Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
Imagine Ben taking Manfred up in a Pfiel 2 seat trainer then saying:
"Right then Baron, you have the stick"...
Von Richthofen would die a very happy man after that.
I loathe doctors like Berg. "I know what's good for you so I'm just going to do it without so much as telling you what I'm doing". A patient has the absolute right to know what a doctor is giving them and all of the consequences from taking or not taking the medication. The patient then has the right to accept or refuse regardless of the consequences.
There seems to be an authoritarian impulse among many people where they are absolutely certain they know what's best and will act regardless of the preferences of the person they are "helping".
There seems to be an authoritarian impulse among many people where they are absolutely certain they know what's best and will act regardless of the preferences of the person they are "helping".
Yeah, pretty sure you not telling a patient that you're giving them medicine like that is 100% against medical ethics AND basic laws. Yeah, Berg could be hauled before a medical review board. And I'm sure they've made a host of enemies over the years.
I can see a couple of scenarios with Ben, one is he takes the Red Baron up on a training flight over the North Sea and gets in to a mock dogfight with someone from the FLK: The son of the Red Baron himself Albrecht von Richthofen who taunts his father over the radio.
The other one is he takes the Kaiser himself on a training flight and the Kaiser used the opportunity to have a "Man to Man" talk with Ben over his intentions with Princess Kristina and Ben wonders what would the consequences would be if he ejected the Kaiser over the North Sea.
Dr. Berg has an enormous ego and she is dealing with people who have even bigger egos.
A man died and he was waiting his turn to get in to heaven when a expensive bright red sports car pulled up next to the gates of Heaven and a man in a long white coat gets out and enters Heaven before everyone in line and the man asks who he was and he was told that it was God, he just thinks he is a doctor.
A man died and he was waiting his turn to get in to heaven when a expensive bright red sports car pulled up next to the gates of Heaven and a man in a long white coat gets out and enters Heaven before everyone in line and the man asks who he was and he was told that it was God, he just thinks he is a doctor.
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Ever heard of dihydrogen monoxide?
Both Kat and Berg are trying to protect Kiki in their own way. They also see the world through a different lens.
The medicine that Nora Berg proscribed to Kiki is a tea blend composed of chamomile, peppermint, passion flower, licorice root, magnolia bark, lavender and valerian root. It's a safe non-habit forming sleep aid and works as an anti-anxiety medication as well. Perfectly safe, unless a certain set of circumstances occur that Berg has been directly ordered to protect Kiki from. Kat took one look at that and knew what the game was because of her own experiences.
OTL and now, definitely.
1960's and a timeline without certain horrors that made people take a hard look at medical ethics, it's not as obvious.
That's what they initially said about Valium. If someone is going to give me something that has an active ingredient of some kind then I want to know so I can make a decision and herbal counts. Isn't that the basis of the whole "its my body" thing?
Sorry but it's a bit of a hot button for me due to family history.
It was the same thing for me in the first timeline when Kat had her bout with severe depression and it reminded me of my Grandmother.
This is coming at a time IOTL when doctors would prescribe uppers and downers like candy to their patients especially to their middle class and above women patients just to get them out of their exam rooms instead of taking the time to really find out what was wrong with them.
So far Kiki is not self medicating herself yet and she does have the education and training to do so which is a good sign.
What Kiki needs is someone to tell her that she needs to be evaluated for PTSD and that person has to be someone she trusts and not be judgmental about getting help for herself and that person I think is her stepmother Charlotte.
Doctors back in the day didn’t have to explain anything unless questioned about it. So I kind of get it.
FBKampfer
Banned
You have a point, however I will also raise the fact that literally EVERYTHING that can be metabolized is an "active ingredient".
Hell, proper hydration has HUGE impact on your sleep. Not just staying asleep because you need to keep getting a glass of water in the middle of the night, but how tired you feel, and your ability to actually fall asleep.
Sodium is a neurotransmitter, and Salt can meet technical definitions of an "active ingredient".
While you're perfectly justified, and entirely reasonable, in being concerned about what's going in your body, but limiting it to just what you're getting from your doctor is idiotic.
Hell, from the ingredients listed, the atmospheric lead from gasoline is going to do more harm to Kiki.
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Part 96, Chapter 1521
Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Twenty-One
7th November 1962
Laupheim, Württemberg
“You are not the first one in the FSR to have this happen to you Oberlieutenant” The Medical Officer said, “It just means that you’ll need to take the treatment seriously until there will be a reassessment once you’ve completed it and are deemed fit to return. If you cannot, then you should really consider separation as a viable option.”
Oddly, that came as something of a relief for Kiki.
Learning that she had failed the psychological assessment that had been recommended for all Officers who had spent more than thousand hours in combat had not been a surprise. When that particular regulation had come down a thousand hours had seemed like a lot, Kiki had done more than twice that. While the results were confidential, the consequences were not. Everyone would know that she had not returned to the FSR on schedule and it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out the reason.
There had been a reason why it not been a surprise to Kiki that she would fail. She had been struggling with basic things since her return from Korea and the assessment had gone horribly wrong. Then there was Kat telling her that the tea that Doctor Berg had given her to act as a sleep aid would more or less guarantee that Kiki would have a miscarriage if she had engaged in the sort of risky behavior that they seemed to be afraid that she might. These were two women who Kiki loved, admired and had attempted to model herself after. It was no secret that they had very different views and had never liked each other. Did the tea work as Berg had said it would, to help Kiki sleep? Yes. Was its other property even a factor? No, it wasn’t. Seeing how they were arguing over the matter was the last thing that Kiki needed. She recalled the look on Kat’s face when she had said perhaps Berg was right to have done what she had, a mixture of frustration and disappointment.
A few days later Kiki had been answering the questions for the assessment and had been unable to complete it without starting to cry. After that it was no longer a question of failure, but whether or not she would be given the option of treatment or would just be medically discharged.
The fact that they were giving her a chance to try to get help was hopeful sign. Or it could just be that they understood that it was a pointless effort and they were getting her to leave without as much fuss. Kiki just didn’t know. One thing that was obvious though, Peter Holz was nowhere to be found in all this mess. It was looking like Zella was correct about the nature of her uncle, he had only ever wanted to use her and her value for what he had in mind as the poster girl for anything had grown a lot more questionable lately.
Tegel, Berlin
The airplane was huge compared to any of those he had flown in his youth, Manfred gave it that much. Even the Gotha Bomber had been smaller than the Pfeil. Of the two young men giving him the tour, one he had already been introduced to when he had been in Korea, Lieutenant Benjamin Hirsch was the Pilot who he had suspected of being a love interest of Princess Kristina. Käte had encouraged him to take this tour of SKG 18 to get a better feel of the boy so that she would have more to gossip with about to her friends. The other one, Lieutenant Wilhelm “Wim” Franke, the Weapons Systems Officer/Observer, he had not met before today.
The two of them were enthusiastic in their description of what the plane did and how they had flown a similar plane in combat and Manfred couldn’t help but notice that their plane was the “Black Knight III” meaning that there had been two prior airplanes dubbed the Black Knight flown by them. Earlier they had been a bit guarded about what had happened to the first, the second they had cheerfully given up for the new airplane that they were showing off.
Manfred figured that he knew the story without being told, they had their original airplane shot out from underneath them.
That was when Ben mentioned something about the controls that took Manfred by surprise. “You said that the controls are not conventional?”
“Fly-by-wire” Ben said, “With simulated feedback going back to the pilot. It was something that the Canadians cooked up and Arado kept. The Pfeil wouldn’t be flyable in its present state without it.”
“I do not approve of this particular airplane being a collaborative effort with a British company” Manfred said, “Even if it is the Canadian branch of that company and the English are no longer our enemies.”
“I would like to think that we made all our own when we took on the worst the Chinese could throw at us” Ben said, “We lost more aircraft to groundfire than enemy aircraft.”
That was a reminder to Manfred of a big part of the reason why the 18th Fast Attack Wing had run up the score as high they had. More Prestigious Wings such as Manfred’s namesake JG 1 “von Richthofen” had put in admirable service over Korea but had not had quite as many opportunities.
7th November 1962
Laupheim, Württemberg
“You are not the first one in the FSR to have this happen to you Oberlieutenant” The Medical Officer said, “It just means that you’ll need to take the treatment seriously until there will be a reassessment once you’ve completed it and are deemed fit to return. If you cannot, then you should really consider separation as a viable option.”
Oddly, that came as something of a relief for Kiki.
Learning that she had failed the psychological assessment that had been recommended for all Officers who had spent more than thousand hours in combat had not been a surprise. When that particular regulation had come down a thousand hours had seemed like a lot, Kiki had done more than twice that. While the results were confidential, the consequences were not. Everyone would know that she had not returned to the FSR on schedule and it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out the reason.
There had been a reason why it not been a surprise to Kiki that she would fail. She had been struggling with basic things since her return from Korea and the assessment had gone horribly wrong. Then there was Kat telling her that the tea that Doctor Berg had given her to act as a sleep aid would more or less guarantee that Kiki would have a miscarriage if she had engaged in the sort of risky behavior that they seemed to be afraid that she might. These were two women who Kiki loved, admired and had attempted to model herself after. It was no secret that they had very different views and had never liked each other. Did the tea work as Berg had said it would, to help Kiki sleep? Yes. Was its other property even a factor? No, it wasn’t. Seeing how they were arguing over the matter was the last thing that Kiki needed. She recalled the look on Kat’s face when she had said perhaps Berg was right to have done what she had, a mixture of frustration and disappointment.
A few days later Kiki had been answering the questions for the assessment and had been unable to complete it without starting to cry. After that it was no longer a question of failure, but whether or not she would be given the option of treatment or would just be medically discharged.
The fact that they were giving her a chance to try to get help was hopeful sign. Or it could just be that they understood that it was a pointless effort and they were getting her to leave without as much fuss. Kiki just didn’t know. One thing that was obvious though, Peter Holz was nowhere to be found in all this mess. It was looking like Zella was correct about the nature of her uncle, he had only ever wanted to use her and her value for what he had in mind as the poster girl for anything had grown a lot more questionable lately.
Tegel, Berlin
The airplane was huge compared to any of those he had flown in his youth, Manfred gave it that much. Even the Gotha Bomber had been smaller than the Pfeil. Of the two young men giving him the tour, one he had already been introduced to when he had been in Korea, Lieutenant Benjamin Hirsch was the Pilot who he had suspected of being a love interest of Princess Kristina. Käte had encouraged him to take this tour of SKG 18 to get a better feel of the boy so that she would have more to gossip with about to her friends. The other one, Lieutenant Wilhelm “Wim” Franke, the Weapons Systems Officer/Observer, he had not met before today.
The two of them were enthusiastic in their description of what the plane did and how they had flown a similar plane in combat and Manfred couldn’t help but notice that their plane was the “Black Knight III” meaning that there had been two prior airplanes dubbed the Black Knight flown by them. Earlier they had been a bit guarded about what had happened to the first, the second they had cheerfully given up for the new airplane that they were showing off.
Manfred figured that he knew the story without being told, they had their original airplane shot out from underneath them.
That was when Ben mentioned something about the controls that took Manfred by surprise. “You said that the controls are not conventional?”
“Fly-by-wire” Ben said, “With simulated feedback going back to the pilot. It was something that the Canadians cooked up and Arado kept. The Pfeil wouldn’t be flyable in its present state without it.”
“I do not approve of this particular airplane being a collaborative effort with a British company” Manfred said, “Even if it is the Canadian branch of that company and the English are no longer our enemies.”
“I would like to think that we made all our own when we took on the worst the Chinese could throw at us” Ben said, “We lost more aircraft to groundfire than enemy aircraft.”
That was a reminder to Manfred of a big part of the reason why the 18th Fast Attack Wing had run up the score as high they had. More Prestigious Wings such as Manfred’s namesake JG 1 “von Richthofen” had put in admirable service over Korea but had not had quite as many opportunities.
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Wow, Berg... Hopefully Kiki remembers her spine and gets Berg stripped of her medical licenses.
At this point IOTL Dr. Berg would be considered that she is doing no harm to Kiki.
What is going to ultimately change people's attitude about doctors is going to be a combination of the rise of third party payers of medical services (private insurance and governmental) taking the decisions about treatments out of the hands of doctors, the rise of the information age that allows people to look up facts, information, and more importantly misinformation about certain medical procedures and diagnosis, and more women and People of Color in the medical professions that studies has shown that patients are more willing to question than white male doctors.
What the Red Baron must be feeling is how far aeronautics have come in less then 50 years after he first flew and he can't comprehend all the changes in the technology that has happened, it is no more "Seat of the Pants" flyer that is going to be the first choice of pilots but the ones who are able to grasp the amount of engineering it takes to fly the latest aircraft.
What is going to ultimately change people's attitude about doctors is going to be a combination of the rise of third party payers of medical services (private insurance and governmental) taking the decisions about treatments out of the hands of doctors, the rise of the information age that allows people to look up facts, information, and more importantly misinformation about certain medical procedures and diagnosis, and more women and People of Color in the medical professions that studies has shown that patients are more willing to question than white male doctors.
What the Red Baron must be feeling is how far aeronautics have come in less then 50 years after he first flew and he can't comprehend all the changes in the technology that has happened, it is no more "Seat of the Pants" flyer that is going to be the first choice of pilots but the ones who are able to grasp the amount of engineering it takes to fly the latest aircraft.
Err, people of colour would be hard to come by in Europe.
As for facts, information and misinformation, advancing knowledge through science (unfettered or corrupted by various lobbies and various interests) is the best way forward. 'People', a significant swath of them, sadly, as shown by the antivaxxers, are just as likely to take fiction for fact and support it to the bitter end.
Of course, not even doctors and scientists are immune to mistakes, especially if it's about already established treatments (that later was shown to be completly wrong - like the use of smoking to help breathing issues) or the 'shiny' new treatments, as shown even here (Kat's psychotropic drugs treatment). But we know this now through hindsight, and medicine is moving forward.
As for dr. Berg thinking she knows better, we do need to remember that Kiki has her own bundle of psychoses, and she's not the most responsible person abouth her own body and mind's well being. I'd even go and say she's mildly self-destructive. Overall, she's not necessarily the best person to be entrusted with her own health.