Medicine Entertainment

Alright, macacas. We don’t want you to get the wrong idea. It’s only because we’ve all been crazy busy lately that we haven’t gotten to this one yet. We certainly don’t want you to think that we here at the Mutiny consider ourselves too high-brow(n) to address the strange case of Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, a.k.a. the “meth doctor” who has found himself in the limelight due to his involvement in the now-ended life of Anna Nicole Smith.

kapoor.jpgQuestion One: Is that T-shirt for real, or is it Photoshopped? Either way it’s a remarkable image. Almost as remarkable as the image the gossip sites had of the brother sans shirt, apparently launching into woozy canoodle with Ms. Smith on a couch in a club before some other sycophant shoves a hand on the camera lens. Almost as remarkable as that of the brother astride a West Hollywood Gay Pride Parade “float” — actually a black Saab convertible — gazing fondly down at Ms. Smith while she — oh, just click the link. (I have absolutely no idea whether it’s SFW or NSFW, by the way. I can’t gauge these things anymore.)

One of my Sepia colleagues commented to me that the brewing controversy over Dr. Kapoor, who is now under investigation by the California medical board for his alleged role in supplying Ms. Smith with the alleged pharmaceutical products that are alleged to have contributed to her demise (I think we’re safe with that phrasing), is actually good for the race, in that no one has commented on Kapoor’s ethnicity, leaving his incompetence and general gross-ness to speak for itself without racial qualifiers — he is being judged, if you will, not on the color of his skin but on the content of his character. Well, my co-Mutineer didn’t actually phrase it that way; I’m embellishing, but it’s still his basic point. Which means: Yay! Desis are now so normalized into the field of medicine that they are expected to be insane, incompetent, quacks at no greater or lesser rate than found in the general medical population.

The gossip sites also inform us (caution: clothed but scary picture) that Dr. Kapoor advertised at some point for a position (chick pea, are you listening?) in which he describes one of his practice’s specialties as Entertainment Medicine. This is, apparently, a hitherto-unknown field. He also does travel immunizations and (ahem) “several national and international clinical pharmaceutical trials.” I don’t know about Entertainment Medicine, but when it comes to Medicine Entertainment, this brother’s gotta be a shoo-in for the Oscar.

68 thoughts on “Medicine Entertainment

  1. pick the lesser of 2 evils sriram. it’s either anna or britney, because nothing else is going on in the world.

  2. they used to sell those “trust me i’m a doctor” shirts at urban outfitters. i thought it was supposed to be ironic, until i witnessed a bunch of med students embracing–and actually wearing them. i’d say it’s pathognomonic for someone that is a tool.

    It is supposed to be ironic, and therefore extra ironic if worn by an actual doctor. Another in-joke if you will. I refuse to believe anyone is actually toolish enough to wear one to get game (or to fall for that ploy to get game).

  3. chick, if you made a “make out with me for methadone” shirt I would be so all over it!

    Aside from the apparent skeezyness of the doc, I really think the coverage around Anna Nicole’s life/death is so sad. I mean, she spent so much of her life as a spectacle. It’s really depressing.

  4. Comment 31: There is an actual threat of racial violence here.

    I’m so glad you pointed out Abhi’s threat, I must have missed it in all the discussions last year. I now see the real agenda behind the phrase Sepia MUTINY. Good lord, sumbuddy call the FBI before all the maca…I mean brown people rise up and chappal-smack all us goras to death!

    I love the idea of Entertainment Medicine! Does MIA’s “Bird Flu” fit in there somehow? And where’s Bong Breaker when you need him, breakdancing for his patients?!?

  5. “I refuse to believe anyone is actually toolish enough to wear one to get game (or to fall for that ploy to get game).”

    Desishiksa…if you’re ever in Boston….have drinks at a club called ‘The Rack’….you may change your mind about this statement…:)

  6. I don’t understand how he could prescribe it AND have it shipped to the Bahamas. He should be arrested for basically everything else: innappropriate doctor-patient relationship (my ethics professor may have a stroke when she hears about this…), prescribing narcotic medication (which is basically a narcotic these days) to a pregnant woman (how it got filled is BEYOND me), and writing out a prescription for an alias.

    Again, methadone is okay in pregnancy. Also, I am in no way interested in defending this guy, but she was a rich woman, and he is a physician, albeit the most irresponsible one over. My point is, If you can find heroin, you can find methadone. If she was interested in recreational methadone use she certainly did not need a prescription from her doctor. Although…it’s so weird. Methadone is an opioid, sure, but it’s long-acting and doesn’t produce a high. It’s job is to quell symptoms of acute withdrawal so an addict can overcome their addiction one day at a time. If I was an addict I’d skip the kid stuff and go right for the heroin. What did her autopsy show?

    Isnt this noraml medicine? You have a choice of the mother being addicted to heroine or methadone, so you prescribe the lesser of the 2 evils?

    That’s incredibly obtuse. You have a heroin-addicted woman who finds herself pregnant. Your choices are 1) Let her keep doing heroin and watch her give birth to a brand-new heroin addict 9 months later, 2) Let mom (and fetus) go into acute withdrawal, possibly causing death to one or both, or 3) Give her a safe alternative. (Obviously, not being a drug addict in the first place is the ideal situation – DUH. Burn this guy for being a gynormous inappropriate tool but if Anna Nicole was a heroin addict then his decision to prescribe her methadone during her pregnancy was completely appropriate and is the standard of care.)

  7. Right, Rupa. You’d think with Anna Nicole’s drug use history they would have tried to find some alternative, kept a better eye on her, and probably made it very hard for her to find recreational methadone (she was in the public eye a bit more than the average free clinic street junkie)…and I don’t even know if it’s the high at this point as much as it is wanting to fight growing cravings to a point where the dosage SHE felt was necessary led to an overdose. And he complied with her request for the money to frequent gay bars. It’s like too many nicotine patches…but naturally, a lot worse.

    I’m still baffled…how did this guy practice medicine for as long as he did?

  8. I’m still baffled…how did this guy practice medicine for as long as he did?

    i am baffled too.. all i could really find out about him was this..i’ll see if any friends i know, knew him in med school, or at ucla… hmm… curious cats want to know..

    and camille: will get those shirts out to you asap. ;).

  9. Suboxone would have been a better choice for her. It’s bad medicine- methadone being rx’d to a known substance abuser outside of a methadone clinic. Yes, methadone is presently the most widely prescribed treatment for a pregnant opioid addict but suboxone, a new alternative to methadone, will change this in the next few years. Methadone does produce a little buzz, does have street value and is very easy to OD on- particularly when mixed with benzodiazepines like valium, klonopin and xanax. It’s happening at an alarming rate around the country.

  10. “particularly when mixed with benzodiazepines “

    How long have you waited before finally being able to use “benzodiazepines” in a sentence?

  11. Let mom (and fetus) go into acute withdrawal, possibly causing death to one or both,

    Adults do not die from narcotic withdrawal, only from benzo/barbiturate/alcohol withdrwal. Narcotic withdrawal is uncomfortable as hell, but it won’t kill you. It can, however, kill the fetus so methadone is a reasonable substitute for using heroin during pregnancy. Probably best to get it from a methadone clinic, though, not some random guy.

  12. camille: here is my shop to buy a t-shirt, proceeds above the cost of the shirt are going to the american cancer society…

    wow! chick, when you said “asap,” you really meant it! The real question is now ringer or girly tee 🙂

  13. Tunku Varadarajan said about Anna Nicole Smith:

    Anna Nicole Smith embodied America. She embodied its bounty as well as its overabundance; its exploitability, and its propensity to exploit. She embodied, also, its litigiousness, its enterprise, its universal offer of the chance to remake oneself (Gatsby did it one way, Anna Nicole Smith did it another).

    Just trying to find another desi angle for y’all

  14. Oh alright Urban Outfitters also makes a “Trust me I’m a Lawyer” shirts and I actually thought about buying it, but then I saw people wearing it around school and realized they were about annoying as those people who drive around with their MENSA license plates and I got over it…quickly.

  15. Dr. Sandy a/k/a Sue Ellen was just blinded by his desperate need for media attention – he is probably reading this too – his need for his 15 minutes just got the best of him. He is in deep do do. AHHHHHH the power of the prescription pad Must make the family oh so proud. Sue Ellen Sue Ellen Sue Ellen…………….

  16. Any dude willing to hang out with gori Randi like that had scumbag tattooed all over him at birth.