The mold and mice of Walter Reed never made it to The Colorado VA Medical Center's outpatient clinic in Denver. Not even a crack in the wall, a leaky ceiling or a rat seeking a hole . Walter Reed just never made It To Denver. Could it be that some institutions fife to different drummers?

THE GOOD--Jungle warfare on Guadalcanal during World War II took its toll and left some fighters to linger years later. Along came the healers at VA outpatient clinics. When ears wouldn't hear,Denver's VA clinic provided aids; when their eyes dimmed, low vision was "healed" with tools of the VA's medical genius. Not a month goes by without reminders to police blood thinners and cholesterol. Vets don't have to ask.medical papas to keep me alive and writing. The pulmonary function specialty keeps us breathing..

There's still light at the end of my tunnel, a scant sixty-five years after my Marine Corps misery brought on by the insidious jungle, enemy encounters and bombings. Without the VA's prescription medicine,,we ve vets would have been feed for worms long ago. So maybe we have to wait our turn, but so should the others of today. Quit your bi***ing. And for those who didn''t serve, I suggest that you wander the halls of Denver's VA medical clinic and salute the DAV (Disabled American Veterans) volunteers and legionnaires who serve without handout. And in response to James Binn, executive director of the RAC who asked, in reference to treatment of Gulf War veterans, "What kind of a country are we living in, where we send men and women to war, and government officials treat them like this when they return?" I say to you, Mr. Binn,, Denver's VA Clinic awaits you.

There are few such good medical folks and agencies living out the medical dream of Hippocrates. Among them the Denver VA's primary care clinic which monitors our medical behavior and takes time to phone after hours. And the VA pulmonologist whose doors are open to veterans. Unpaid volunteers dispatch coffee and shuttle amputees to treatment. Eyes and ears are treated. The heart isn't overlooked. Etc. Nor has the VA hospital "dumped" needy veterans.

THE BAD -- In at least 63 of my 80+ years I have wandered in and out of private and public medical facilities. I have witnessed, and been victim of, physicians' medical blunders beyond belief. I find doctors poorly educated and incapable of communicating, but not too feeble to demand their fees. I fired one in Prescott, Arizona, for his inability to speak American English even though he had arrived in the U.S. over 20 years ago.

From Rockport, Maine,came the chilling report of a man dead because the wrong kind of dye was injected into his spine for an X-ray of his back at a Penobscot Bay medical center.."--Just one of a multitude of mistakes. The Institute of Medicine chills us with akilling statistic: "Medical errors is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States.contributing to 98,000 (deaths) annually.."

THE G'REEDy-it was only money--$22.42 per minute.

It was the cat's meow that drove me to a prestigious Boulder County Hospital's emergency room several summers ago..

The cat''s meowing tones flowed across the grass to my lawn chair and it was more than any man could bear So hand outstretched I, "Here Kitty, Here Kittyed" him out of the brush with a promise of a left over cup of delicious milk.

Scrawny, emaciated with rib cage showing and missing hair spots told of his battles in the alleys of Boulder. One eye dripping, he limped toward me, feral but curious, hungry. That grrrr I heard was not a purr. I should have known.

I entered a hospital's emergency department with my ripped upper dorsal (hand). A doctor spent less than five minutes evaluating the cuts and referred the treatment to the hospital's staff. The doctor billed $167, a tidy sum of $33.40 per minute for what it termed Visit #153166 emergency dept. evaluation.

Medicare disallowed 108.86 and paid him $46.51. Poor guy only made $9.30 per minute, plus $11.63 by secondary insurance. Not bad for a doctor who's running from one patient to another on a bloody emergency Saturday night. When asked about the charge, the receptionist said, "That's what we charge. Period!" Then the hospital billed $232 because it was an emergency department visit (#99238). Two hundred and $32 dollars for the other five minutes. At five minutes that's $46.40 per minute. Medicare blinked and paid $74.92. Secondary insurance paid an additional $37.19. Poor hospital only received $112.11 for that five or so minutes. Slightly more than $22.42 per minute.

Another killing?

To find an honest doctor who practices medicine the old fashion way, you may have to look under rocks like Diogones with a lantern. You'd like him to write and spell in American English; one with integrity like Ol' Doc (Roscoe) Taylor, a general practitioner of the '20s and '30s in the New England hamlet where I grew up.

Unlike today's denizens of medicine who give you 12 minutes for $85 to $125 or an extended visit for $295, Ol' Doc Taylor traded services to the needy for whatever they could afford. One, two or three dollars was a prize; a pound of cottage cheese, chunk of freshly-churned butter or half of a freshly-baked challah for whatever it took to solve and cure an illness.He once delighted at receiving a one-pound flapping bullhead in payment for suturing a slice in my foot back in the '30s.

It is disheartening to have to say that negative proclivities of the medical profession (hospitals included) have far exceeded the good of the modern day medicine man and his supporting institutions. Occasionally (though rarely) a physician lashes out at his colleagues. In his 25 years in modern medicine until his death a few years ago, a Chicago doctor described the conflicts of interest, greed, incompetence, corruption and other nightmares with which he came into contact..

(Part II of "Intrepidations & Funny Business", a book of 65 short stories depicting the life of Author David Alter, highlights the negative and positive proclivities of the medical world. For copies reach him at owlbeara@comcast.net )