My Take

There has been a great deal of discussion related to the soon to be infamous "Flea Incident" of which I posted about here. My disgust comes from the apparent reasoning behind the case being settled as well as the comments being left related to Dr. Flea. Some of the beauties I've seen include calling Flea "arrogant", "foolhardy", "asshole", and others. How were these expressions conjured up in the writer? Did they know Dr. Flea or have they had any interaction with him outside of his blog and the newsreports? Probably not, but damn if they're not quick to call him out for doing something that I'm doing right now - writing about my take on a subject based on my perspective.

There has been some rather interesting Anon comments circulating that are shedding some light into the legal world and the validity of the blog concern. I appreciate those as they are well thought out, purposeful, and inciteful. The comments that I'm quite disturbed by are from people who just found it arrogant for someone to blog about their experience - as if he thought he was too smart to get caught. Whatever.

I wrote a comment on Dr. Dino's blog related to these accusations that went something like this:

Is it arrogant to write about experiences and frustrations, victories and defeats, and to ultimately express oneself with the written word which Flea did so eloquently? If it is then call me arrogant as well. If anything it's just sad that people instantly dubbed this intelligent man as being arrogant based on very little information. I wonder if these were some of the same who would whole-heartedly agree with him on his blog only to turn against him so quickly.

The facts of the case are unknown to us, what is known, to me at least, is that Flea was a tremendous asset to the Pediatric blogging community and is now lost. We shouldn't forget that.

I'm pissed about the reaction Flea's mishap has brought up in the blogosphere. I understand that the lawyers want to win their cases and that if they feel they have an advantage they'll take it. That's life. Unfortunately physicians will often find it impossible to be judged by a "jury of their peers" because of the extreme divide between our profession and the laypeople. Lawyers are in the same boat. But what I'm really upset about is the almost universal dismissal of a very intelligent and courteous blogger who was also a physician.

I loved the Flea blog. I keep the URL up to this day hoping he'll return. I fear for his health and his ability to continue practicing medicine after being "outed" by a newspaper source. But what I hope quickly dissipates is the hate-fest going on by people who have no fucking clue what's happening.