I'm in Health Care Regulation, which sounds dreadfully dull, but today was rather fun as we played "War Story" what-would-you-do?

(For those of you not in law school, "War Story" is when the professor hauls out some hoary story about his/her days at a litigator/administrator/expert witness (aka someone who ventures outside of the ivory tower) and one particularly interesting/gruesome/heroic case that s/he worked on. Usually there is much flapping of hands and imitation of voices and discussion of strategery both on his/her side and the other (either wrong on all counts, or morally right but worse at the strategery) side and how the lawyer either triumphed or how it comically left him/her in the best of all possible worlds. Because if it didn't leave him/her in the best of all possible worlds, that would mean that s/he hadn't spun it enough)

So we're discussing how we should fix the current dilemma in healthcare blee bloh blah and our professor, who's favorite method of illiciting response is the "starts-with-this-letter" gambit, says "and how do we take care of the problem of spending thousands and thousands of dollars on ppl who aren't going to live for more than 2 weeks? (silence) It starts with an E..."

And before I even consciously process the question, I pipe up with "Euthanasia?"


I'm a terrible person. In my defense, i was thinking about the David Sedaris story "The Youth in Asia" with his cat who would have needed a thousands+ operation to live and my whole bioethics class (in which we discussed Terry Schiavo for years and years) and at the same time Logan's Run and Children of the Corn (which is an interesting amalgam), so maybe I really am a monster.

The real answer was "efficiency" but I think it got lost in the shocked gasps and outburst of nervous laughter that occured simultaneously to me turning bright red and clapping my hands over my mouth. Apparently, my mouth is commanded more by my impulsive side, or maybe my side that always wants a laugh.


And Hey, if you want to reduce cost, I'd like you to think of a better spur-of-the-moment answer that starts with E than euthanasia. I was thinking about palliative care and how I would rather not linger for months in a hospital but die peacefully in a hospice without extraordinary means taken (if there's no cure in the really near future) and how that shouldn't be a bad thing but for some reason is in our society.


I'm gonna stop analyzing my response, because probably the next answer out of my mouth would be Eunice or Echinacea. My brain is not the world's most logical place.


Or maybe I am just evil.