Patients expect doctor’s care
Regarding “Veteran doctors hold key to future” (Open Forum, Oct. 5): I am a recently retired physician and witnessed the change of medical education that has gone from “not going to bed until all your patients are tucked into bed” to “it’s 4:45 p.m., time for me to go.”
When patients are admitted to the hospital, there is an unspoken contract that they expected doctors to do all they can to take care of them. They still expect that. If we as doctors are changing our end of the bargain, the least we can do is to let them know. Stan Hui, Millbrae
Bear responsibility
After reading columnist Dan Walters’ “New law gives state’s watchdogs some teeth” (Oct. 5), in which it is revealed that the office of the UC president interfered with a state audit by changing its responses and hiding $175 million in reserves, my question is this: Why is Janet Napolitano still serving as UC president? Doesn’t she bear responsibility for the covert and dishonest actions of her administrators? Assembly Bill 562 ought to include a provision that states that UC officials, including its president, can be held culpable for the actions of staff members who don’t fully disclose budget information — or change it to reflect more favorably upon the UC president — during state audits.
Lillian Hermann, San Francisco
Boycott Las Vegas
Want to see real changes in the gun laws, if not throughout the country, then at least in one gun-crazy state: boycott Las Vegas! That’s right, don’t go to Vegas as long as Nevada refuses to reasonably ensure the safety of its own citizens or those visiting from out of state. The outrageous irrationality of “worshiping” guns has got to stop. I do not need to recite all the recent incidents of gun-based massacres we as a nation have had to endure. The time for action is not now; it’s long overdue!
If we can’t get the present group of legislators to support reasonable gun laws, then we should vote for those who will. By boycotting Las Vegas, the power of our dollars being denied to a major sector of the economy will ultimately overcome that of the National Rifle Association. Robert Helwing, Sunnyvale
Category of killers
Regarding “The twisted mind behind a massacre” (Oct. 5): Melody Gutierrez’s thoughtful story about what propels mass killers to shoot as many people as possible and, thereby, achieve new levels of infamy is a good explainer on what she termed “the American obsession with fame and notoriety.” From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Orlando and, now, to Las Vegas, the number of dead tragically, but inexorably, keeps going up.
But there’s another category we should also look at, the cast of killers who know full well that all they have to do is shoot one person — just one — and they will be immortalized in the killers’ hall of fame: the guy who takes out someone who’s beyond famous. These assassins will be written about and talked about until long after they’re as dead as their victims. This includes John Wilkes Booth (President Abraham Lincoln); Lee Harvey Oswald (President John F. Kennedy); James Earl Ray (Martin Luther King Jr.); Sirhan Sirhan (Sen. Robert F. Kennedy); and Mark David Chapman ( John Lennon), among others. Michael Taylor, Berkeley
Guns for women only
I have an idea for easing the tension between the need to maintain Second Amendment rights and the even stronger need for gun control. Under my plan, guns would remain freely available, but only women could have them. No other regulation would be necessary — no fussing about bump stocks or anything else, really.
Women, of course, could use their guns for self-defense, and would also be available to form militias if, in fact, the government becomes tyrannical. But after a possibly difficult transition period, the number of mass shootings would plunge, probably to zero.
Elizabeth Morrison, San Bruno