explained in this family newspaper for reasons I think you'll understand. But the night before the photo opportunity was to take place, my friend had to clean out his pipes, so to speak, so the doc could get clear pictures. Unfortunately, it was calving season and my friend was spending long hours in the saddle checking heifers and rendering assistance when needed.

The night before the "procedure", my friend was to drink one gallon of a pineapple flavored substance, but the doctor had failed to inform my friend of the explosive nature of the liquid. Again, the details are just too gruesome to relate here, but suffice it to say that my friend was in the process of pulling a calf when the laxative took effect. My friend was 50 years of age when all this happened and he is now nearing that time in his life when Medicare kicks in, and he still has lingering side effects from that colonoscopy. For one thing, he can't stand the sight or smell of anything with pineapple in it.

This is precisely why my doctor is not an MD but a DVM. There are several reasons why vets make better people doctors. The first question they ask is, "What are the symptoms?" not "What kind of insurance do you have?" Veterinarians still make house calls, they speak English and the medicine they prescribe costs a fraction of the price of the drugs that doctors who treat humans prescribe. And many times it's the same medicine! Veterinarians don't make you undress completely, put on a backless gown and then sit on a stainless steel table when all you complained about in the first place was a sore throat. A veterinarian admits if he or she doesn't know what's wrong instead of ordering more tests or referring you to his or her brother-in-law who happens to be a "specialist." What specialists really specialize in is extracting money from your insurance company.

Here is another true story that graphically illustrates why my doctor is a veterinarian. Recently my vet got kicked real hard in the lower leg and he just knew that his leg was broken. So he went to his doctor, who took X-rays, and after studying them informed the vet that, no, he could not see any evidence whatsoever of a broken leg.

But my vet had his suspicions, so he hobbled back to his clinic and got out the X-ray machine they use for large animals. He took his own X-rays and then took the pictures back to his doctor. The medicine man hung the pictures in front of the light and exclaimed, "When did you break your leg?" And then he sent the vet a huge bill for his diagnosis!

These are just two examples I can think of where the doctors in question ought to be dodging boulders from above.