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Patric McDonald

Patric McDonald

About

30 years in the trenches of emergency medicine has afforded me a front-row seat at the great Medical Miscreant road show. From my early years in medical school at UCSD La Jolla, where one of our respected guest lecturers was found guilty of murdering his wife and 2 daughters - until the Michael Jackson doctor shenanigans - I've kept pretty busy tracking more than 11,000 instances of flat-out strange physician misbehavior. So I thought other folks might find the phenomenon as curious as I do.

The Sons of Godwine: Part Two of The Last Great Saxon Earls

The Sons of Godwine: Part Two of The Last Great Saxon Earls

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<p>Emerging from the long shadow cast by his formidable father, Harold Godwineson showed himself to be a worthy successor to the Earldom of Wessex. In the following twelve years, he became the King's most trusted advisor, practically taking the reins of government into his own hands. And on Edward the Confessor's death, Harold Godwineson mounted the throne—the first king of England not of royal blood. Yet Harold was only a man, and his rise in fortune was not blameless. Like any person aspiring to power, he made choices he wasn't particularly proud of. Unfortunately, those closest to him sometimes paid the price of his fame.<br /><br />This is a story of Godwine's family as told from the viewpoint of Harold and his younger brothers. Queen Editha, known for her Vita Ædwardi Regis, originally commissioned a work to memorialize the deeds of her family, but after the Conquest historians tell us she abandoned this project and concentrated on her husband, the less dangerous subject. In THE SONS OF GODWINE and FATAL RIVALRY, I am telling the story as it might have survived had she collected and passed on the memoirs of her tragic brothers.<br /><br />This book is part two of The Last Great Saxon Earls series. Book one, GODWINE KINGMAKER, depicted the rise and fall of the first Earl of Wessex who came to power under Canute and rose to preeminence at the beginning of Edward the Confessor's reign. Unfortunately, Godwine's misguided efforts to champion his eldest son Swegn recoiled on the whole family, contributing to their outlawry and Queen Editha's disgrace. Their exile only lasted one year and they returned victorious to London, though it was obvious that Harold's career was just beginning as his father's journey was coming to an end.<br /><br />Harold's siblings were all overshadowed by their famous brother; in their memoirs we see remarks tinged sometimes with admiration, sometimes with skepticism, and in Tostig's case, with jealousy. We see a Harold who is ambitious, self-assured, sometimes egocentric, imperfect, yet heroic. His own story is all about Harold, but his brothers see things a little differently. Throughout, their observations are purely subjective, and witnessing events through their eyes gives us an insider’s perspective.<br /><br />Harold was his mother's favorite, confident enough to rise above petty sibling rivalry but Tostig, next in line, was not so lucky. Harold would have been surprised by Tostig's vindictiveness, if he had ever given his brother a second thought. And that was the problem. Tostig's love/hate relationship with Harold would eventually destroy everything they worked for, leaving the country open to foreign conquest. This subplot comes to a crisis in book three of the series, FATAL RIVALRY.</p>

Story Behind The Book

In the late 1970's my classmates &amp; I showed up for an early morning neurotrauma lecture at UCSD La Jolla school of medicine. Our head injury guest speaker was to be Jeffrey MacDonald, MD, from Long Beach A note on the classroom door advised us that we could take the next hour off, because, &quot;Dr. MacDonald unfortunately cannot join us this morning. He had a pressing legal matter to tend to.&quot; The legal matter? Well, Doctor Jeffrey MacDonald had in fact murdered his wife and two young daughters, and was on trial. You may have heard the story. That incident profoundly influenced me, and from that day forward I took notes whenever I happened to witness strange doctor behavior. As an advanced emergency care provider in the state of California, I found myself taking an awful lot of notes. Not all the goofiness was murderous, or even criminal. Some of it was downright hysterical. A few years ago, I pulled a dusty briefcase out of the garage, and discovered it was literally bulging with thousands of pages of my scribblings. Thousands. And it occurred to me that maybe other people might find wacky doctor foul-ups, bloops &amp; boo-boos, as odd as I did. &quot;America's Dumbest Doctors&quot;: Ever wonder about yours? - is an edgy-humor compilation of stories, anecdotes, headlines, jokes, observations &amp; poetry. I asked nurses &amp; doctors nationwide to weigh in, and 300 of them did. My theory? Observing nutcase behavior in society is good clean fun. But when the wacko wears a lab coat, it might be wise to pay attention. I hope you find the subject matter as entertaining and enlightening as I do. Thanks.

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Reviews

<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font style="color:#800000;" size="3">“From ego-errors and tomfoolery, to greed, stupidity and murder – I’ve laughed <em>and</em> cried at McDonald’s astutely biting, at times hysterical view of my peer group. Disturbing, provocative and uncomfortably funny.”<br /></font></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-weight:normal;"><font face="Arial">Lesley Miller, MD retired (former <em>“surgeon to the stars”</em>) USC School of Medicine, Los Angeles<br /><br /></font></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#800000;font-size:11pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;">“Author McDonald breaks ranks and names names. I sincerely wish I could report that these are merely a few far-out nutcases. I honestly cannot say that. And this fact alone makes his work, regrettably, important.”</span></span></p><p></p> <p style="text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';">J. William Hollingsworth, MD (Retired)</span></span></p><p></p> <p style="text-align:justify;margin:0in 0in 0pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;"><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';">Former Chief of Medicine, <span> </span>San DiegoVAMedicalCenter</span></span></p><p></p> <p></p>