CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta is just too damn perfect. He is a doctor (including combat neurosurgery), a journalist, a University of Michigan grad, has a perfect smile, and speaks out against drug use. I really believe that the Universe has a way of balancing out the existence of such people with Doppelgängers, “anti” people, who use their skills to aid the dark side. The story about Sona “Doc 420” Patel, posted on our News Tab, makes me wonder if we have finally found the anti-Sanjay Gupta of the Indian American community.
Chances are you’ve never met a doctor like Sona Patel. She’s the cover girl for medical marijuana. We first interviewed her at a medical marijuana convention in Los Angeles.
“I’ve always believed in the medicinal effects of marijuana,” says Patel, a medical marijuana doctor.
Six months ago, she started calling herself Doc 420 — 420 is the street slang for smoking marijuana.
“That’s just kind of a bit of a fluke, just kind of happened that that phone number was available and the Web site was available. So, I became Doc 420,” says Patel.
Yes, she has a toll-free number, a Doc 420 Web site and a MySpace page with a picture.
Dan Noyes: “What did you hope to accomplish with this image?”
Sona Patel: “Well, you know what, it was just something that a marketing team had come up with for me…” [Link]
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The article excerpted above is actually the transcript from a television story (including undercover camera work), the video of which is posted on the site.
First, I should say that a part of me admires the hot Doc420. She is using existing loopholes in the California medical marijuana laws to maximize her profit. She definitely is not the only such “rogue” doctor. According to the ad above she already has three clinics in three cities and she is only 31! Her website shows that the clinics are very nice as well. Incidentally, her website has a note saying it is down for construction but will be re-opening today, presumably sans racy “Doc420” ads. Thank goodness for screen capture. She must be feeling a little bit paranoid because of the undercover story, and probably with good reason. Even though California state laws allow for the distribution of weed for “medicinal reasons,” the feds do not, and will go after people that exploit the laws by freely writing prescriptions without good cause. For those wanting a clearer background on all this, 60 minutes devoted a great story to this problem just a few weeks ago. The problem for Sona is that she is caught on tape implying that just about any reason is good enough to be prescribed some marijuana by her.
The other issue here is her ad which “drips” with sex. In the under cover video when some potential clients approach her she acts very demurely, so I can give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that she isn’t using her sexuality on a daily basis. Even if it was a marketing team’s idea to dress her up like that, it was a bad call. No doctor should be that stupid. Citing an ad like this as evidence will undoubtedly bolster a prospective federal lawsuit against her.
I-Team Producer #1: “What if you don’t have a condition?”
Doc 420: “Well, most likely, people are using it for something whether you… really realize it or not, if it’s helping you sleep or calming your stress or there are so many different reasons that still qualify you. You may not even realize it.”
I-Team Producer #2: “It could be something like just I can’t sleep or whatever?”
Doc 420: “Yeah, exactly, and I have a lot of people like that, too.”
Our producers went to the ATM, returned with cash, and after a few minutes emerged with a three-month recommendation for medical marijuana.
Dan Noyes: “Oh, you’ve been diagnosed with a serious medical condition.”
But Dr. Patel didn’t really diagnose our producer. She told him what would qualify him for medical marijuana with a series of leading questions. [Link]
Marijuana might eventually become legalized, even at the federal level. Sona’s problem is that the law just isn’t there yet. The extreme marketing decisions she’s made in order to maximize her profit (i.e., conflating her physical appearance with her competency to prescribe a controlled substance) may come back to haunt her. We’ll keep an eye on her story.
When I ate pot in some chocolate-chip banana bread at age 20, the “trip” lasted well over a day, and was nightmarish. Time slowed to a crawl and I genuinely thought my eyeballs were going to explode. Every few years I’ll try a puff off a friend’s joint, and the only high I get is the relief when, after 30 minutes of coughing, my throat no longer feels like there’s a burning tire in it. I personally hate the stuff.
But it obviously doesn’t affect everyone that way. Most people I know love it, and use it in moderation. Most people I know enjoy alcohol too, which I also dislike. Some of use just aren’t cut out for recreational drugs.
I think Doc 420 is cool because she’s exercising liberty in the face of some very stupid laws. She has a hard fall coming her way, but she’s heroic for trying. And her sexy image in the ad makes a mockery of the medical establishment, which is surely offensive to many people here, but I like it. The medical establishment does much good, but it could use some mocking.
bob, weed can make people killers. c’mon, man, haven’t you heard the phrase going potal?
Just wondering, what do ABDs like to eat when they’re on a trip? I know many sweet-sellers near my (DBD) college who just couldn’t understand how some guys could down half a kilo of Jalebis and a dozen Ladoos for dinner.
Anyways, I’m high on G&Ts right now; a very refined and acceptable high.
i said stupid, never mentioned crazy.
Did i say it should?
its causing you to see things not there
ever see that scene in the godfather?
alcohal is evil too. ask the mexicans
Nina P
eating ganja is like walking on a tightrope – eat too little and you dont feel a thing; eat too much and..well you know what happens. this is a mystery I’m still trying to solve. friends who ate cookies or hashbrownies for their first pot experience said they had a similar experience, although not as long.
dravidian lurker
“going potal”? – I dont get it?
Manju
I give up on you. you’re hopeless
bob, is the marijuana in canada better? i only ask because i have heard it said that the green is grassier on the other side.
dravidian lurker
yes, it’s better and a hell of a lot cheaper!
Manju, you apologize to Mary Jane right now or go right to bed without dessert !
82 · nala said:
What, are you from the Department of Redundancy Department?
On a different note, Bob, try reading the thread before you comment on it. You’re hurting your own cause with your inability to recognize that Manju is on the same side as you (except Manju is funnier and less condescending.)
“Take two and pass so the blunt will last.”
Harbeer – give a girl a break, will you? I’m a young woman, I shouldn’t be held up to any standards! (Besides, the line has more of an effect with the “drug dealer with an M.D.” part).
And I still think she’s lame. Oooh she’s so bad by rebelling against dumb drug laws! I think they’re dumb too, but please, let’s not kid ourselves and think that she is some sort of hero. Most people who do this shit are guided by one thing: $$$. I’m saving my respect for someone who deserves it.
Hey, Abhi,
I appreciate the point you are trying to make, but you are far too casual in confusing the issue of “medical marijuana’ with “drug abuse”. Dr. Gupta fights abuse. Good. Dr. Patel says that she is the poster child for “medical marijuana”. How on earth is that the polar opposite of Gupta? Because she chooses to make use of her good looks?
I have suffered chronic pain for 7 years now. I am a neuroscientist, and have published papers in great journals, including Nature: I say that just to emphasize that I am a reasonably productive member of society in the US, and a reasonably productive member of the desi community. However, I am alive today only because of prescription painkillers. Is taking opiate painkillers for 7+ years drug abuse? If not, then why is the prescription of marijuana something ‘bad’?
My primary painkiller is something called Fentanyl, which is so potent that taking four times the dose I am on may cause a coma in some cases. Which also means that if some child 1/4th my body weight gets hold of it, he/she would be in mortal danger. In other words, opiate painkillers, the most frequently prescribed drugs to people like myself, are DANGEROUS. Depending on the drug, 4 to 50 times the usual dose may cause serious harm.
Do you know how many times the usual dose of prescribed marijuana is dangerous? Too large to measure. In other words, there is no way to get dangerous doses of marijuana in your body by smoking it, even if you were to do so 24/7/365. You can’t die from it. It is a safer drug than hydrocodone, oxycodone (oxycontin), methadone, and fentanyl, ALL of which I have been prescribed in the past. It is safer than alcohol. My physician says that if he dared to, he WOULD prescribe it for me. But he can’t, even though in Oregon, it is legal to do so. Why? Because the feds would be down on him, AND me, like a ton of bricks. Because being caught with even a small amount of PRESCRIBED marijuana would risk my permanent resident status.
The ‘abuse’ bogeyman has been flung around way too much, and too many people whose lives might be made livable have been hurt by delibrate conflation of prescription use of marijuana with abuse of the drug. In this scenario, perhaps you should be careful not to make the situation worse by your casual inferences. I mean, do you have any evidence that Dr. Patel contributes to marijuana misuse? Has she been arrested? Has the state board investigated her for such misuse? If not, then why on earth are you so negative about her, based on an ad, for God’s sake?
Just in case you and your readers think all the stuff I take is ‘fun’, let me tell you what my life is like WITH all these drugs. I sleep 2 to 7 hours a night, with many disruptions, since pain makes it hard to be comfortable. I wake at 7:30, drop my kid off at school, and reach the lab at 0900. By 3pm most days, (6 hours of work later), I am exhausted, and my pain levels are beginning to spike. I barely manage to drive home (many days, I can’t, and my wife or a friend has to drive me home). I sleep till 8 pm. Wake for 40 minutes to have dinner, and read a bedtime story to my child. Then, I lie down, and hope that tomorrow will be equally GOOD.
Without my meds, or even with lower doses, I am confined to bed. I can’t straighten up, and the max I can walk is 10 steps to reach the loo. The pain is so overwhelming that I cannot concentrate on my work. Ever tried to analysing your data with wavelet analysis while feeling that someone has your testicles in a vise? Because that is where it hurts, and that is how much. All the ‘fun’ drugs I take allow me to spend a few hours a day while reasonably alive, continuing to work as much as I can, and spending some time every day with an 11 year old who is wondering aloud these days why she bothers to pray to god if he never listens to her prayers.
So when you take a cheap and ill-thought shot like this, think who might be affected, whose treatments might be interrupted because your sanctimonious post might put this doctor in legal jeopardy with the equally sanctimonious federal officials of this administration.
Hope this means something to you out there: MEDICAL marijuana is not a bunch of bums or dudes sitting around puffing away for fun: it is possibly the only thing saving many people with chronic pain from taking their own life. And if you think that THAT never happens, then you are truly fortunate: you have probably never known pain the way so many of us are forced to.
Avi
is that true? i heard you used to get 30% lesser in the past. how can you evaluate if the reduction in cost is because of increasing trade deficits and a low rate of savings causing a negative balance of trade and a weakening dollar, or legalization allowing a more highly liquid market with increasing supply and a consequent drop in prices?
avi- Please don’t think that I am trying to minimize how helpful medicinal marijuana can be to those who are in pain. I’m also aware that it isn’t as harmful a substance as others (like, say, PCP), but it can still be addictive. But the criticism of Dr. Patel comes from the fact that apparently she is prescribing it to people who are healthy and don’t need it as long as they have money and are willing to say they have certain symptoms which they may or may not have. I don’t feel bad believing that the latter group probably is just a bunch of dudes sitting around getting high. I don’t have a problem with that, but please, let’s not pretend that it’s some sort of noble cause, or that what Doc 420 is doing in this case is unlawful and unethical. She’s actually undermining the medicinal marijuana cause, which she proposes to stand for, with her drug-dealing actions.
okay, so far established: Doc 420 is going about this all wrong.
I’m curious about your repeated use of this phrase, “let’s not pretend…” Are you referring to Doc 420’s marketing campaign or the medical marijuana policy?
oops, that should be… let’s not pretend that it’s some sort of noble cause, or that what Doc 420 is doing in this case isn’t unlawful and unethical.
And I don’t mean in any way to conflate medicinal marijuana use with drug abuse. But I also don’t doubt that there are people who get prescriptions for it, who don’t need it, from unscrupulous docs like Dr. Patel, who are potheads.
Avi, actually, no where in my entire post above do I even discuss “drug abuse.” Are you confusing me with another commenter???
Because she is BREAKING THE LAW (in spirit at the very least) and she supports smoking pot. Sanjay Gupta does not break the law and he is against pot smoking. Beyond that, it was a humorous comparison.
I’m sorry to hear that. As many people above have pointed out though, this post isn’t about whether smoking pot is right or wrong. It is primarily about abusing a law on the books and using one’s sexuality to aid in that abuse.
Please be sure to only comment on something once you’ve actually read the post. Or maybe you shouldn’t take a hit right before reading the site. I’m sorry, was that too sanctimonious?
Maybe “us out there” actually SUPPORT medical marijuana for pain suffers like you and it pisses us off that people like Dr. Patel abuse the law so flagrantly that the feds will make sure you, a real chronic pain sufferer will have their option taken away.
Can we start a pool on the likelihood that the good Doc will make an appearance and comment?
Not the medical marijuana policy (like I’ve said, I’m all for it). I guess I should clarify it to say that I won’t pretend, I can’t control what any of y’all think. But I’m responding to posters who have said things along the lines of ‘she’s heroic’ or something. I don’t see a hero, I just see a doctor who is undermining the policy she stands for by prescribing medicinal marijuana to people who don’t need it and just want to get high because she wants more money. Though I shouldn’t fling such accusations around… but what Abhi posted about the secret camera is enough for me to cast doubt on her.
I’m about 99% sure she’s read it. That’s what our sources are reporting. I think there is about ZERO chance that she’d marry Abhi as his sugar momma at this point though.
i met sonal patels ‘friend’ last night at a fete…. heard she smokes out all the time..and doesn’t look as good as she used to… (smoking causes wonders, eh?)… or photoshop is working overtime…
get a prescription from her and she will appear to you whenever you want, in any joint you want.
cigs definitely do appear to make one “broke-ass” ahead of one’s time. Not sure about the reefer’s effect on fine lines and wrinkles.
everybody knows pot makes you fat
Drug administered patient : It happens everytime I play this song. Who is this doctor ? Dr Sonal Patel : I have absolutely no idea
i don’t think she stops at reefer…
so what’s wrong with what sonal is doing? personally, i like my pcp’s better with reeferals.
OK, I praised her actions in a lighter moment. But seriously, I have a problem with doctors prescribing marijauna for fun and she is clearly not doing it for medicinal purposes. She could care less what the motivations of the “patient” is. If she is the type who is doing it to thumb her nose at the government, then I can get with the program and view her favorably. However, if she is doing it because she is an irresponsible party bitch who just wants to make money , then I can’t respect her.
This is why we need legalization. Maybe they can regulate the content and protect the mainstream users from getting sick with bad pot. Also we do not need the respect of the medical profession to go down when they act as pushers (which this woman is clearly doing). it’s bad enough some doctors already have that reputation by selling out to the pharm industry. People who want to get high will always find a way to get high.
Just because the law saya smoking marijuana is illegal, that does not make smoking marijuana or advocating the use of marijuana immoral. The law is a political tool; a tool created by mostly men, mostly white men, in Washington D.C. Often the law coincides with what is moral but sometimes it does not. If you have a problem with what the doctor is doing, it seems weak to resort to the claim that she is advocating illegal activity. Some commenters claim that marijuana is addictive. Anything can be addictive; sex can be addictive and lead to unhealthy behavioral and mental health problems for those who are addicted. The FACT is that there is nothing chemically in marijuana that makes it addictive. There simply is no argument for keeping marijuana illegal.
and then there’s poor Emery whose extradition hearing’s on this week to get him shipped to the US. Emery, in case you dont know has been selling cannabis seeds to the american public from across the border, has been arrested 21 times on charges linked to cannabis, and heads the marijuana party.
i do not advocate drug use, but friends who’ve done mj and the harder stuff too (are going clean now), tell me it’s in the DEA’s interest to keep the system lax. there are farms of the stuff in the carolinas and the badlands, and the growers are in cahoots with the DEA. They get one or two fields seized so that the DEA’s quota is met, and carry on. All hearsay I know, but keeping this shit illegal is in everyones interest. pot is one of the biggest cash crops on the continent.
topic for some other time – the desi connection to pot – via brampton.
Wow, has even this thread turned into ‘she’s rebelling against the white man!’ That’s no excuse to prescribe pot to people who don’t need it. And that’s basically the crux of why what she’s doing is wrong. This is such a frustrating point to keep making, over and over again.
I didn’t claim that marijuana is addictive. I said that I’ve seen people get addicted to it (and I agree, people can be addicted to anything to the detriment of having a normal, healthy life). I brought it up to contest some commenters’ claims that there’s nothing harmful about smoking pot. I’ve smoked pot and didn’t see what the big deal was (I also don’t see what the big deal about alcohol is), I don’t care about legalization one way or another, so it’s not like I’m against pot-smoking. I just think people should face up to that it’s mind-altering to the level that you shouldn’t smoke and drive, and that people can get addicted to it. But that’s not what this thread is about anyway, so I’m going to stop.
I don’t know if I agree with what she’s doing or not medically but she I do know that she’s hot and I wish she was my doctor. It would be great if she actually wore that outfit during practice.
Her site is down but her myspace page is up (and includes a full view of her incredible legs): http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=63093075
all this clamor to make marijuana legal is just a conspiracy to keep it from the hordes of immigrants invading our country. as the national reefer association (nra) has said many times, when marijuana is legal, only legals will have marijuana. think of the mexicans, will ya?
more on marc emery from the web-zine cannabis culture. Also of note, Ron Paul’s perspective on marijuana in the same issue.
I would love to hear Patel’s perspective on this. I doubt it is purely a moneygrabbing ploy. This issue raises hackles on both sides of the debate and she seems too astute a person to not have a ready argument advocating marijuana decriminalization.
Question for y’all – do you think this should be an issue in the US presidential debate?
From my personal experience of taking Medical Marijuana for Crohns Disease, I believe its a wonderful drug. It’s the only drug thats been able to quell down my sysmptoms and allow me to live a normal life. I know others as well who have auto-immune diseases such as MS, Lupus, etc who’ve used it to help with the pain. Now I wouldn’t recommend smoking it to get high but taking the minial dose to feel the effects of its benefits. I mean I’ve been through all the drugs even Chemotherapy. Fortunately for others those drugs work but for the ones that don’t this drug is a good alternative. Just my two cents.
Abhi:
Perhaps I was un-necessarily strident in my post. However, if you read the first few sentences in your post, you do seek to highlight the ‘contrast’ between Dr. Gupta, who ‘speaks out against drug use’. I don’t think you mean use of prescription drugs there. He speaks out against abuse. Then, you proceed to make the case against Dr. Patel.
Regardless of your intentions, unless the reader were to examine each link in its entirety, the conflation of ‘medical marijuana’ with ‘drug use’ has already happened. And, I am sorry to say, it is precisely this nebulous way of making the link between abuse and prescription use that is making life hard for both practitioners and patients. Your intent may have been humorous, but I for one didn’t get the humor. However, if you still believe, on re-reading your own post, that it is NOT too harsh a judgement on the lady, for “at least breaking the law in spirit”, then I apologize for my stridency.
And by the way, for the commentators who believe that a doctor prescribing medical marijuana in accordance with state law cannot be prosecuted by the feds: you are dead wrong. That is what the case early this year at the Supreme Court was all about. Feds do, and will continue to go after doctors as long as the federal admininstration has the view that prescription of marijuana is ‘unlawful’.
Avi
128 · Pravin said:
Why do you have a problem with this? Why do you think that fun and good health are mutually exclusive?
Fun: can be dangerous sometimes.
66- Louiecypher: actually I went to the U of Vic in one of the whitest communities in North America. It was fun when the hippies were around, but the island has gotten so expensive that they’ve decamped to the Interior and on campus you’re left with the hardcore business school conservative, the guys and girls who are in Vic precisely because it is white and they like it, and the Canadian Olympic teams for every conceivable sport. The latter are really the only redeeming variables.
Manju, thanks for the cogent support.
Here’s some more grist for those of us who believe: in BC, there are very many stoners. In fact, no few of my friends have worked in the summer on illegal grow-ups, watering pot in the bush or in rickety old houses, packing a .45 for the purposes of silencing dissent. The grows are were a fantastic way to make money when our economy was sour; you couldn’t get a job waitressing unless you were a flirt, a certified hottie, possibly sleeping with someone already working in the establishment and really really lucky to boot. You couldn’t even get a retail job on the island for the last ten years without being highly fortunate. So you’d take your chances and head to the bush. Even the professors at my fair uni were in on the ganga; one of my soci teachers was actually busted dropping off baggies for pickup in the parking lot behind the math building. In any case, the point of this ramblefish is that you’d meet people in their late twenties/ early thirties who had been mainlining unfiltered hits for years, and besides having charred lungs, they had the worst short term memory you’d ever encountered. Everybody knew they were this way, and knew why: they’d commiserate about their baked up friends when out for strong cups of local coffee. These friends could not find anything. They would put something down and forget where they put it. They lost their keys and their purse and their socks eight times an hour, making them impossible to go out with. They’d write your phone number on a scrap of paper and lose it. They’d forget when their same day appointments were and constantly bugged you as to when they actually had to be somewhere. They weren’t as bad as burnouts on LSD or anything, but they were manifestly annoying.
So smoke away, my friends. I guarantee you won’t be all excited about my comments in another few years. You’ll be busy looking for your credit card.
^^^Meh. Bill Hicks says:
and unrelated but oh so true:
ugh. I don’t have the patience to explain my point any longer (perhaps some people are willfully missing the point), so…
Cartman: “Goddamn hippies!”
And you’ll be choking on your own smug. Or perhaps that special variety, glib-smug.
Mainlining? Surely such a wordly and weathered individual such as yourself would know that the proper word is “inhaling.” Unless, of course, you are in the habit of regularly denigrating those damn junkers who are constantly ejaculating themselves with illicit dregs.
that should be ‘worldly’
.
I’m sure you have extensive experience with this LSD burnout population as well–did you conduct your in-depth research of such burnouts by watching the Woodstock DVD or skipping through Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? Your credibility here regarding substance use is rapidly decreasing.
131 · nala said:
First, to address the “addictiveness,” look at the first sentence of the second paragraph here.
As for smoking and driving, I could point you to numerous studies which found that marijuana may actually improve driving capabilities–it does indeed slow down reaction time, etc, the paranoid stoned driver actually overcompensates for the impairment resulting in a net benefit–but I’ll just quote Bill Hicks again instead:
My favorite Bill Hicks quote about the subject:
Harb, still waiting for a reply to my email. Way to keep a dude hanging!
Marijuana is a drug just like many legal prescription drugs and certainly there are pharmaceutical companies (Purdue – Oxycontin) that have promoted drug use under false or less than honest pretenses. However I question her motives and whether or not she is truly living up to the Hippocratic Oath or in the words of Sir William Osler, the model physician “To cure sometimes, to comfort always”
If her motives were truly altruistic why does charge for her services? Does she treat any other illnesses and does she use any other medications? Is she were 250lbs would we give her the same lattitude?
She can do what she wants. There are bad doctors doing the same thing without using marijuana but ultimately she will have to live with the consequence of her actions.
Reap as you so, Dr 420
I would giver her more latitude actually, since my bias is to attribute more intelligence & gravitas to less attractive people. I am pro decriminilization but shudder whenever a “everything is better with pot” type attempts to make a point…they hurt the case. It would be so much better with highly productive, well known people like Rick Steves making the case
As an EMPLOYEE of Dr. Patel, I feel compelled to shed some light for channel 7 news.
Here at Doc420 we take vital signs on each an every patient as required by the medical board. I know because I take the vitals MYSELF!
Dr. Patel examines each and every one of her patients as required by the medical board and I know because I put them in the room for her to examine!
Doc420 is NOT under any investigation by the medical board because she follows all the rules and regulations. Sorry to disappoint you Dan!
Dr. Patel does see about 20 patients per day but what Dan clearly failed to mention is that Dr. Patel also works over 10 hours per day! Why did he leave that out of the interview??
Dr. Patel is about the people and for the people. She believes in healing pain and improving the quality of life. She also believes in her patients right to choose their medicine. Its absolutley ridiculous to hear these accusations that she is doing this for “profiteering”!
She charges $100.00 a new recommendation and $80 for a renewal. Did you know Dan that this is the lowest price recommendation in California? All other doctors charge up to $250!! Did you check around for prices Dan, because clearly the doctor charging $250 is “profiteering”, no Dr. Patel who is trying to make it afforable for everyone. At 20 patients per day, with a 10 hour work day that comes out to about $2,000,thats not “profiteering” when she has to pay the cost of running 3 offices and salary for all her employees!! How can you make these statements without doing any kind of research??
We do NOT give recommendations without medical documentation. Dan failed to mention that their undercover reporter only recieved a temporary recommendation which would be extended only if he provided medical documentation to prove his aliment. Again this is what state law and medical board requires and that is what we do.
And as far as selling sex, oh please Dan, like that picture was not the main reason you intiated this expose in the first place!
Who are you Dan to judge Dr.Patel’s credibility when she has went through 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of med school, 3 years of residency, and 2 years in her private practice. That is way above what california law requires to write a recommendation. Last time I checked it only required a GED to be a reporter….is that your education Dan because then your ignorance makes sense?
I agree that the reporter knew he was pushing certain buttons by ‘exposing’ a medical marijuana office, but how are people supposed to receive the hot-pants clad doctor? Think about how efficient she’ll be in the examination process due to the cooling effects of a lack of fabric?