Memorial Day is a day to remember and honor the many brave men and women who answered their nation’s call and paid the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield, with 1.3 million lives lost since the Revolutionary War. Congress established a National Moment of Remembrance to be observed every Memorial Day at 3 p.m. Take the time out of your day, regardless of your activity, with a moment of silence to remember our fallen heroes who fought and died for our freedoms.
Meaghan Mobbs, a West Point graduate, former Army captain and Afghanistan veteran who is now at Columbia University, wrote the following in a 2019 Tribune News Service op-ed column: “The time is intentional, predicated on the belief it is when most Americans are the busiest, bustling about and enjoying their day. The purpose: ‘to remember and renew the legacy of Memorial Day with greater strides made to demonstrate appreciation of those loyal people of the United States whose values, represented by their sacrifices, are critical to the future of the United States.’ ”
JOHN O’BRIEN
Orford
The writer is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Vietnam veteran.
Thank you for the May 23 Sunday Valley News article “Hoping for relief,” which highlighted the challenges faced by people with chronic pain in accessing opioids and other effective pain management interventions. The article featured a Strafford woman living with chronic pain who described feeling bullied by her Dartmouth-Hitchcock provider, who recommended that she discontinue her current opioid regimen.
As both a D-H patient and a clinician in the Upper Valley, I was disappointed by the medical center’s response. While not commenting on the specific case, the spokesperson stated in an email: “We do take strong exception … to the use of the term ‘bully’ in referring to any aspect of our care to any patient,” adding, “Our interprofessional team of palliative care clinicians provides holistic care designed to optimize quality of life for patients and families who live with serious and often life-limiting illnesses.”
This response suggests that patients who describe being bullied by their D-H provider have inaccurately described their care. To assume that bullying could not occur within this medical system is presumptuous and potentially dangerous. It represents the kind of thinking that has traditionally made it so difficult for the mistreated or victimized — for example, for survivors of workplace sexual harassment — to come forward.
There is a large power differential between patients and providers. When patients, in their inherent state of vulnerability, are willing to describe negative experiences, let’s not dismiss them out of hand.
The response I might have hoped for from the same medical center that mails me lengthy feedback questionnaires after nearly every visit is: “We are deeply concerned whenever a patient uses the term ‘bully’ in referring to any aspect of our care to any patient. Such feedback would prompt us to carefully evaluate how can we better deliver effective care that feels both supportive and safe to the patient.”
After all, telling someone that you take “strong exception” to their feeling of being bullied … well, it sounds like something a bully might say, doesn’t it?
JULIETTE HARIK
Norwich
The writer is a faculty member in the Geisel School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. The opinions expressed here are her own.
Well, I guess the Lebanon School Board showed us, the voting population of Lebanon, where we stand in voicing our position on having a police officer in our schools, by voting 5-4 — just about as close as the school resource officer referendum — to retain the officer (“Divided board keeps cop,” May 27).
Oh, that’s right, it was a nonbinding referendum, not a vote. Just ignore it. The voters don’t really understand the internal operations. I don’t know about anyone else, but the next referendum on teacher contracts, building renovations and expansions that comes before us will get a big fat nyet.
We left Lebanon High School in 2006, two years before our daughter was to graduate, due to the unhappiness and conflict roiling the institution: loss of accreditation in the 1980s and four bomb threats in one month in 2006; and later the murder of a teacher by her husband over her affair with a former student and the creation of the Ledyard Charter School, to name just a few indicators of the extent of the problems there over the years. Nonetheless, we continued to support just about every school budget initiative since then in support of the teachers, whom we liked, and with the hope that these improvements, and increase in benefits, would turn the program around.
By overturning the referendum, the School Board members not only may have shot themselves in the foot, they may have taken the teachers, the Lebanon Police Department and democracy with them.
BART GUETTI
West Lebanon
I would like to strongly suggest a Nobel Prize (probably in newly created category) or a similar type of recognition be awarded to anyone who can rid us all of the constant “Hi folks, I’m Joe Namath … if you’re on Medicare …” television commercials and the deluge of car warranty robo calls from fake local numbers that are attempts at information fishing.
Accomplishing these would be a true public service and worthy of our collective acknowledgment and gratitude.
FRANK McDOUGALL
Quechee