Stranger Than Fiction

[mgil]

Figured it would be nice to have a thread about stories in the news that are crazy.

I’ll start:

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/08/13/health ... index.html

ETA:

Desktop link:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/13/health/m ... index.html

[cwd]

Bizarre.

What's missing from this story is that *someone* at Mayo clinic thought the mom was crazy and that they had to hold the teenager.

That someone went way beyond the law and normal practice to do that. Probably a doctor, as a nurse wouldn't have the authority to get the clinic to do something that crazy and legally risky.

What did the mom do, to convince that doctor she was crazy? What did the clinic do to the doctor in secret, afterwards? The juicy details are secret.

[torkins]

Figured it would be nice to have a thread about stories in the news that are crazy.

I’ll start:

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/08/13/health ... index.html

man this was an intense read. Got my adrenaline going. Bonkers

[mgil]

Bizarre.

What's missing from this story is that *someone* at Mayo clinic thought the mom was crazy and that they had to hold the teenager.

That someone went way beyond the law and normal practice to do that. Probably a doctor, as a nurse wouldn't have the authority to get the clinic to do something that crazy and legally risky.

What did the mom do, to convince that doctor she was crazy? What did the clinic do to the doctor in secret, afterwards? The juicy details are secret.

There's a part 1:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/13/health/m ... index.html

It seems like it's a Catch-22 of sorts. Mom says, "I want to get my daughter out of this place..." which is contrary to the motives of the attending physicians, and someone writes this up as "willful negligence" or similar and correlates this to being an unfit parent.

From the photos included, it looks like the girl gained a lot of weight while in the hospital. Acne was breaking out as well. I can see that the parents were concerned. It looks like she has recovered fine.

An interesting cautionary tale.

[omaniphil]

"Viewed in its entirety, this did not go well for anybody who was involved."

Well, maybe in terms of what the different parties had to go through, sure. But only one party comes off looking bad here, and it's Mayo in my opinion.

If I were to speculate, I could imagine that Alyssa's mother and stepfather struck the attending physician/administrators as perhaps a little crazy - not crazy enough to not be able to make decisions for themselves and their daughter, but probably a little off. That prompted Mayo to believe that Alyssa was best off in their hands, and that led to all of this. Pure speculation of course, but if so, Mayo handled it poorly, and definitely should have had an ethics consult.

edited to add:
just saw your post:

Mom says, "I want to get my daughter out of this place..." which is contrary to the motives of the attending physicians, and someone writes this up as "willful negligence" or similar and correlates this to being an unfit parent.

Yeah, that seems to square with my speculation.

[quark]

I'd add that there likely was a good dose of confirmation bias. Once you think someone is at least a little crazy, especially if it manifests as disagreement with your views, you see all of their behavior as confirming your opinion of their craziness and you dig into both that opinion and the underlying view.

The Mayo Clinic did come off as looking very bad. They stuck to something with seemed wrong and they didn't follow normal procedure, as set out by other doctors and ethics experts.

[JonA]

Mayo staffers consented to the off-the-record meeting "with hopes that [CNN] would reconsider [its] decision to share the story. We feel that going on camera or audio disclosing the details about this case and the complex family situation are not in the best interest of the patient or the family."

There is quite the disconnect here, if they honestly thought that it would not be in the interest of the family. It's not the family that looks bad, although I'm sure there is a bit of a hatchet job in the article. They can't exactly come out and say: "Yes, the whole family is certified bonkers" without exposure to another lawsuit.

The thing that I don't like about these types of situations, is that people involved lose sight of what they are battling over and it's just about winning. If you look a the potential outcomes of this, what was the hospital fighting for? Worst case if they just let her go, she is going to die, either at another hospital or at home surround by her family. What's the best case? That the Mayo successful separates her from her family and passes guardianship to the county and she recovers, and then what?

[brkriete]

The Mayo Clinic did come off as looking very bad. They stuck to something with seemed wrong and they didn't follow normal procedure, as set out by other doctors and ethics experts.

That's the biggest red flag. You have procedures for this stuff. Why not stick to them?

I happened to come across this slightly older story when I was googling a local diner to see what their hours were:

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/ ... oyds-diner

My favorite part is that he straight out told a guy he had a bunch of criminal convictions and a coke habit when he asked for a job.

[mgil]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ed ... 7ceb9b02d9

Amazing that situations like this still exist.

[Murelli]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ed ... 7ceb9b02d9

Amazing that situations like this still exist.

Let's take a minute to wonder what would have happened if the plaintiff's skin had less melanin. Now let's take a moment to wonder how ridiculous it is that a Judge thinks The State, which should be based in The Constitution, is not bound to guarantee one of its citizen's Constitutional rights.

[quark]

If The State has a constitutional obligation to teach children to read, it might also have a constitutional obligation to provide other essentials, such as food and medical care. We can't have that, can we?

Are any of the Michigan public schools in better shape? If so, I'm surprised the state can't be sued on equal protection grounds.

[cwd]

I wonder where the money intended for that school actually went. I've seen a lot of embezzling stories about inner-city school systems.

But also, why are we talking about high schools and basic reading? Lots of kids start school at age 5 already reading and writing, having learned the basics at home. Maybe these young people should sue their parents.

[SpinyNorman]

Are any of the Michigan public schools in better shape? If so, I'm surprised the state can't be sued on equal protection grounds.

Yes, some of them are quite good.

We just moved from a suburb of Detroit that had really bad schools. They weren't quite as bad as the examples in the article, but I wasn't going to send my kids to them. We've been homeschooling instead. We just moved and the school district we are in now is good. We're going to keep homeschooling for now, but it's nice to have the option to send them to decent public schools if we want too.

The disparity in the quality of public schools is huge. There's a lot more to kids' education than just the schools (or at least there should be), but not providing adequate facilities and educational materials is inexcusable.

[mgil]

I wonder where the money intended for that school actually went. I've seen a lot of embezzling stories about inner-city school systems.

But also, why are we talking about high schools and basic reading? Lots of kids start school at age 5 already reading and writing, having learned the basics at home. Maybe these young people should sue their parents.

It's a multi-generational problem.

I can see both sides of the argument. One being that the parents are responsible, but also that the community leaders have been telling these parents that the state will provide.

[SpinyNorman]

I wonder where the money intended for that school actually went. I've seen a lot of embezzling stories about inner-city school systems.

Detroit certainly had more than a little of that going on.

But also, why are we talking about high schools and basic reading? Lots of kids start school at age 5 already reading and writing, having learned the basics at home. Maybe these young people should sue their parents.

I see what you're getting at and I agree that reading should happen way before high school, but I'm not confident the kids suffering the most from these situations have parents (or parent) with the necessary knowledge, skill and time to teach them the basics.

[Allentown]

I wonder where the money intended for that school actually went. I've seen a lot of embezzling stories about inner-city school systems.

But also, why are we talking about high schools and basic reading? Lots of kids start school at age 5 already reading and writing, having learned the basics at home. Maybe these young people should sue their parents.

It's a multi-generational problem.

I can see both sides of the argument. One being that the parents are responsible, but also that the community leaders have been telling these parents that the state will provide.

Right, this. Parents have to be able to read, and have time to teach their kids to read.

Also every time o see this thread title I think it's about the Bad Religion song.

[hsilman]

I wonder where the money intended for that school actually went. I've seen a lot of embezzling stories about inner-city school systems.

But also, why are we talking about high schools and basic reading? Lots of kids start school at age 5 already reading and writing, having learned the basics at home. Maybe these young people should sue their parents.

Yeah, on the other hand the kid didn't ask to be born to garbage parents. It doesn't make it "our responsibility" to raise them, but I'm of the opinion that we're all better off doing it anyway.

Everytime my wife's family visits(like this week), I get a wonderful taste of how terribly they are raising the next generation. Fucking kid is 8 and his Mee-Maw still cuts up his food for him. Goddamn.

[cwd]

I wonder where the money intended for that school actually went. I've seen a lot of embezzling stories about inner-city school systems.

But also, why are we talking about high schools and basic reading? Lots of kids start school at age 5 already reading and writing, having learned the basics at home. Maybe these young people should sue their parents.

Yeah, on the other hand the kid didn't ask to be born to garbage parents. It doesn't make it "our responsibility" to raise them, but I'm of the opinion that we're all better off doing it anyway.

True.

We can't make people equal, but we can and should give people opportunities to rescue themselves from misfortune.

[cgeorg]

I wonder where the money intended for that school actually went. I've seen a lot of embezzling stories about inner-city school systems.

But also, why are we talking about high schools and basic reading? Lots of kids start school at age 5 already reading and writing, having learned the basics at home. Maybe these young people should sue their parents.

Yeah, on the other hand the kid didn't ask to be born to garbage parents. It doesn't make it "our responsibility" to raise them, but I'm of the opinion that we're all better off doing it anyway.

Everytime my wife's family visits(like this week), I get a wonderful taste of how terribly they are raising the next generation. Fucking kid is 8 and his Mee-Maw still cuts up his food for him. Goddamn.

This isn't fair - there are plenty of reasons that could lead to a 5 year old not coming into school knowing how to read. As Allen mentioned, perhaps the kids parents themselves are only semi-literate, or have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. This stuff isn't happening in areas with great socioeconomic conditions, a lot of these people are dealing with stuff lower on Maslow's hierarchy than literacy on a daily basis.

[hsilman]

I wonder where the money intended for that school actually went. I've seen a lot of embezzling stories about inner-city school systems.

But also, why are we talking about high schools and basic reading? Lots of kids start school at age 5 already reading and writing, having learned the basics at home. Maybe these young people should sue their parents.

Yeah, on the other hand the kid didn't ask to be born to garbage parents. It doesn't make it "our responsibility" to raise them, but I'm of the opinion that we're all better off doing it anyway.

Everytime my wife's family visits(like this week), I get a wonderful taste of how terribly they are raising the next generation. Fucking kid is 8 and his Mee-Maw still cuts up his food for him. Goddamn.

This isn't fair - there are plenty of reasons that could lead to a 5 year old not coming into school knowing how to read. As Allen mentioned, perhaps the kids parents themselves are only semi-literate, or have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. This stuff isn't happening in areas with great socioeconomic conditions, a lot of these people are dealing with stuff lower on Maslow's hierarchy than literacy on a daily basis.

Sorry, I didn't mean that specific issue, I just mean in general. If our public education outcomes are still tied to hereditary benefits, we've fucked up pretty bad. Cause according to Jefferson, the whole point of public education is to "unshackle us from the bonds of ancestry".

As you say, they generally have a lot of issues. But if the school isn't teaching the kids to read without needing the parents to do it too, seems like a failure of the education system.