The Cockroach Catcher: Cockroach Blog Catches: The Appeal, GMC & King’s Fund.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Cockroach Blog Catches: The Appeal, GMC & King’s Fund.

Does anyone admit to reading certain books?

Well, I was reading a John Grisham book when I read a blog by The Jobbing Doctor. Yes, I do multi-task.

The Appeal /John Grisham Website

This led me to a site I have never visited before: Liz Miller’s Doctor Bloggs. The post was about the new CEO of GMC.

The John Grisham book was The Appeal. From his Website:

“In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst ‘cancer cluster’ in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it.

“Who are the nine? How will they vote? Can one be replaced before the case is ultimately decided?

“The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice.”

It is a disturbing book as most of his previous ones are about the small guy beating the big boys; not anymore: this is the reality.

So what has this got to do with the GMC.

Well, you will have to read Doctor Bloggs:

“Niall Dickson has been appointed as new chief executive of the GMC, to take up post in January 2010. Mr Dickson has been chief executive of the King's Fund since 2004, prior to which he was BBC's social affairs editor.”

This is what The Jobbing Doctor wrote about The King’s Fund:

“The Jobbing Doctor idly thought that it was run by the great and the good, and their pronouncements were likely to be genuinely independent and free from bias.

“……. it is a neo-conservative pro-privatising anti-NHS organisation.

“Liz Miller lists some of the details in this post as Doctor Bloggs. I was astonished to see the huge bias and lack of balance in the organisation.

“This group of individuals contains some of the most pro-privatisation zealots even to sit round a table, and their agenda seems to be to promote the commercial interests of PFI companies, Health Care organisations and other organisations wishing to make vast profits from the NHS. There appear to be no clinicians in the higher reaches of the organisation, and a complete lack of balance whatsoever.”

Strong words indeed!

Read all about it in Doctor Bloggs.

So perhaps it is not just Shakespeare we should read.

Links: The Jobbing Doctor, Doctor Bloggs.

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