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Out my THE ERA Serving York Count Sine DAVID R HAIKELL CARTER JOHN LOT Judgment proves we are all human Elsewhere In this weeks Issue of The Era is news which proves that members of the medical profession are human They can make mistakes Just the same as anyone We will not dwell on the particulars of the cut except to say that a prominent and surgeon ana York County Hospital were found by a judge to be negligent In case involving a Newmarket man The Judge awarded the man about 42000 and In doing so rendered a scathing of the surgeon Dr William Vail The judgment and the denunciation are rather curious First the plaintiff sought damages of If the surgeon and the hospital were so negligent as the judge says in his judgment why wasnt the plaintiff awarded the full The sum of represents only about per year if the plaintiff lives to the age Of How many of would accept a year for the loss of a leg If we had a choke handled i years How many inn Canadian courts have always held that an accused Is Innocent until proven guilty The opposite appears to be the case In this Instance The judge infers that because Dr Vail and the hospital did not present any other medical evidence other than Dr Vails testimony that they had something to hide Dr Vails testimony In essence was that in his Judgment he made a diagnosis he tho ught correct If faced with the same case again lie would have done the same thing No medical evidence to refute Dr Vails Judgment was presented by the plaintiff But because there was no evidence present ed by the defendants to corroborate Dr Vails judgment the judge ell they had something to hide His decision and his denunciation could shake the confidence the community has in the hospital the medical profession as a whole and Vail in particular ful How many hundreds of thousands site- operations and diagnoses lias this munity medical profession performed over the years How many unsuccessful ones How many thousands of successful opera tions ami diagnoses has Dr Vnll performed over the years How ninny unsuccessful ones When a newspaperman makes a mistake he can correct It In the next Issue of a news paper When a mechanic errs in repairing a car the car can be brought back to his garage and repaired correctly 42Ssm Old Ontario John Lorko of Rive during his building bridges North Main St Pari this now remains of lock constructed in Newmarket How hundreds of thousands of York County Hospital lint when a doctor makes i which results in Hie loss of limb the limb cannot be replaced Its a shame too few people realize doctors are human and are subject to the same human frailties as anyone It Is hoped that this Ontario Supreme Court judgment does not shake the wellearned con fidence the community has in its medical pro fession and its hospital NEWSROOM NOTES Confessions from the Citizens Forum fi close in season There was little that the York Regional Sym phony could do about It theirs but the sounds they emitted ccived by no still clinging to sanity Some of you readers may have noticed a reference to a group named the Citizens Forum in some recent columns written by Mary Forum usually meets on Wednesday afternoon at the Compass Restaurant And of late the meetings have been starting late in the afternoon because of Irate employers The Forum originally started with luncheon and then followed several hours of discourse and discussion 1 was never able to follow this practice not because of a high sense of duty but mainly because I simply did not have the lamina Instead attended the luncheon went back to the office and returned to lite Forum late In the afternoon This practice is being emulated by most of the Forums members now not again out of a sense of duty but simply because their wives found out where they were spending their Wed nesday afternoons There is a small number of Forum members who do not even attend the luncheon instead join the meetings after work Again this is not because of a high sense of duty or because their wives nagged them It is simply because their bosses found out and gave them a choice You either work all Wednesday afternoon or you dont work here at all For one reason or an other these members took the former course Membership in the Citizens Forum is re stricted to nobody are eligible to join just by sitting down at the table The members re present a wide spectrum of the community BILL SMILEY Discreetness prevents me from mentioning who they are or what they do for a living There arc a few ground rules at the Citi zens Forum Members may not discuss any thing important or are they to repeal any of the discussion outside By anything important I mean such sub jects as sex food money are not to be dwelled on Controversial subjects such as sporting events union agreements and the weather are permissible One member takes great delight in seek ing out two oilier members who have totally different points of view on a certain subject member first takes sides with one then takes sides with the other When the two the Incoherent lugs from the harp and unintelligible from the bass fiddles Alt this most diloition when conduc tor Philip after an Interesting and effec tive explanation and de monstration of the type instruments opened the floodgates youthful curiosity tor the York Regional Se ville May 5 The con cert sponsored by the Inionwlle and District Home and School doubt that the memberi Help Dear Editor jular invited the the with an occas ional but startling dou ble forte thing from the giant cymbals protest ing grunts from the oil- strange tools from the flutes unrecogniz able squeals from the snorts from the engulfed in a li the deeper sound lik die the rumble of Ihe tainly the blare and au thority of the brass and Hie throaty smoothness and Midget I hank you to the for a i Wedding bells and sad dads one million people read this n And Ihcy read It roughly because thats way it Is written Many of the old faithfuls have read the col umn since the time my daughter first burped and covered the old mans shirt with babyspew And they have associated and laughed and cried as i described Iho peculiar creature that I produced With a little help from my wife of feel it only fair to the old faithfuls to keep them up to date Anyone who Is not interested can turn to Ann or Billy Graham or who writes about something Import ant Kim Is getting married Normally this Is an occasion of great hilarity geniality joviality and sometimes oven spirituality Personality I think shes out of her mind But this at least is normal among parents So everything is proceeding normally Today I came home and found my wife by income tax forms and samples for material to cover one of our chairs Normal ly I wouldnt be surprised by this Its a typical But its not exactly the hysteria one might expect And where Is Kim with a wedding about 10 days away Shes In the city with her boyfriend looking for a secondhand von In which they can eat and sleep and have their being during the And they have my car Every lime the phone rings I flinch expecting to hear a police officer telling me theyve cracked up my beautiful 1Q67 Dodge And tomorrow night theres a shower for her and the next day a dental appointment and next week an appointment in the city about a Job and another dental appointment and a hair dressers appointment And she hasnt oven her wedding dress yet Shes not at all worried about her going- away outfit She assured her mother Dont worry Mom Ill bo going away In my Jeans Well Im sorry I cant invite everyone to the wedding You would enjoy every minute of It but we cant get one million people Into our living room though youd never believe it when I have our annual party And youd enjoy the reception even more with Kims cat and ours flying into a screeching spitting squalling fight every three minutes of the biggest ordeals of course is meeting the future inlaws We got through that last Sunday and it went off fine The kids sat nervously biting their nails up to the knuckles as they watched it Dot a sensible person like myself and I got along fine She accepts life as It Is and does something about It Shell be a fine moth erinlaw Doug and my wife are both nuts about classical music and they got along fine He and I are going trout fishing so we got along fine We had some and sonic cough medi cine an excellent combination by the way and could scarcely bear to part But to get back to my thesis and Im afraid Ive wandered a bit we cant Invite everybody So Ill make it official Mr and Mrs B Smiley announce the marriage of their daughter KIM ELIZABETH university dropout to Mr Donald Impoverished artist which look place May 1972 Thats the gist of the ring There Dont feel hurt because you havent received a person al Invitation If you had it would be like getting a personal invitation to the Black Hole of Cal cutta Why do young people want to get married anyway In my day it was the only way to do youknowwhat But with the pill and the new concept of morality it all seems rather dopey Oh well Ill probably weep during the ceremony And when I weep a sight to be hold Strong women who have never wept In their lives except over a lostlash come up and pat me and try to dry my eyes with Kleenex and all they do Is make me weep louder and welter will understand The only advice 1 con give at this moment Is that If you have to have a daughter have five I Imagine by the time fifth was got ten rid of youd be able to control yourself to stage of their discussion whore they are pound ing the table and waggling their fingers under each others nose this member offers to act as an arbitrator Sitting there like a Supreme Court of Can ada judge this Forum member asks the two combatants to present a summation of their Individual views The first calmly presents his view This usually results in the second combatant getting furious again Just as he is about to explode with his view the Judge announces it is time for him to go home and thereupon tips and leaves You can ima gine the ensuing bedlam This shroud secrecy over who attends the Citizens Forum meetings been lifted only twice Two names have been mentioned In The Era by Mary Daniel Shannon and the Godfather Well I have some more They are Shrug -BILLGAMBLK- Im Americanized almost By the time this column hits the news stands 1 will have been in Canada exactly years and although by now have taken to Americanization as a drunk takes to alcohol some of this continents idiosyncrasies seem as perverse and illogical to me today as hey did 1 recall the many things which cither bug ged me or made me wonder when I first made the transition from the British to Ihe American way of life things which I regard ed as expressions of a unique national psycho- thai you big blabbermouth She ringers Is a genu phopia I seen to my amazement that in some hotels the oilcl seals arc with a strip of print ed paper This guarantees the guest In some sort of fashion that the object has been sub jected to i special treatment for a certain bigger than life itself Even the lowly soda cracker may come in a box labeled For your eating pleasure Music regardless of Individual tastes is always For your listening pleasure Cigarets are kingsized or regular but nev er small This mode of overstatement reaches its apogee with restaurant menus They are fre quently written in such purple prose that Shako- himself would blush for envy Why do strawberries come in mounds Why is Vir ginia ham succulent Why is cream from tuberculintested cows In despair and con fusion I learned to accept such descriptive am biguities to believe them I found it easier than trying to understand them I wondered then and I wonder now why people over here talk like coded as though they were counting every word that My particular peeves are long time Belles It took me a long time to get used to the size of our newspapers and magazines Why are they so defeating it is virtually impossible to lift the Saturday newspaper with one hard Muscles grow sore from carrying them Read- gents the features for the Advertis ing may be an economic necessity for publish ers but why must it appear throughout a maga- column 8 Why do we have such a mania for air con ditioning I have often longed for a parka in the show In August Conversely central heat ing In winter raises he room temperature to that of a Turkish bath What is the real reason for polyethylene Almost every commodity on the market is transparently proofed against the elements Why And finally why do our newspapers offer such intimate facts about great or Important people items may Include such aston ishing facts as analysis of the Prime Ministers urine a description of an ambassadors intestin al troubles or intimate details of an actress pregnancy Why Twenty years ago when first set foot on Gils lightning fast continent these were some of the things that made me pause and wonder My curiosity is yet unappeased Answers anyone