(Long) Rant about meeting with duPont Ortho. Chairman

[Guest guest]

OK, I have been stewing on something for more than a month now and I'm still

mad about it so I thought maybe a rant would help! After we had such a

terrible time with duPont hospital in Delaware, and we switched to Iowa, I saw

such major differences between the levels of care Devlin received. I really

thought duPont could benefit from our experience and that other clubfoot

babies---especially Atypical Clubfoot babies---could be treated more

effectively if the doctors at duPont were more aware of the true Ponseti

treatment. You all know what I'm talking about---spreading the word for the

benefit of others.

We called duPont's patient services and worked through the ranks, finally

getting an appointment with the head of Orthopedics at the hospital (Dr.

Bower). The guy claimed to be interested in finding out about our

experiences there and why we were dissatisfied. I talked to Dr. Ponseti

before the meeting to ask what specific points I should drive in. He offered to

train someone from duPont if they would send them out for 2 weeks or so and

I was all excited to suggest that to the guy. I put together the log we had

been

keeping and included color pictures for illustration. I took it all to him to

show

him what went wrong (and right) with Devlin's treatment.

What a joke of a meeting! The jerk really " put us in our place " . Dr. Bower

said

that Dr. Ponseti was someone you could see only if you " had enough money

to lay on the table to get his attention " and that the Ponseti method has never

worked because " he has never found a brace that can hold the correction "

and that " even right now he's working with big orthotics manufacturers trying

to develop something that will work " (I think would be impressed to find

out that he's a " big orthotics company " ). Bower said that if " Ponseti couldn't

find a brace by now, after all these years, he never will " . He also said that

the

University of Iowa " has to let him do what he wants because of his senior

status there " and that they are " indulging him " by letting him continue to

practice. Finally, he said that Dr. Ponseti's method will die with him. I was

so

pissed I could barely speak. I did manage to say " really? tell that to the

troops of doctors from around the world we always see there. " But the jerk

just kept cutting us off and smirking at our naivety.

I don't even need to tell everyone here how absurd everything the guy had to

say was. We could tell that the only purpose of the meeting was to see if we

had grounds or intentions for a lawsuit. I'm so mad at this point I want to sue

just to make them learn how much more they need to know about clubfoot

treatment!

Anyway, feeling rather unempowered, I decided I had to do SOMETHING

about duPont so I put the log and the pictures up on my web site. You can

see it at www.cseel.com/clubfoot/ The search engines are starting to pick it up

and if you do a google search for " clubfoot dupont " ours is the 3rd result. Dr.

Bower may feel like he silenced us, but I beg to differ!

Anyway, thank you for being a forum for my rant! I know everyone here is as

offended and incensed about Bower's Ponseti comments as I am. I just can't

believe guys like this control the future and the fate of so many unsuspecting

babies and their parents. Let's continue to spread the word about proper

clubfoot treatment and stop the few " God-complex " surgeons from maintaining

their status...