Susie Barnes responds
Some of you have asked me about a Jan. 9 letter from Susie Barnes, who rebutted Charles Davenport's Jan. 2 column on his experience in a local hospital.
Some specifically wondered if Barnes is a nurse and if she was threatening Davenport with reprisals, should she end up again in a hospital.
She has e-mailed a follow-up letter and I have since spoken to her on the phone.
We can't publish her letter in the paper, because it violates our 30-day rule (each writer gets a limit of one letter published per month). But I'll post it here, and she has added it as a comment on the letters blog. Here her followup letter is, in its entirety:
"I am Susie Barnes and I am not a nurse. I am in a totally unrelated profession. However, I respect and admire anyone who has chosen nursing as a profession to let Davenport's column go without comment. I have seen how hard nurses work believe they should be treated with more respect than that.
"I also believe that if you have a problem, take it up with the appropriate people. The real point is that it was totally inappropriate for the N&R to publish his column.
"I have since heard from friends who are nurses that there are reasons for some of the things he didn't like. They call out numbers of treatment rooms because using the patient's name is a violation of HPPA. I've also had nurses tell me how much they appreciated my letter. Davenport's columns always tear someone or something down without ever offering a suggestion of how the situation can be changed for the better. His column is a waste of space. The News and Record can do much better than him.
"Susie Barnes
"Note to the editor: I realize that this is in violation of your 30 day policy, but I think it's important that folks know that I am not a nurse. Otherwise, my opinion comes off as sour grapes, which is not true."
Barnes also told she wasn't serious about words she used that may have come across as a threat. They were meant "tongue-in-cheek," she said.
Comments (7)
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Susie Barnes is not a nurse nor works in health care. This is relief! Her grip appears to be against the N&R. Wish she had been honest in the first place rather than pulling nursing thru mud. Christine
Posted on January 13, 2009 4:43 PM
As I suspected.
Perhaps the News & Record should have done the journalistic legwork BEFORE publishing the original letter. Ms. Barnes did not identify herself as a nurse. Rather, the N&R did in its "title".
But you wanted to stir the pot, didn't you? It generates hits. And that pays for ads.
Of course, because of your "rules", the clarification does not get the attention the original letter did.
http://drjshousecalls.blogspot.com/2009/01/charles-davenport-jr-and-nurse-susie.html
Really Mr. Johnson. When is your newspaper going to rise above the bait and slime?
Posted on January 13, 2009 8:30 PM
It was certainly an irresponsible letter to write, since it implied insider knowledge. Both nurses and non-nurses assumed from the letter that the writer was a nurse (or at least a health care worker).
As a rule of thumb, I would think it wise to verify, when letters purport to represent the perspective or attitude of a specific group (e.g., "nurses have long memories"), the writer's relationship to that group and, if the letter does not, to make it explicit.
Posted on January 13, 2009 10:29 PM
First, "Susie" does not have to be a nurse to have "insider knowledge" of the profession. Second, Davenport's column (what set "Susie" off) was a smug/smarmy joke . . . especially in terms of local medical horror stories the N&R has determinedly ignored.
It may have been "irresponsible" of Susie to express her unhappiness in the way that she did, but it was even more irresponsible for the N&R to publish the letter under a "hook" that issued her false credentials.
As I said in one of the LTE threads, there's an old saying about assumptions making an ass out of you and me. A lot of the folks piling on "Susie" need to drop their clubs and think about what really happened here.
I'm just wondering, Mr. Johnson. When might we expect to see your newspaper stop presenting assumptions as fact?
When are we going to see you start publishing legitimate medical stories-of-woe right under your nose . . . stories of woe, that if they were properly investigated, might lead to some of that "change" we so desperately need in medicine?
Posted on January 14, 2009 1:00 AM
To Brian's point:
That's a fair criticism.
The Barnes letter did not make it clear, one way or the other, whether the writer was a nurse.
It is our standard practice to state professions if the writer's credentials are germane to the letter's topic.
In this, we should have made clear, through editing or a tag line, that she is NOT a nurse, so readers wouldn't have to guess -- or assume.
Posted on January 14, 2009 9:20 AM
Hats off to Charles Davenport - I always look forward to reading his column - he usually makes more sense than other opinion writers found in your paper. If more people thought like Mr. davenport we would surely have a safer and more industrious community.
Posted on January 14, 2009 10:26 AM
It is hard to imagine the N&R without Becky Layton..guro to LTE. Susie's letter would not have made second base if she where still there. Losing Lex Alexander, Lanita Withers, Becky, Jim , "Elmo" and so many more great workers is hard to digest. I just pray what remains of the skeleton of the N&R does not self implode. Christine
Posted on January 14, 2009 1:49 PM