@N F C , we had a similar situation in Lovell several years ago with a doctor prescribing with no real medical reason, and it was our own doctor who got handcuffed and hauled out of his clinic by the feds, in full view of his waiting patients. He was prescribing smaller doses of opioids to "help addicts wean off" but did not have the correct DEA stamps or necessary certification as a drug counselor. You know what stinks? He was the best doctor we ever had, before or since! He listened, if he thought one of us needed a consult he took us into his personal office and made the call setting things up right in front of us, he was sharp and so good that a couple of a weekends a month he traveled to Minnesota and other states to work their emergency rooms. He was pretty chauvinistic, but didn't treat the women in his care with any less diligence. He would sometimes openly tout his male superiority. He was a Lodge brother of Ken's so he felt pretty comfortable making little remarks when I was in the clinic (you know, the old, "women can't usually handle this stuff...hahaha" crap) but I gave it back tit for tat. We often went back and forth....I remember once telling him, "Joe, I'd like to buy you for what you're worth and sell you for what you think you're worth - it'd be pure profit." And another time I said, "You can talk longer and say less worth hearing than anyone I've ever known."
When we got custody of Jamie and Diane, he was amazing. He had 4 daughters and 2 sons, so he'd take the kids out to his farm and let them hang out. We went camping with him and his family. When Jenny was expecting a baby and lost that one too (she'd already lost 2 and had an ectopic pregnancy), that guy went above and beyond for her and Kenny - even bringing them dinner the first night, and calling her to check up frequently. Nobody outside the family was as elated as Joe was when Jenny conceived and the pregnancy held on, and he referred her immediately to a specialist. When Katie was born, her biggest fan was Joe! And it wasn't just our family - he was like that with everyone in our area. You could sit in his office knowing your bill hadn't been paid and feel no accusing eyes staring at you while you waited for yet another appointment. He would even come out to the house for those who couldn't get out. Just a reliable, friendly, small town doctor.
But the biggest reason I will respect the man until the day I die is what he did for me when I had gangrene. He'd done my checkup and it looked great. I had one little steristrip that hadn't come off yet, and he told me to leave it. That night he left for a medical conference in Denver or some such place. Two days later I woke up to a sore hand, swollen and hot, and draining. The steristrip was gone, but the tiny little dot it had covered was now a large hole. I slapped some Neosporin and a bigger bandaid on it. Ken's parents were here for a visit and were leaving the next morning. I'd called the clinic, was redirected to call his nurse, and I had done that before I left. She'd told me to meet her there and unlocked the door to the clinic. She looked at my hand, touched it and heard it crackle, and called him immediately. We waited for him to call back, which he did within a few minutes. He told her to tell me to get to the hospital in Billings. He'd call and make all the arrangements, making sure that someone was there who could handle what he suspected, even long distance. I had been hiding how bad it was getting from everyone, and continued to do that on the way home. They only had the rest of the day here, so I figured I'd go up to Billings in the morning after they left.
But when I got home, Ken had a small bag out and was packing it. Joe knew that I'd want to wait until after Mom and Dad left before I told Ken and went up to Billings, so he cut me off at the pass. Ken said he'd called and said it was either Ken take me or he (Joe) would call an ambulance. That fast action, that expertise without even seeing the hand, and that preliminary setup with the emergency room in Billings are the only reasons I have a left hand today, and could well be why I'm still even here. Did he make a mistake in handling the drugs the way he did? Absolutely. He pled guilty, lost his license, and now lives somewhere back east. Rather than getting a lengthy prison term, which he was facing, he paid nominal fines and did probation. This entire community was rocked, and most rallied to his side as he had to ours through the years, and I think (I hope) that made all the difference for him. I wrote a newspaper column warning people not to forget all the good he'd done for everyone who'd ever come to see him, regardless of their backgrounds or financial stability.
It's way too easy to judge a book by it's cover sometimes. With all of my current medical issues, I can't even tell you how many times I've still told Ken, "I wish I could just pick up the phone and call Joe Baumstarck. He'd know what to do and not make me wait weeks to get in!" But he'd made a serious mistake, and he knew it. His fast action saved my hand and gave me the other doctor that I have elevated on a pedestal through the Great Grangrene Disaster of 2001, Dr. Sukin - even though I ended up hanging that one in effigy from the top of my hospital door. Joe didn't break the law for profit - he did it because there were no places in the area for addicts to get any help for their addictions and he thought he found a way to ease that. Just a couple of stamps on his license and he would have been perfectly within the law to prescribe and treat. Instead too many of them were taking what he'd prescribed and selling it for profit. He knew the risks of that happening too, but he just couldn't turn down anyone who was hurting. What a shame!
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Hi everyone, just wanted you to know that I’m still alive. Hope everyone is still hanging in there.
